A Real Time Ocean Forecast System for the North Atlantic Ocean

The Real Time Ocean Forecast System (RTOFS) for the North Atlantic is an ocean forecast system based on the HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM). HYCOM is the result of a collaborative effort between the University of Miami, the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), and the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), as part of a multi-institutional HYCOM Consortium for Data-Assimilative Ocean Modeling funded by the National Ocean Partnership Program (NOPP) to develop and evaluate a data-assimilative hybrid isopycnal-sigma-pressure (generalized) coordinate ocean model. This paper describes the RTOFS-Atlantic, an operational real time ocean nowcast/forecast system for the North Atlantic running daily at National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP).