SalaciaML: A Deep Learning Approach for Supporting Ocean Data Quality Control

We present a skillful deep learning algorithm for supporting quality control of ocean temperature measurements, which we name SalaciaML according to Salacia the roman goddess of sea waters. Classical attempts to algorithmically support and partly automate the quality control of ocean data profiles are especially helpful for the gross errors in the data. Range filters, spike detection, and data distribution checks remove reliably the outliers and errors in the data, still wrong classifications occur. Various automated quality control procedures have been successfully implemented within the main international and EU marine data infrastructures (WOD, CMEMS, IQuOD, SDN) but their resulting data products are still containing data anomalies, bad data flagged as good and vice-versa. They also include visual inspection of suspicious measurements, which is a time consuming activity, especially if the number of suspicious data detected is large. A deep learning approach could highly improve our capabilities to quality assess big data collections and contemporary reducing the human effort. Our algorithm SalaciaML is meant to complement classical automated quality control procedures in supporting the time consuming visually inspection of data anomalies by quality control experts. As a first approach we applied the algorithm to a large dataset from the Mediterranean Sea. SalaciaML has been able to detect correctly more than 90% of all good and/or bad data in 11 out of 16 Mediterranean regions

Evaluation of Amip-Type Atmospheric Fields as Forcing For Mediterranean Sea and Global Ocean Reanalyses

Oceanic reanalyses are powerful products to reconstruct the historical 3D-state of the ocean and related circulation. At present a challenge is to have oceanic reanalyses covering the whole 20th century. This study describes the exercise of comparing available datasets to force Mediterranean Sea and global oceanic reanalyses from 1901 to present. In particular, we compared available atmospheric reanalyses with a set of experiments performed with an atmospheric general circulation model where sea surface temperature (SST) and sea-ice concen- tration are prescribed. These types of experiments have the advantage of covering long time records, at least for the period for which global SST is available, and they can be performed at relatively high horizontal resolutions, a very important requisite for regional oceanic re- analyses. However, they are limited by the intrinsic model biases in representing the mean atmospheric state and its variability. In this study, we show that, within some limits, the atmospheric model performance in representing the basic variables needed for the bulk-formulae to force oceanic data assimilation systems can be comparable to the differences among available atmospheric reanalyses. In the case of the Mediterranean Sea the high horizontal resolution of the set of SST-prescribed experiments combined with their good performance in rep- resenting the surface winds in the area made them the most appropriate atmospheric forcing. On the other hand, in the case of the global ocean, atmospheric reanalyses have been proven to be still preferable due to the better representation of spatial and temporal variability of surface winds and radiative fluxes. Because of their intrinsic limitations AMIP experiments cannot provide atmospheric fields alterna- tive to atmospheric reanalyses. Nevertheless, here we show how in the specific case of the Mediterranean Sea, they can be of use, if not preferable, to available atmospheric reanalyses

Mediterranean Sea large-scale low-frequency ocean variability and water mass formation rates from 1987 to 2007: A retrospective analysis

We describe a synthesis of the Mediterranean Sea circulation structure and dynamics from a 23-year- long reanalysis of the ocean circulation carried out by Adani et al. (2011). This mesoscale permitting dynamical reconstruction of past ocean variability in the Mediterranean Sea allows the study of the time-mean circulation and its low frequency, decadal, components. It is found that the time-mean circu- lation is composed of boundary and open ocean intensified jets at the border of cyclonic and anticyclonic gyres. The large scale basin circulation is generally characterized in the northern regions by cyclonic gyres and in its southern parts by anticyclonic gyres and eddy-dominated flow fields, with the exception of the Tyrrhenian and the northern Ionian Sea. The time-mean Tyrrhenian Sea circulation is dominated by cyclonic gyres of different intensity and intermittency. The northern Ionian Sea circulation, however, reverses in sign in two ten-year periods, the first in 1987–1996 and the second in 1997–2006, which is here called the Northern Ionian reversal phenomenon. This reversal is provoked by the excursion of the Atlantic-Ionian Stream from the middle to the northern parts of the basin. The decadal variability of other parts of the basin is characterized by changes in strength of the basin scale structures. The water mass formation rates and variability are dominated by event-like periods where the intermediate and deep waters are formed for 2–3 years at higher rates. The largest deep water formation events of the past 23 years occurred separately in the western and eastern Mediterranean basin: the first coincided with the Eastern Mediterranean Transient (Roether et al., 1996) and the second with the western Mediterranean deep water formation event in 2005–2006 (Smith et al., 2008). A new schematic of the basin-scale circu- lation is formulated and commented.Published318-3324A. Oceanografia e climaJCR Journa

