A new version of the IBI near real time system for November 2020: what will be changed?

The IBI (Iberian-Biscay-Ireland) MFC (Monitoring and Forecasting Centre) is in charge of providing ocean forecasts for the IBI region in the framework of the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS). To do so, a coupled model system is operated daily to monitor and forecast the ocean dynamics and marine ecosystem. The domain of the model is a subset of the ORCA grid at the resolution of 1/36° and covers the North-East Atlantic Ocean from the Canary Islands to Iceland, including the North Sea and the Western Mediterranean.

The IBI system is operated since 2010 and regularly released. The coupled model is based on NEMO-PISCES. A data assimilation method based on SEEK Kalman filter is applied to the physical component. This coupled system with data assimilation has been operational since April 2018, providing 5-day physical forecasts on a daily basis and 7-day ecosystem and carbon forecasts on a weekly basis.

A new release of this system is planned for November 2020, and includes a lot of changes about the physical NEMO model especially on its vertical component (turbulence, solar penetration, bulk formulaes, ...), a new tuning for the data assimilation method and a new CMEMS global biogeochemical system to initialise and force at the open boundaries of the IBI system. The objective is to summarize these changes and to illustrate their impacts by confronting the model results to in-situ data profiles, SST satellites products, BGC-Argo floats ...