1 Strategic Planning for Operational
Oceanography
NrCHOLAS c. FLEMMING
Southampton Oceanography Centre, Empress Dock, Southampton S014 3ZH, UK
1.1 Introduction
The question that 1 will try to answer in this paper is " how can national, regional,
and international agencies rationalIy develop a strategy Of linked strategies which
will tell them whether it is worth investing in an operational ocean observing and
forecasting system, and if the answer is positive, how should this investment be
planned, implemented, and managed?" We will consider first the motives for
establishing the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) and its regional components.
Operational oceanography is the provision of scientificalIy based information
and forecasts about the state ofthe sea (including its chemical and biological components) on a routine basis, and with sufficient speed, such that users can act on the
information and make decisions before the relevant conditions have changed significantly, or become unpredictable. National meteorological offices have been
providing such a service for the atmospheric weather for many years, and military
and fisheries agencies have been providing some information on marine sub-surface conditions since the 1960s. Since the late 1980s it has been possible to envisage a global system, similar to the World Weather Watch, and linked to national
and regional observation and modelling services, which could provide an analogous service for many parameters of the marine water column and coastal zone.
Operational oceanography has been defined at some length in the publication
devoted to setting out the long term plans for GOOS (lOC, GOOS 1998 Prospectus, p. 7-10) and in the EuroGOOS Strategy (Woods et al., 1996, p. 10). Although
the emphasis is on obtaining and processing data in real time, or near real time, the
products required by customers may be nowcasts, hindcasts, or forecasts, alI based
on the most recently obtained data. The EuroGOOS Data Requirements Survey
(Fischer and Flemming, 1999, p. 22) shows that these products are required in
approximately equal proportions.
The intellectuai realisation in the 1980s that civilian marine forecasting might be
possible at a useful variety of time and space scales, and that it depended criticalIy
on a global closure to eliminate unknown open boundaries, did not lead automaticalIy to an agreement on development or implementation. It was obvious to any
working group, committee, or UN Agency, that the practical problems of funding,
management, political agreements, sensitivity about national waters, instrumentation, data processing, computing power, and so on, were almost insuperable, even
if the scientific feasibility were certain, which it was not. The global oceano-
Oceanography
NrCHOLAS c. FLEMMING
Southampton Oceanography Centre, Empress Dock, Southampton S014 3ZH, UK
1.1 Introduction
The question that 1 will try to answer in this paper is " how can national, regional,
and international agencies rationalIy develop a strategy Of linked strategies which
will tell them whether it is worth investing in an operational ocean observing and
forecasting system, and if the answer is positive, how should this investment be
planned, implemented, and managed?" We will consider first the motives for
establishing the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) and its regional components.
Operational oceanography is the provision of scientificalIy based information
and forecasts about the state ofthe sea (including its chemical and biological components) on a routine basis, and with sufficient speed, such that users can act on the
information and make decisions before the relevant conditions have changed significantly, or become unpredictable. National meteorological offices have been
providing such a service for the atmospheric weather for many years, and military
and fisheries agencies have been providing some information on marine sub-surface conditions since the 1960s. Since the late 1980s it has been possible to envisage a global system, similar to the World Weather Watch, and linked to national
and regional observation and modelling services, which could provide an analogous service for many parameters of the marine water column and coastal zone.
Operational oceanography has been defined at some length in the publication
devoted to setting out the long term plans for GOOS (lOC, GOOS 1998 Prospectus, p. 7-10) and in the EuroGOOS Strategy (Woods et al., 1996, p. 10). Although
the emphasis is on obtaining and processing data in real time, or near real time, the
products required by customers may be nowcasts, hindcasts, or forecasts, alI based
on the most recently obtained data. The EuroGOOS Data Requirements Survey
(Fischer and Flemming, 1999, p. 22) shows that these products are required in
approximately equal proportions.
The intellectuai realisation in the 1980s that civilian marine forecasting might be
possible at a useful variety of time and space scales, and that it depended criticalIy
on a global closure to eliminate unknown open boundaries, did not lead automaticalIy to an agreement on development or implementation. It was obvious to any
working group, committee, or UN Agency, that the practical problems of funding,
management, political agreements, sensitivity about national waters, instrumentation, data processing, computing power, and so on, were almost insuperable, even
if the scientific feasibility were certain, which it was not. The global oceano-