National collaborations and programmes

Collaborations with data centers

Ssalto/Duacs

This CNES/ESA programme, run by CLS, processes, validates and distributes altimetry data (from Jason-1, Envisat, GFO, Topex/Poseidon) for the oceanography community. The centre operates as a clearing house for altimetry data. It supplies Mercator in real-time with all data available for operational prototypes (a data set is updated each week) and in delayed time for validating ocean models.

Coriolis

Coriolis is an inter-organisational programme, run by Ifremer, which collects and validates in situ data for the oceanography community. This centre acts as a clearing house for in situ data. It provides Mercator in real-time with all available data (a data set is updated each week) for operational prototypes and in delayed time for validating ocean models.

Safo

This Eumetsat/Météo-France programme analyses the temperature of the sea surface once every day using satellite observations. This analysis is done with a precise regular grid (of 1/10°) and covers the whole of the north Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Mercator retrieves these fields in real-time and uses them to validate SST output from its PSY2 prototype. It is considering assimilating them in the next version of its multivariate assimilation system.

For more information about Safo.

Cersat

Cersat is an Ifremer centre which collects satellite acquired wind/flux data and produces global analyses. Mercator retrieves and formats the wind stress data calculated from satellite scatterometer for validation purposes.

Collaborations with the other French ocean modelling teams

Drakkar

Drakkar is a European project for ocean dynamics modelling. It is a follow-on to the Dynamo and Clipper projects undertaken by researchers from Legi, Legos, LODYC, LPO and IFM Kiel, and which now include the University of Helsinki, Mercator and the Moscow SIO as well. The Mercator modelling team, which is a partner in the project, is helping to set up the Drakkar configurations for the global high resolution model (Orca- 025) and the north Atlantic. This collaboration is part of a programme for technical and scientific exchanges. The scientific goals of the project are to study the variability (from the scale of one day to ten years) of oceanic circulation and the properties of water masses and their effect on the global climate. The main focus is on circulation in the north Atlantic forced by the atmosphere but also includes its relationship with general oceanic circulation (from the Arctic to the southern ocean). The strategy chosen for achieve these objectives is to develop a set of nested models from the global to the regional scale at resolutions which are capable of resolving the key processes correctly. This project is part of a general effort for developing an integrated system for ocean monitoring including satellite observations, in situ measurements and data modelling/assimilation.

OPA

The OPA team coordinates and implements maintenance and development of a numerical model (of ocean dynamics, marine and sea ice bio-geochemistry, adjoint model and tangent-linear model).

Mercator-Ocean uses the OPA system having adapted for its needs, the source code for the ocean dynamics (OPA 8.1 and 8.2) and that of the sea ice (LIM) in the form of five regional or global configurations : MNATL, PAM, ORCA2, ORCA025 et ORCA025-LIM.