Ocean Sci., 12, 953–976, 2016 www.ocean-sci.net/12/953/2016/ doi:10.5194/os-12-953-2016 © Author(s) 2016. CC Attribution 3.0 License. Developing European operational oceanography for Blue Growth, climate change adaptation and mitigation, and ecosystem-based management Jun She1, Icarus Allen2, Erik Buch3, Alessandro Crise4, Johnny A. Johannessen5, Pierre-Yves Le Traon6, Urmas Lips7, Glenn Nolan4, Nadia Pinardi8, Jan H. Reißmann9, John Siddorn10, Emil Stanev11, and Henning Wehde12 1Department of Research, Danish Meteorological Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark 2Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Plymouth, UK 3EuroGOOS AISBL, Brussels, Belgium 4Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale, Trieste, Italy 5Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center, Bergen, Norway 6Mercator Ocean and Ifremer, Ramonville St. Agne, France 7Marine Systems Institute, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia 8Department of Physics and Astronomy, Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, Italy 9Bundesamt für Seeschifffahrt und Hydrographie, Hamburg, Germany 10Met Office, Exeter, UK 11Department of Data Analysis and Data Assimilation, Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Hamburg, Germany 12Institute of Marine Research, Bergen, Norway Correspondence to: Jun She ([email protected]) Received: 26 October 2015 – Published in Ocean Sci. Discuss.: 21 January 2016 Revised: 13 June 2016 – Accepted: 14 June 2016 – Published: 26 July 2016 Abstract. Operational approaches have been more and more Oceanography” and “Operational Ecology” aim at develop- widely developed and used for providing marine data and ing new operational approaches for the corresponding knowl- information services for different socio-economic sectors of edge areas. the Blue Growth and to advance knowledge about the marine environment. The objective of operational oceanographic re- search is to develop and improve the efficiency, timeliness, robustness and product quality of this approach. This white 1 Introduction paper aims to address key scientific challenges and research priorities for the development of operational oceanography Operational oceanography, including ocean monitoring, in Europe for the next 5–10 years. Knowledge gaps and analysis, reanalysis, forecasting and service provision is a deficiencies are identified in relation to common scientific branch of science that requires continuous implementation challenges in four EuroGOOS knowledge areas: European of the most advanced research findings to comply with ocean Ocean Observations, Modelling and Forecasting Technology, user needs. Inherent to operational oceanography is also the Coastal Operational Oceanography and Operational Ecol- sustained production, timely delivery, automated qualifica- ogy. The areas “European Ocean Observations” and “Mod- tion and free access to observations in near real time. More- elling and Forecasting Technology” focus on the further ad- over, operational oceanography delivers products and infor- vancement of the basic instruments and capacities for Euro- mation that are crucial for the research community to gain pean operational oceanography, while “Coastal Operational major understanding and advance knowledge and technology in the marine sector. Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 954 J. She et al.: Developing European operational oceanography for Blue Growth In the past decades, due to a growing blue economy and relatively lower levels of maturity and integration than the challenges for adaption and mitigation to climate change as physical part of the CMEMS system. well as the improved capacities on operational marine ser- In recent years, user requirements for operational marine vice, operational approaches have been developed for a va- data and information have largely increased due to the grow- riety of socio-economic sectors, ranging from public ser- ing blue economy (e.g. marine energy, maritime transport, vice for coastal hazards in the beginning to emerging areas coastal and offshore engineering, and marine bio-resources), such as marine ecosystem and maritime services and inte- implementation of European polices in marine-related Di- grated coastal zone management services. Such operational rectives and regional marine environmental conventions (e.g. approaches share common features in their value-chain, i.e. ecosystem-based management), adaptation to and mitigation user- and science-driven, knowledge- and technology-based, of climate change as well as public services (e.g. disaster operation-practiced and service-oriented (She, 2015). The ar- warning and protections). Although European operational eas of interests for future research are determined by both oceanography has made significant advancements