CSCAMM Day 2010

Coastal ocean data assimilation for multi-scale processes

Kayo Ide

University of Maryland

Coastal ocean dynamics is often characterized by multi-scale processes in space and time. Monitoring and prediction of mesoscale and sub-mesoscale flow features have been the challenges in coastal ocean modeling, field experiments, and forecasting. To resolve such flow features in the simulation, increasingly high-resolution regional ocean models have been brought into research and operational applications. At the same time, distribution of ocean observations still remains inhomogeneous in space and time. Using two different approaches to data assimilation, we demonstrate how to address the challenges and improve our predictive capacities for the coastal oceans.