From SeaDataNet to SeaDataCloud: historical data collections and new data products

Temperature and Salinity historical data collections covering the time period 1900-2013/2014 were created for each European marginal sea (Arctic Sea, Baltic Sea, Black Sea, North Sea, North Atlantic Ocean, and Mediterranean Sea) within the framework of SeaDataNet2 Project and they are available as ODV collections through a web catalog (https://www.seadatanet.org/Products/Aggregated-datasets). Two versions have been published and they represent a snapshot of the SeaDataNet database content at two different times: V1.1 (January 2014) and V2 (March 2015). A Quality Control Strategy (QCS) was developped and continuously refined in order to improve the quality of the database content and create the best data products. The QCS consists of four main phases: 1) data harvesting from the data infrastructure; 2) file and parameter aggregation; 3) secondary quality check analysis; 4) correction of data anomalies. The approach is iterative to facilitate the upgrade of the database content and it allows a versioning of data products. Regional temperature and salinity monthly climatologies have been produced from V1.1 historical data collections and they are also available (https://www.seadatanet.org/Products/Climatologies). Within the new SeaDataCloud Project the release of updated historical data collections and new climatologies is planned. SeaDataCloud novelties are the introduction of decadal climatologies at various resolutions, the development of climatologies for the Global Ocean and a task dedicated to new data products, like Mixed Layer Depth climatologies, Ocean Heat Content estimates, coastal climatologies from HF radar data. All SeaDataCloud products are available through a dedicated web catalogue together with their relative Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and Product Information Document (PIDoc) containing all specifications about product’s generation, quality assessment and technical details to facilitate users’ uptake. The presentation will briefly overview the existing SeaDataNet products and introduce the SeaDataCloud products’ plan, but the main focus will be on the first release (February 2018) of SeaDataCloud Temperature and Salinity historical data collections, spanning the time period 1900-2017, their characteristics in terms of space-time data distribution and their usability.SeaDataCloud ProjectPublishedVienna4A. Oceanografia e clim

The added value of the multi-system spread information for ocean heat content and steric sea level investigations in the CMEMS GREP ensemble reanalysis product

Since 2016, the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) has produced and disseminated an ensemble of four global ocean reanalyses produced at eddy-permitting resolution for the period from 1993 to present, called GREP (Global ocean Reanalysis Ensemble Product). This dataset offers the possibility to investigate the potential benefits of a multi-system approach for ocean reanalyses, since the four reanalyses span by construction the same spatial and temporal scales. In particular, our investigations focus on the added value of the information on the ensemble spread, implicitly contained in the GREP ensemble, for temperature, salinity, and steric sea level studies. It is shown that in spite of the small ensemble size, the spread is capable of estimating the flow-dependent uncertainty in the ensemble mean, although proper re-scaling is needed to achieve reliability. The GREP members also exhibit larger consistency (smaller spread) than their predecessors, suggesting advancement with time of the reanalysis vintage. The uncertainty information is crucial for monitoring the climate of the ocean, even at regional level, as GREP shows consistency with CMEMS high-resolution regional products and complement the regional estimates with uncertainty estimates. Further applications of the spread include the monitoring of the impact of changes in ocean observing networks; the use of multi-model ensemble anomalies in hybrid ensemble-variational retrospective analysis systems, which outperform static covariances and represent a promising application of GREP. Overall, the spread information of the GREP product is found to significantly contribute to the crucial requirement of uncertainty estimates for climatic datasets.Data from the reanalyses presented in this work are available from the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS, http://marine.copernicus.eu/). Part of this work was supported by the EOS COST Action (“Evaluation of Ocean Synthesis”, http://eos-cost.eu/) through its Short Term Scientific Missions program. The full C-GLORS dataset is available at http://c-glors.cmcc.it. This work has received funding from the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS).Published287-3124A. Oceanografia e climaJCR Journa

