Coastal ocean forecasting in Spanish ports: the SAMOA operational service

• Published in: Journal of operational oceanography Vol. 13; no. 1; pp. 37 - 54
• Main Authors: Sotillo, Marcos G., Cerralbo, P., Lorente, P., Grifoll, M., Espino, M., Sanchez-Arcilla, A., Álvarez-Fanjul, E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis 02.01.2020
• Subjects: coastal modelling; dynamical downscaling; operational forecasting; port circulation; SAMOA
• ISSN: 1755-876X; 1755-8778
• DOI: 10.1080/1755876X.2019.1606765

SAMOA (Sistema de Apoyo Meteorológico y Oceanográfico de la Autoridad Portuaria) is the latest initiative of Puertos del Estado, the Spanish Public State Port Agency, to enhance the delivery of user-customised operational met-ocean information to aid Spanish Port Authorities making harbour safety, environmental management and operational decisions. This initiative provides high-resolution coastal operational prediction systems in domains such as harbours and nearby coastal waters. Forecast systems implemented are fully operational from January 2017 for nine Spanish ports in the Mediterranean, the Iberian Atlantic and the Canary Islands. This paper provides an end-to-end description of these SAMOA systems that are based on high-resolution ROMS model applications. The SAMOA systems are CMEMS downstream services, being the coastal models nested into the regional IBI forecast solution. At the surface, SAMOA systems use as forcing daily updated hourly winds and heat and water fluxes from the Spanish Meteorological Agency forecast services. Highlights from the scientific pre-operational model evaluation phase and the multi-parametric validation are shown, illustrating agreements between SAMOA products and in-situ and remoted sensed observations. To this aim, skill metrics (such as bias, errors, Taylor diagrams and correlations) are presented. Finally, a look ahead to future SAMOA developments and operational innovations is provided.