Sicily Strait Regional Model Forecast System

+5 days forecast (daily fields) Sea forecast from to forced by SKIRON weather forecast fields Available at about 12:00 AM UTC Click on the picture to access the forecast

---

+5 days forecast (6-hours fields) Sea forecast from to forced by ECMWF weather forecast fields Available at about 07:00 AM UTC Click on the picture to access the forecast

---

weekly hindcast (daily fields) Sea hindcast from to forced by ECMWF weather analysis fields Available every Wednesday at about 07:00 AM UTC Click on the picture to access the forecast

---

What is it?

This is an electronic report for the Sicily Strait Regional Model predictions/hindcasts for the Sardinia Channel and the Sicily Strait.
Every day the forecast system produces a Near-Real Time short term (5 days with SKIRON - with daily fields - and ECMWF - with fields every 6 hours) forecasts of currents and other oceanographic variables.
The hindcasts are computed once a week and last seven days are released (available in a short time).
Due to data acquisition and computational time, the daily forecast is realised with a delay of about 10 hours (10:00 UTC).
ONLY ON REQUEST! The ECMWF forecast is available with fields every hour.

Overview

The numerical simulation system of the marine circulation at regional scale (3 km) of the Sicily Strait area gives a daily forecast, to maximum 5 days with SKIRON and 9 days with ECMWF, of some hydrodynamical mean fields (temperature, salinity, speed and other physical parameters) starting from 00:00 UTC. The system has been operative since September 2004. Domain: 8.95°E-17.1°E, 30°N-39.5°N

The simulation numerical model is based on the 3D ocean circulation model called POM (Princeton Ocean Model) developed by Blumberg and Mellor (1987) and is numerically coupled to lateral boundaries with the simulation numerical model of the whole Mediterranean circulation (MFSTEP-OGCM), developed at the Dynamics and Climatology Unit of the INGV in Bologna (Pinardi et al., 2003). The numerical coupling is one-way asynchronously nested. At the surface boundary the forecast numerical model at regional scale is forced through momentum fluxes, heat and "water" calculated by two different weather forecast models:
- 5-days forecast forced by Skiron: the hourly fields of the atmospheric parameters (wind speed, wind direction, humidity, cloud coverage, solar radiation, etc.) are simulated by the forecast numerical model at high spatial resolution (10 km) of the atmospheric circulation (called Skiron), developed at the Atmospheric Modeling & Weather Forecasting Group of the Athens University (Kallos et al., 2005). The calculation of fluxes at the air-sea interface is realised asynchronously by the use of an interactive algorithm based on the bulk formulae. The forecasted fields are daily;

- 5-days forecast forced by ECMWF: at the surface, SCRM is driven by an interactive air-sea module consisting in the use of a well-tuned set of bulk formulae for the computation of momentum, heat and freshwater fluxes at the air-sea interface. Here fluxes depend upon the state of the ocean directly and by the 6-hours (00:00, 06:00, 12:00, 18:00 UTC) ECMWF analysis of the atmospheric parameters (wind at 10 m a.s.l., temperature at 2 m a.s.l., cloud cover, specific humidity, and pressure). Then momentum, heat and freshwater fluxes are mapped on the SCRM grid through bilinear interpolation, and then linearly interpolated in time for each model time step. The forecasted fields are every 6 hours.

The forecasting numerical system works in Slave Mode and Near-Real-Time, i.e. the simulation model is daily re-initialized by using the daily numerical fields produced by the numerical simulation model at basin scale (5 km) MFSTEP-OGCM. Near-Real-Time means that "assimilated" data are available within 3 days from the real acquisition date of the data. Due to acquisition and calculation times, the forecast is realised with a delay of about 12 hours (forced by SKIRON) and 7 hours (forced by ECMWF).

	Contact		Versione Italiana
	Dr Roberto Sorgente CNR-IAMC Oristano, c/o IMC, Loc. Sa Mardini, 09072 Torregrande (OR), Italy              tel. +39.0783.22027/22136/22032 fax +39.0783.22002 email: roberto.sorgente@iamc.cnr.it

Disclaimer: the contents offered in the SCRM portal are free, prepared with our highest care/diligence and accurately controlled by the researchers of the IAMC-CNR in Oristano. The IAMC-CNR in Oristano, nevertheless, refuse all responsibility, direct and indirect, towards users and generally of any third part, for incidental delays, inaccuracy, errors, omissions, damages (direct, indirect, consequent, punishable and sanctionable) coming from the above contents.