A 1/24 degree resolution Mediterranean analysis and forecast modeling system for the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service

The Mediterranean Forecasting System (MFS) is a numerical ocean prediction system that operationally produces analyses, reanalyses and short-term forecasts of the main physical parameters for the entire Mediterranean Sea and its Atlantic Ocean adjacent areas. This work is specifically focused on the description and evaluation of the analysis and forecast modeling system that covers the analysis of the current situation and produces daily updates of the following 10 days forecast. The system has been recently upgraded in the framework of the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) by increasing the grid resolution from 1/16o to 1/24o in the horizontal and from 72 to 141 vertical levels, by increasing the number of fresh water river inputs and by updating the data assimilation scheme. The model has a non-linear explicit free surface and it is forced by surface pressure, interactive heat, momentum and water fluxes at the air-sea interface. In order to validate the modeling system and to estimate the accuracy of the model products, a quality assessment is regularly performed including both pre-operational qualification and near real time (NRT) validation procedures. Pre-operational qualification activities focus on testing the improvements of the quality of the new system with respect to the previous version and relies on past simulation and historical data, while NRT validation activities aim at routinely and on-line providing the skill assessment of the model analysis and forecasts and relies on the NRT available observations. The focus of this work is to present the new operational modeling system and the skill assessment including comparison with independent (insitu coastal moorings) and quasi-independent (insitu vertical profiles and satellite) datasets.PublishedBergen, Norway3SR. AMBIENTE - Servizi e ricerca per la Societ

A 1/24° resolution Mediterranean physical analysis and forecasting system for the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service

This study describes a new model implementation for the Mediterranean Sea that has been achieved in the framework of the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS). The numerical ocean prediction system, that operationally produces analyses and forecasts of the main physical parameters for the entire Mediterranean Sea and its Atlantic Ocean adjacent areas, has been upgraded by increasing the grid resolution from 1/16o to 1/24o in the horizontal and from 72 to 141 unevenly spaced vertical levels, by increasing the number of fresh water river inputs and by updating the data assimilation scheme. The model has a non-linear explicit free surface and it is forced by surface pressure, interactive heat, momentum and water fluxes at the airsea interface. The focus of this work is to present the new modelling system which will become operational in the near future and the validation assessment including the comparison with an independent non assimilated dataset (coastal moorings) and quasi-independent (in situ vertical profiles and satellite) datasets. The results show that the higher resolution model is capable of representing most of the variability of the general circulation in the Mediterranean Sea, however some improvements need to be implemented in order to enhance the model ability in reproducing specific hydrodynamic features particularly the Sea Level Anomaly.PublishedBergen, Norway3SR. AMBIENTE - Servizi e ricerca per la Societ

Higher resolution physical numerical model of the Mediterranean Sea in the Copernicus Marine Service

INGV is responsible for the operational production of the physical component of the Mediterranean Sea Monitoring and Forecasting Centre (Med-MFC) of the Copernicus Marine Service Monitoring System (CMEMS). The system was implemented in 2000 by the INGV National Group of Operational oceanography (GNOO) and has been developed in years thanks to a number of European projects. The Med-MFC is a coupled hydrodynamic-wave model with data assimilation component with a resolution of 1/16°. The model solutions are corrected by the variational assimilation (based on a 3DVAR scheme) of Temperature and Salinity vertical profiles (from ARGO, CTD, XBT and Gliders observations) and along track satellite Sea Level Anomaly (SLA) observations. In order to meet the requirements for Copernicus Marine Service Phase I the increase of the horizontal (to 1/24°) and vertical resolution of the hydrodynamic component of Med-MFC has been planned. The major improvements expected from this development are the following: 1) to better resolve the mesoscale processes in the Mediterranean region where the Rossby radius of deformation is about 12-15 km (1/24° is about 4-5 km); 2) to resolve the tidal forcing at Gibraltar, entering from the Atlantic into the Mediterranean, known to provide about 30% amplitude of the tidal signal in the Mediterranean; 3) to better resolve vertical mixing processes.UnpublishedIstituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia. Sede Centrale. Roma3SR. AMBIENTE - Servizi e ricerca per la Societ

