Towards Seamless Ocean-Climate Forecasting: Surface Wave Dynamics and the UN Ocean Decade OSF Programme

Accurate forecasting of ocean and climate can provide actionable information for decision-making and ocean governance, which is essential for transferring ocean science to sustainable development. However, huge common biases of ocean, typhoon and climate models hinder our forecasting ability. The programme of “Ocean to climate Seamless Forecasting system (OSF), approved by the UN Ocean Decade in 2022, aims to provide a solution. This presentation will introduce the OSF Programme and what it has achieved.

With huge heat content, ocean controls the evolution of TC and climate. In this regard, ocean is the key to improve forecasting ability. A key breakthrough of OSF is quantifying the dominant role of surface waves in upper-ocean mixing and air-sea fluxes, processes previously omitted in large-scale models. By integrating wave-induced physics into models, OSF has achieved fundamental improvements, reducing summer sea surface temperature bias in ocean models by ~80%, decreasing typhoon intensity forecast error by ~40%, and cutting climate model SST bias by ~60%. OSF further translates science into actions through its global network, innovative low-cost buoy observations, and operational systems such as OCEANUS and COAST, delivering actionable forecasts and tools for disaster risk reduction, ecosystem protection, and coastal resilience.