Towards an End-to-End Analysis and Prediction System for Weather, Climate, and Marine Applications in the Red Sea

Ibrahim Hoteit (1) , Yasser Abualnaja (1) , Shehzad Afsal​ (1) , Boujemaa Ait El Fquih (1) , Triantaphyllos Akylas (2) , Charls Antony​ (1) , Clint Dawson (3) , Khaled Asfahani (4) , Robert J W Brewin (5) , Luigi Cavaleri (6) , Ivana Cerovečki (7) , Bruce D Cornuelle (7) , Srinivas Desamsetti (8) , Raju Attada (1) , Hari Dasari (1) , Jose Sanchez-Garrido (9) , Lily Genevier (1) , Mohamad Gharamti (10) , John Gittings (1) , Elamurugu Gokul (1) , Ganesh Gopalakrishnan (7) , Daquan Guo​ (1) , Bilel Hadri (1) , Markus Hadwiger (1) , Mohammed Abed (1) , Myrl Hendershott (7) , Mohamad Hittawe (1) , Karumuri Ashok (11) , Omar Knio (1) , Armin Köhl (12) , Samuel Kortas (1) , George Krokos (1) , Ravi Kunchala (13) , Leila Issa (14) , Issam Lakkis (15) , Sabique Langodan​ (1) , Pierre Lermusiaux (2) , Thong Luong (1) , Jingyi Ma (1) , Olivier Le Maitre (16) , Matthew Mazloff (7) , Samah El-Mohtar (1) , Vassilis Papadopoulos (17) , Trevor Platt (18) , Larry Pratt (19) , Naila Raboudi (1) , Marie-Fanny Racault (18) , Dionysios Raitsos (20) , Shanas Razak (1) , Sanikommu Sivareddy (1) , Shuba Sathyendranath (18) , Sarantis Sofianos (20) , Aneesh Subramanian (21) , Rui Sun (7) , Edriss S. Titi (22, 23) , Habib Toye (1) , Georges Triantafyllou (17) , Kostas Tsiaras​ (17) , Panagiotis Vasou (1) , Yesubabu Viswanadhapalli​ (24) , Yixin Wang (1) , Fengchao Yao (1) , Peng Zhan (1) , George Zodiatis (25)

1 KAUST - King Abdullah University of Science and Technology [Saudi Arabia]
2 MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
3 University of Texas at Austin [Austin]
4 Saudi Aramco
5 University of Exeter
6 ISMAR-CNR - Istituto di Scienze Marine [Venezia]
7 SIO - UC San Diego - Scripps Institution of Oceanography
8 NCMRWF - National Center for Medium Range Weather ForecastingNational Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasting
9 Universidad de Málaga [Málaga] = University of Málaga [Málaga]
10 NCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research [Boulder]
11 Université d'Hyderabad
12 University of Hamburg
13 IIT Delhi - Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
14 LAU - Lebanese American University
15 AUB - American University of Beirut [Beyrouth]
16 PLATON - Uncertainty Quantification in Scientific Computing and Engineering
17 HCMR - Hellenic Centre for Marine Research
18 PML - Plymouth Marine Laboratory
19 WHOI - Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
20 NKUA - National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
21 University of Colorado [Boulder]
22 CAM - University of Cambridge [UK]
23 Texas A&M University [College Station]
24 NARL - National Atmospheric Research Laboratory [Tirupati]
25 Coastal & Marine Research Laboratory

The Red Sea, home to the second-longest coral reef systemin the world, is a vital resource for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Red Sea provides 90% of the Kingdom’s potable water by desalinization, supporting tourism, shipping, aquaculture and fishing industries, which together contribute about 10-20% of the country’s GDP.All these activities, and those elsewhere in the Red Sea region, critically depend on oceanic and atmospheric conditions. At a time of mega-development projects along the Red Seacoast, and global warming, authorities are working on optimizing the harnessing of environmental resources, including renewable energy, rainwater harvesting, etc. All these require high-resolution weather and climate information. Toward this end, we have undertaken a multi-pronged R&D activity in which we are developingan integrated data-driven regional coupled modeling system. The telescopically-nested components include 5km-600m resolution atmospheric models to address weather and climate challenges, 4km-50m resolution ocean models with regional and coastal configurations to simulate and predict the general and mesoscale circulation; 4km-100m ecosystem models to simulate the biogeochemistry; and 1km-50m resolution wave models. In addition, a complementary probabilistic transport modeling system predicts dispersion of contaminant plumes, oil-spill, and marine ecosystem connectivity. Advanced ensemble data assimilation capabilities have also been implemented for accurate forecasting. Resulting achievements include significant advancement in our understanding of the regional circulation and its connection to the global climate, development and validation of long-term Red Sea regional atmospheric-oceanic-wave reanalyses, and forecasting capacities.These products are being extensively used by academia/government/industry in various weather and marine studies and operations, environmental policies, renewable energy applications, impact assessment, flood-forecasting, etc.

Domaines: Océan, Atmosphère; Océanographie; Météorologie

Ibrahim Hoteit, Yasser Abualnaja, Shehzad Afsal​, Boujemaa Ait El Fquih, Triantaphyllos Akylas, et al.. Towards an End-to-End Analysis and Prediction System for Weather, Climate, and Marine Applications in the Red Sea. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2020, pp.1-61. ⟨10.1175/BAMS-D-19-0005.1⟩. ⟨hal-03010422⟩