The GODAE OceanView Coastal Ocean and Shelf Seas Task Team.
Résumé
Starting in the mid-2000s, GODAE (Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment) fully embraced the importance of coastal ocean "intermediate users" for coastal applications. To address this need, the Coastal and Shelf Seas Working Group (CSSWG, 2006-2008) was established with the mission to bridge global and coastal prediction strategies by quantifying elements that demonstrate the value of GODAE results for regional, coastal and shelf seas models, and forecasting systems. A total of 40 coastal ocean systems, each nested in larger-scale systems, in many coastal regions of the world ocean were examined. Encouraging results from these and other systems were discussed at several events, especially regarding the suitability of the existing large-scale estimates, scientific quality, demonstrations of utility, as well as critical scientific issues and requirements related to downscaling (e.g., Alvera-Azcárate et al, 2009; Counillon and Bertino, 2009; De Mey and Proctor, 2009; Halliwell et al., 2009; Herzfeld, 2009; Kourafalou et al., 2009; Le Hénaff et al., 2009; Powell and Moore, 2009; Wakelin et al., 2009). With the evolution of the initial GODAE phase to GODAE OceanView (GOV) in 2008, the CSSWG was replaced by the Coastal Ocean and Shelf Seas Task Team (COSS-TT; https://www.godae-oceanview.org/science/task-teams/coastal-ocean-and-shelf-seas-tt/ ) which fully embraced the initial CSSWG recommendations, as detailed in De Mey et al. (2007). This is an international team, with members from every continent (specific affiliations are provided in the COSS-TT link). As GOV assigns itself broader objectives for the continuation of its global ocean forecasting activities, COSS-TT has assumed the challenge of international coordination beyond the initial objectives of demonstration of feasibility and utility, to a next-level broader initiative aimed at consolidating the foundation and future advancement of coastal ocean forecasting science, systems, and applications. The main goal and central mission of the COSS-TT is thus to work within GOV, and in coordination with the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), towards the provision of a sound scientific basis for sustainable multidisciplinary downscaling and forecasting activities in the world's coastal oceans. The initiative is built around three key concepts: "international", "scientific", and "sustainable" and is driven both by science and through the promotion of good practices, benefiting from overseeing the international coordination of a broad range of scientific phenomena and applications examined within individual Coastal Ocean Forecasting Systems (COFS). The COSS-TT is one of the GOV Task Teams, but it has also initiated the consolidation of a broader coastal scientific community (so-called COSS-COMM) involved in developing and advancing methodologies supporting COFS. The COSS-TT decides targeted related actions at annual workshops that engage all TT members and the COSS-COMM. The strategic goal of the COSS-TT is to help achieve a truly seamless framework from the global to the coastal/littoral scale. The main disciplines considered by the TT are physics and interactions between physical and biogeochemical processes.