Mediterranean monitoring and forecasting operational system for Copernicus Marine Service

The MEDiterranean Monitoring and Forecasting Center (Med-MFC) is part of the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS, http://marine.copernicus.eu/), provided on an operational mode by Mercator Ocean in agreement with the European Commission. Specifically, Med MFC system provides regular and systematic information about the physical state of the ocean and marine ecosystems for the Mediterranean Sea. The Med-MFC service started in May 2015 from the pre-operational system developed during the MyOcean projects, consolidating the understanding of regional Mediterranean Sea dynamics, from currents to biogeochemistry to waves, interfacing with local data collection networks and guaranteeing an efficient link with other Centers in Copernicus network. The Med-MFC products include analyses, 10 days forecasts and reanalysis, describing currents, temperature, salinity, sea level and pelagic biogeochemistry. Waves products will be available in MED-MFC version in 2017. The consortium, composed of INGV (Italy), HCMR (Greece) and OGS (Italy) and coordinated by the Euro-Mediterranean Centre on Climate Change (CMCC, Italy), performs advanced R&D activities and manages the service delivery. The Med-MFC infrastructure consists of 3 Production Units (PU), for Physics, Biogechemistry and Waves, a unique Dissemination Unit (DU) and Archiving Unit (AU) and Backup Units (BU) for all principal components, guaranteeing a resilient configuration of the service and providing and efficient and robust solution for the maintenance of the service and delivery. The Med-MFC includes also an evolution plan, both in terms of research and operational activities, oriented to increase the spatial resolution of products, to start wave products dissemination, to increase temporal extent of the reanalysis products and improving ocean physical modeling for delivering new products. The scientific activities carried out in 2015 concerned some improvements in the physical, biogeochemical and wave components of the system. Regarding the currents, new grid-point EOFs have been implemented in the Med-MFC assimilation system; the climatological CMAP precipitation was replaced by the ECMWF daily precipitation; reanalysis time-series have been increased by one year. Regarding the biogeochemistry, the main scientific achievement is related to the implementation of the carbon system in the Med-MFC biogeochemistry model system already available. The new model is able to reproduce the principal spatial patterns of the carbonate system variables in the Mediterranean Sea. Further, a key result consists of the calibration of the new variables (DIC and alkalinity), which serves to the estimation of the accuracy of the new products to be released in the next version of the system (i.e. pH and pCO2 at surface). Regarding the waves, the system has been validated against in-situ and satellite observations. For example, a very good agreement between model output and in-situ observations has been obtained at offshore and/or well-exposed wave buoys in the Mediterranean Sea.PublishedVienna3SR. AMBIENTE - Servizi e ricerca per la Societ

SeaDataCloud Data Products for the European marginal seas and the Global Ocean

Data products, based on in situ temperature and salinity observations from SeaDataNet infrastructure, have been released within the framework of SeaDataCloud (SDC) project. The data from different data providers are integrated and harmonized thanks to standardized quality assurance and quality control methodologies conducted at various stages of the data value chain. The data ingested within SeaDataNet are earlier validated by data providers who assign corresponding quality flags, but a Quality Assurance Strategy has been implemented and progressively refined to guarantee the consistency of the database content and high quality derived products. Two versions of aggregated datasets for the European marginal seas have been published and used to compute regional high resolution climatologies. External datasets, the World Ocean Database from NOAA and the CORA dataset from the Copernicus Marine Service in situ Thematic Assembly Center, have been integrated with SDC data collections to maximize data coverage and minimize the mapping error. The products are available through the SDC catalogue accompanied by Product Information Documents containing the specifications about product’s generation, characteristics and usability. Digital Object Identifiers are assigned to products and relative documentation to foster transparency of the production chain, acknowledging all actors involved from data providers to information producers