A Coastal Ocean Forecast System for U.S. Mid-Atlantic Bight and Gulf of Maine

Coastal ocean models that downscale global operational models are widely used to study regional circulation at enhanced resolutions.When operated as nowcast/forecast systems, these models offer predictions that can provide actionable guidance for maritime applications.A nowcast/forecast system for the northeast U.S. coastal ocean is described in this chapter to illustrate, by example, the many practical issues to be considered when configuring such a model for operational oceanography applications.The system uses the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) and four-dimensional variational data assimilation of observations from a comprehensive network of in situ platforms, coastal radars, and satellites.The emergence of open access web data services that adhere to community conventions for metadata descriptions for coordinate systems and geo-scientific data types, and support geospatial search and sub-setting, are shown to foster inter-operability of data and model usage, accelerate the test, validate and acceptance cycle for modeling system enhancements, streamline the addition of new data streams, facilitate operational monitoring of the system, and enable novice users to view and download model outputs to underpin the generation of higher level ocean information products.