The Coastal Ocean Forecast System for the US East Coast

Abstract

The Coastal Ocean Forecast System has been producing experimental daily 24-hour forecasts of water levels and 3-dimensional temperature, salinity and currents on an operational basis for three years at NOAA's National Center for Environmental Prediction. The model system consists of the Princeton Ocean Model forced at the surface by forecast heat and momentum fluxes derived from the meso-Eta atmospheric model. The evolving operational system includes a number of enhancements that correct the surface fluxes and optimize the open ocean lateral boundary conditions. The results of an ongoing evaluation of forecast subtidal coastal water level and sea surface temperature reveal the encouraging predictability of wind-driven set-up and set-down at the coast and the limits of sea surface temperature (SST) predictability without the benefit of data assimilation or model reinitialization. Experimental efforts are presently underway to correctly incorporate the body forcing and open ocean boundary forcing of the tides, to implement assimilation of satellite-derived SST, and to follow this with operational experiments at assimilation of altimeter-based sea surface height fields. In addition, a number of regional forecast systems under development at the National Ocean Service require accurate coastal ocean information from this system as boundary condition forcing.