The Benefits of Better Ocean Weather Forecasting

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By Charlotte DeMott,  Ángel G. Muñoz,  Christopher D. Roberts,  Claire M. Spillman and  F. Vitart, AGU, Eos. 

Excerpt: Like atmospheric variability, variability in ocean conditions, such as sea surface temperature and salinity and sea ice cover and thickness, can have major effects on human activities and ecosystems both at sea and on land. For example, this variability, also called “ocean weather,” can influence the occurrence of fair-weather coastal flooding, which disrupts transportation and degrades coastal infrastructure around the world. Meanwhile, sea ice movement in an increasingly ice-free Arctic Ocean poses risks to high-latitude shipping. Elsewhere, changes in ocean upwelling can enhance coastal commercial fishing activity, whereas marine heat waves can disrupt fisheries and coral communities. As with atmospheric weather forecasts, knowing about ocean weather in advance can help minimize disruptions to everyday public and commercial activity, keep coastal and maritime workers safe, and aid marine conservation efforts. Unlike atmospheric weather, however, which evolves on daily timescales, ocean weather typically evolves on weekly to monthly timescales.... Slowly varying ocean conditions can regulate atmospheric weather, so including ocean feedbacks in atmospheric forecasting models can extend these models’ predictive skill by several days.…

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