Operational Data Assimilation and Marine Forecasting Based on Envisat Data Covering

As part of the Danish contribution to MarCoast – the element of GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) Service Element Project that addresses the marine environment in Europe – DHI & GRAS have developed and are operating an operational forecast system based on numerical modelling. The models are capable of predicting a range of hydrodynamic, biological and wave phenomena up to 5 days ahead. The products are value added by continuously assimilating EO data from ENVISAT and MODIS into the numerical models. A validation study based on in-situ data on sea surface temperature and chlorophyll-a from the Danish waters in the period 2006 and 2007 proves a clear positive effect from assimilating EO data into the modelling environment. Neural network based methods aimed for ENVISAT data which is specifically developed to account for the dominating case-2 conditions found in the area show promising effect with superior performance compared to standard level 2 ENVISAT products.