BOSS4GMES: Building Operational Sustainable Services for GMES

The EC/FP6 project BOSS4GMES aims to provide the technical, financial and contractual foundations which will enable the transition of GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) from a concept to an effective, operational programme, and, in doing so, to link GMES with key political decision makers, a broader sphere of users and the wider public. Mercator Ocean is coordinating the Ocean Fast Track Service, one of the three services (Land, Emergency and Ocean) addressed by the consortium (45 partners).

The Ocean Fast Track Service is based on a “Global to Regional Ocean Monitoring and Forecasting” capacity, to provide on a regular basis a 3D and comprehensive depiction of the state of the oceans for a wide range of applications. Remarkable collaborations were set at European and national level during the past ten years to conduct the research and development effort requested to develop this capacity, based on routine and real-time assimilation of space and in situ ocean observation into 3D numerical models of the ocean.

The MERSEA IP (EC/FP6) has been the corner stone to focus the effort on the development of an Integrated European system, covering the global ocean and the European main regions. The first version of the MERSEA Integrated system has been available since October 2005, and forms the foundation system for the Marine Core Service. Thanks to this multi-year research and development effort, the European Union is now in a remarkable position to start a GMES Ocean service on a Fast-Track Service.

Scope of Ocean FTS

The first purpose is to deliver the basic oceanographic information on the state of the marine system and its evolutions on different time scales, to provide the common denominator data for all users in the marine sector, in other words the information (sometimes mandatory) for existing & new downstream services. This implies the development of new kind of products (such as environmental indicators) adapted to specific requirements to be collected from European agencies and Inter-governmental bodies.

Environmental indicators services proposed in BOSS4GMES

The second objective is to strengthen the operational chains to ensure a robust service to the GMES community. Such improvement relies on three main sub-systems:

the data acquisition process shall ensure a proper run of the monitoring and forecasting systems
the production units shall generate a catalogue of products in line with the agreed specifications (product format, frequency in delivery, data volume, ...)
the service delivery and service desks shall support the users in accessing the data

Recommendations for MCS

The Ocean FTS will follow the guidelines defined during the Marine Core Services workshop in Brussels, October 27-28, 2005:

“The Marine Core Service should deliver regular and systematic reference information (processed data, elaborated products) on the state of the oceans and regional seas:

at the resolution required by intermediate users & downstream service providers

of known quality and accuracy

for the global and European regional seas, with downscaling capacity based on specific needs

The Marine Core Service products should be:
observational and model data

real time data and predictions (from days to weeks) and re-analysis (longest time series of information about the ocean state in the past)

simulations (what-if scenarios).

The MCS should concentrate on the global to the regional European scales, so that the European concerted effort will be justified. MCS should then be configured as an initial European contribution to the marine segment for GEOSS.”

In addition, recommendations for MCS implementation will be regularly proposed during the project lifetime. Part of the upgrades defined by the Ocean FTS team will be implemented in BOSS4GMES, while final implementations are planned in the forthcoming EC/FP7 project.

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