Real-time oceanic forecasts were constructed at sea on Georges Bank during Spring 1999. Ship- and shorebased computations were combined to deliver daily 3-day forecasts to shipboard scientists for interpreting observations and planning operations. Data assimilated included acoustic Doppler current profiler velocities, drifter trajectories, and taxa-specific plankton observations from a Video Plankton Recorder (VPR) system. Services provided included basic 3-D circulation forecasts, forecast positions of drifters, dye and zooplankton, and the advective adjustment of observations to produce synoptic maps. The results indicate that real-time, at-sea data assimilative modeling can provide valuable information services and can be deployed routinely, provided that networking among ships, instruments, and shore continues to improve.

This paper summarizes the real-time modeling experience. Results of the larger effort including scientific data interpretation are being reported separately.

Lynch, D.R., C.E. Naimie, J.T. Ip, C.V. Lewis, F.E. Werner, R.A. Luettich, Jr., B.O. Blanton, J. Quinlan, D.J. McGillicuddy, Jr., J.R. Ledwell, J. Churchill, V. Kosnyrev, C.S. Davis, S.M. Gallager, C.J. Ashjian, R.G. Lough, J. Manning, C.N. Flagg, C.G. Hannah, and R.C. Groman. 2001. Real-time data assimilative modeling on Georges Bank. Oceanography 14(1):65–77, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2001.50.

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