Environment Canada (EC), Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), and the Department of National Defence (DND) all need information on the present state of the environment and on predictions of how it will change in the future. Even though each organization will use that information in different ways, a global coupled atmosphere-ocean-ice data assimilation and prediction system can supply information of interest to all three departments.
CONCEPTS (or the Canadian Operational Network of Coupled Environmental PredicTion Systems) is an interagency initiative to develop data-assimilative modeling systems including the atmosphere, global ocean and sea ice. These models would then be used in conjunction with available data streams to supply the best possible information on the environment for the benefit of Canadians.
The Canadian Atmospheric Environment Service already has a ‘state of the art’ data-assimilative atmospheric modeling system referred to as the Global Environmental Multi-scale Model (GEM). Within CONCEPTS, GEM will be coupled to OPA (standing for Océan Parallélisé), the ocean component of the Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean (NEMO). NEMO is a European research initiative for operational marine prediction spearheaded by the ocean modeling efforts of the Mercator group in France. The current sea ice component is also adopted from the NEMO modeling system.
For further information, contact Dr. Dan Wright and Dr. Youyu Lu.