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Copernicus Marine Service
Ice and evening sky in the Northern Barents Sea
Foto: Pernille Amdahl
The Copernicus Programme is the European Union's Earth Observation Programme, looking at our planet and its environment for the ultimate benefit of all European and global citizens.
Copernicus Marine Service provides free, open, regular and systematic reference information on the blue (physical), white (sea ice), and green (biogeochemical) ocean state, variability and dynamics across the global ocean and European regional seas. The Copernicus Marine Service enables marine policy implementation, supports Blue growth and scientific innovation, catering to the needs of society at large.
The Copernicus Marine Service mission is to monitor the ocean and to provide regular, authoritative, quality-assured information about the ocean. We distribute data from on-site buoys and satellites and from the state-of-the-art circulation models, in order to know more about the past, current and future state of the ocean. Observational data and model results are available for free and accessible from anywhere in the world, for a wide range of actors in both the public and private sectors. In addition to providing observational data and model results, the Copernicus Marine Service also provides a wide range of services, aiming to empower all users, from scientists, to policy makers, to private companies who want to drive the blue economy and scientific innovation.
Copernicus Marine Service consists of several ocean observation and forecasting groups. MET Norway is involved in two such groups: the sea ice thematic assembly centre (SI TAC) and the Arctic Ocean monitoring and forecasting centre (ARC MFC).
The SI TAC uses satellite data to assemble several different sea ice products in the Arctic, Antarctic, and the Baltic Sea. In both the Arctic and the Baltic for example, we produce maps of sea ice concentration and thickness. We produce maps of the motion of the ice, i.e. how it is drifting from day to day, and we produce detailed charts of the ice edge. We also do automatic classification of sea ice type, which tells us how old the ice is, from first year ice to multiyear ice. Most of our products are what we call near-real time, ie. a few hours old, but we also have several long-term time series of ice parameters such as concentration, surface temperature, and drift. The SI TAC consists of partners from MET Norway, the Danish and Finnish Meteorological Institutes, with their respective ice services, Danish Technical University, the French institute for Ocean Science (IFREMER), The Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center, the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, and the British Antarctic Survey.
The ARC MFC provides daily updated forecasts for the ocean circulation, waves and sea ice. Our models cover the Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas north of 53 °N. The products are available on polar stereographic grid projections, with horizontal resolutions ranging from 3 km to 12.5 km. For the main ocean circulation forecasts, assimilation is implemented by the Ensemble Kalman Filter. For this purpose, one hundred ensemble members are used, and the analysis is performed on a weekly basis. In addition to traditional models for the ocean, sea ice and waves, we have three dedicated models, which produce separate results for biogeochemistry, tides and sea surface elevation, and sea ice, respectively. The quality of our model results is checked on a weekly basis, by an automated system that also produces web pages where results for the products' quality are disseminated. Furthermore, we provide reanalysis and hindcast products for the ocean circulation, waves and biogeochemistry. These products give results from the early 1990s onward. The ARC MFC partners are the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center, MET Norway, the Institute of Marine Research and the Danish Meteorological Institute.
Cecilie Wettre at The Norwegian Meteorological Institute is head of SI TAC, while Arne Melsom is head of ARC MFC at the institute. Laurent Bertino at the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center is head of the ARC MFC.
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