in the last user needs and the current state of the scientific frontier. New 2 decades, great challenges still exist in view of serving fast- knowledge and technologies, generated from the research, growing user needs. A large part of them can be summarized will then be incorporated into operational oceanography sys- in four key knowledge areas: (i) European Ocean Observa- tems that provide the users with data and information prod- tions; (ii) Modelling and Forecasting Technology; (iii) Oper- ucts. ational oceanography in the coastal oceans; and (iv) opera- Operational oceanography in Europe was mainly initiated tional ecology (OE) (She, 2015). and sustained at national level before the 1990s. Aiming at This paper describes the objectives, challenges, and re- integrating the operational oceanography development on re- search priorities in the above four areas, both in the short gional and European scales, EuroGOOS from its very be- to mid-term (1–5 years) and long term (5–10 years and ginning established the Regional Operational Oceanography more). Among the four areas, (i) and (ii) focus on the fur- Systems (ROOSes), such as for the Arctic Ocean, Baltic Sea, ther advancement and integration of existing operational Northwest Shelf Sea, Ireland–Biscay–Iberia seas, and the oceanography areas. The two areas are closely integrated Mediterranean Sea. EuroGOOS and its ROOSes have played and provide a basis for building up European operational an active role in data exchange, sharing the best practice and oceanography, which will be described in the Sects. 2 and knowledge, harmonizing monitoring networks and forecast- 3. (iii) and (iv) are identified as two of the major emerg- ing systems, and stimulating joint research activities. Since ing operational oceanography areas where the operational Framework programme IV, the European Commission (EC) approaches based on the scientific state-of-the-art are still has continuously supported research on integration and de- under development and which have to increase the signifi- velopment of European operational oceanography monitor- cance in supporting sustained socio-economic development. ing and forecasting systems, especially through Operational Such an operational approach will provide a sustained devel- Forecasting Cluster projects (Cieslikiewicz et al., 2004), opment and service platform and significantly improve ef- MERSEA (Marine Environment and Security for the Euro- ficiency, quality and timeliness of the current services sup- pean Area, Johannessen et al., 2006) and the GMES (Global porting Blue Growth, especially for the implementation of Monitoring for Environment and Security, currently referred integrated coastal zone management and ecosystem-based to as Copernicus) Marine Service programme (Bahurel et al., management. The research in (iii) and (iv) can benefit from 2010). The development in the last 20 years has helped ad- (i) and (ii), but also develop in their own directions as emerg- vance the existing national services and establish new ones ing research areas. Details can be found in Sects. 4 and 5. It in many of the European countries. At the European level, an is notified that the areas (iii) and (iv) are partly overlapping integrated capacity – the MyOcean operational monitoring with (i) and (ii) but with different focuses and ambitions. A and forecasting systems for global, Arctic and European re- summary and discussion is given in Sect. 6, to provide a har- gional seas – has been established, which is now transformed monized overview and address some missing issues of the into the Copernicus Marine Environmental Monitoring Ser- paper. vice (CMEMS, http://marine.copernicus.eu/) programme in the period 2015–2020. Thanks to these national- and EU-funded programmes 2 European ocean observations we have seen major scientific achievements in the develop- ment of Earth Observation (EO) data management, short- Since the establishment of EuroGOOS, it has been a central term forecasting systems (including data assimilation) and focal issue of EuroGOOS research to sustain, enhance, and reconstruction of a long-term historical database through re- optimize the European ocean observing systems (Prandle et analysis and reprocessing. Long-term prediction, ecosystem al., 2003; Nittis et al., 2014). With dual roles in ocean mon- prediction, coastal services and optimization of European itoring, i.e. both as observation providers and users, Euro- marine monitoring systems have also been improved but with GOOS members have different concerns. As a data provider, one needs to maximize the value of end-to-end data delivery Ocean Sci., 12, 953–976, 2016 www.ocean-sci.net/12/953/2016/ J. She et al.: Developing European operational oceanography for Blue Growth 955 and improve the cost-efficiency for making observations;