Mercator Ocean Journal 56 : Special Issue CMEMS

As a contribution to the discussions that will take place during the Copernicus Marine Week next week in Brussels (September 26th – 29th, 2017),  Mercator Ocean (the entrusted entity operating CMEMS) has realeasd a Special Issue of the Mercator Ocean Journal focusing on the R&D achievements of the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service. This issue celebrates the activities and evolution of the Copernicus Marine Service over the past three years. It also provides an overview of the work carried out at the Thematic Assembly Centres (TACs) and Monitoring and Forecasting Centres (MFCs), which make up the core of the Marine Service. It concludes with the future prospects and evolution for the system.

The Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) is one of the six pillar services of the Copernicus program. Mercator Ocean was tasked in 2014 by the EU under a delegation agreement to implement the operational phase of the service from 2015 to 2021. CMEMS is the culmination of a line of activities aimed at the provision of operational marine services, beginning with MERSEA (2004-2008), and followed by MyOcean (2009-2012) under FP7, and MyOcean2 (and its follow-on) from 2012 through 2015. The development of CMEMS has required collaboration and innovation across research and technology, in observations, modelling, assimilation, and product and service delivery. Cooperation has extended across Europe and into the international community, in support of Blue Growth and the Blue Economy.
The CMEMS now provides regular and systematic reference information on the physical state, variability and dynamics of the ocean, ice and marine ecosystems for the global ocean and the European regional seas. This capacity encompasses the description of the current situation (analysis), the variability at different spatial and temporal scales, the prediction of the situation 10 days ahead (forecast), and the provision of consistent retrospective data records for recent years (reprocessing and reanalysis). CMEMS provides a sustainable response to European user needs in four areas of benefits: (i) maritime safety, (ii) marine resources, (iii) coastal and marine environment, and (iv) weather, seasonal forecast and climate. A major objective of the CMEMS is to deliver and maintain a state-of-the-art European service responding to public and private intermediate user needs, and thus involving explicitly and transparently these users in the service delivery definition.
The CMEMS mission includes:
• Provision of short-term forecasts and outlooks for marine state conditions and, as appropriate, to downstream services for warnings of and/or rapid responses to extreme or hazardous events;
• Provision of detailed descriptions of the ocean state to initialize coupled ocean/atmosphere models to predict changes in the atmosphere/climate;
• Monitoring and reporting on past and present marine
environmental conditions (physics and biogeochemistry), in particular, the response of the oceans to climate change and other stressors;
• Analysing and interpreting changes and trends of the marine environment;
• Providing an easy, efficient and timely information delivery service to users.
CMEMS products include high level data sets derived from satellite and in-situ observations (through Thematic Assembly Centres, TACs) and model reanalyses, analyses and forecasts (Monitoring and Forecasting Centres, MFCs). They are based on near real-time (NRT) data transmission, state-of-the-art data processing and advanced modelling and data assimilation techniques. The product uncertainties are assessed through rigorous internationally recognized quality assessment methods.
CMEMS information delivery service and its service desk provide an easy, efficient and timely access to CMEMS data and products and related information. Users are able to discover, gain experience and access CMEMS operational data, products and associated services. Moreover, they express their requirements and provide feedback to drive the service evolution.
In this paper, the initial R&D achievements of CMEMS over the past 3 years are reviewed. This covers the different elements of CMEMS production centres. The objective is to illustrate the essential role of R&D activities to improve CMEMS products and services. These activities cover the different service lines of CMEMS: ocean physics, sea ice and biogeochemistry, real time monitoring and forecasting, delayed mode reprocessing and reanalysis.
The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents CMEMS architecture and the overall CMEMS strategy for service evolution and associated R&D activities. Product quality and multi-year product cross-cutting (i.e. common to all TACs and MFCs) issues are discussed in Sections 3 and 4. R&D activities including impact on applications are described in Section 5 for observation components (TACs) and in Section6 for monitoring and forecasting components (MFCs). Main conclusions and future prospects are given in Section 7.

The Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) provides regular and systematic reference information on the physical state, variability and dynamics of the ocean, ice and marine ecosystems for the global ocean and the European regional seas. CMEMS includes both satellite and in-situ high level products prepared by Thematic Assembly Centres (TACs) and modelling and data assimilation products prepared by Monitoring and Forecasting Centres (MFCs). This special issue presents the CMEMS service evolution strategy and provides an overview of the main R&D activities and achievements carried out by CMEMS TACs and MFCs over the past three years. It concludes with a summary of future prospects.