Oceanography The Official Magazine of
The Oceanography Society
Volume 27 Issue 03

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Volume 27, No. 3
Pages 68 - 79

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Forecasting the Ocean's Optical Environment Using the BioCast System

By Jason Keith Jolliff , Sherwin Ladner, Richard Crout , Paul Lyon, Kenneth Matulewski, Robert A. Arnone, and David Lewis  
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Article Abstract

The Bio-Optical Forecasting (BioCast) system is a model that provides the US Navy with short-term forecasts of the ocean’s optical environment. The forecasts are required to support a broad spectrum of naval operations, including mine countermeasure, anti-submarine, and expeditionary warfare operations. The BioCast system works by treating any geo-referenced surface ocean optical property provided via the US Navy’s satellite data processing systems as a prognostic state variable. BioCast will then ingest operational ocean model velocity forecasts and calculate the three-dimensional optical property (pseudo-tracer) transport. BioCast verification statistics generated via forecast comparison to “next-day” satellite images show superior performance over 24-hour persistence of composite satellite data. Future operational modifications to BioCast, such as complex internal transformation submodels, must demonstrate superior performance to the established benchmark metrics and/or persistence over the operational forecast time horizon. Future BioCast applications will expand to include an interface with three-dimensional system performance simulation techniques that will predict how specific US Navy sensors will perform in the ocean’s optical environment.

Citation

Jolliff, J.K., S. Ladner, R. Crout, P. Lyon, K. Matulewski, R.A. Arnone, and D. Lewis. 2014. Forecasting the ocean’s optical environment using the BioCast system. Oceanography 27(3):68–79, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2014.69.

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