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Coastal Currents from Observations Virtual Lab


Developed by the University of Liège, (Belgium), SOCIB (Spain), and CMCC Foundation (Italy).

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About Coastal Currents from Observations

This VLab provides a service to generate integrated ocean surface current maps from direct and indirect current measurements derived from different sources, High Frequency (HF) radar; drifter data; and geostrophic currents from altimetry data, using the DIVAnd (Data Interpolating Variational Analysis in n dimensions) method. The merging and analysis of these datasets is performed using various constraints, in particular the presence of the coastline, constraints on horizontal divergence as well as a momentum balance (between acceleration, Coriolis force and surface pressure gradient).

Blue Cloud added value:
The main output of this VLab is a service in the form of easily customizable Jupyter notebooks that allow users to generate surface currents maps for a user-chosen coastal region (when data is available and in particular the availability of HF radar data which extents depending on the configuration about 50 km - 200 km offshore). The user would also be able to make Lagrangian simulations based on these currents maps to visualize the movements of artificial drifters released at a user-chosen location (assuming suitable data coverage). The outputs generated consist of gridded surface currents maps, provided in NetCDF files. These will be used to run the MEDSLIK-II oil spill model to simulate the dispersion of an oil spill accident. The operational chain of the MEDSLIK-II model is going to be adapted and deployed in a Docker container.

Data used:

  • CMEMS;
  • GEBCO;
  • EMODnet Bathymetry;
  • NOAA;
  • Open Street Map;
  • ECMWF.

Target users:

  • Primary users/early adopters:Blue Cloud Hackathon participants and Blue Cloud Training Academy: Webinars.
  • Secondary users:  students at ULiege, coastal modelers
  • Data products catalogs:  CMEMS, EU HF Radar node, EMODnet Physics (Data products), European Space Agency (ESA).
  • Tertiary users: Policy makers/EU initiatives: Several physics variables- EOVs- GOOS, The EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) Descriptors; Descriptor 7: Hydrographical conditions.

Webinars

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