SOCIB at the CMEMS General Assembly through IBISAR and INSTAC

SOCIB has participated to the Copernicus Marine Service General Assembly, held in Brussels on the 20-24th May 2019. The Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) is the European operational service that offers marine data from in-situ observations, satellites and numerical models.

CMEMS organization rely on three drivers:

  • The data producers, namely the Monitoring and Forecasting Centers (MFCs) for the numerical models and the Thematic Assembly Centers (TACs) for satellite and in-situ observations, in charge of the data provision that will be later served through CMEMS portals.
  • The Service Evolution program aims to ensure a continuous improvement of the scientific content of CMEMS in order to maintain a competitive and state-of-the-art service.
  • The User-Uptake program aims to foster the use of CMEMS products and promote the development of downstream services and its uptake.

The goals of the meeting were:

  1. to strengthen the team spirit of CMEMS stakeholders (data producers and users),
  2. to review the major achievements,
  3. to present the improvements planned for the future.

The meeting was also an excellent opportunity for the participants to present their services and provide their feedback to the data producers.

In the context of the User-Uptake program, SOCIB’s contribution focused on the presentation of the IBISAR downstream service, designed to provide support to Search and Rescue operators and emergency responders to select the most accurate ocean forecast, presented by Adèle Révelard. The use of CMEMS data in the frame of the IBISAR project is undoubtedly qualifying SOCIB (first-hand knowledge in the end) to better understand and assist users during the training sessions and communication activities coordinated by Paz Rotllán on behalf of the In Situ TAC. This work was showcased by Sylvie Pouliquen (In Situ TAC coordinator) and Fabrice Messal (CMEMS Training and Education Manager) respectively during their presentations.

A. Révelard presenting the IBISAR downstream service during the User Uptake Meeting on Thursday 23rd May 2019.

CMEMS is now on its 5th year of operation and has reached the number of 17.156 subscribers over 183 countries (March 2019). Based on users’ feedback, CMEMS new priorities are:

  • to enhance the data quality (increase in horizontal and vertical resolution, better representation of air-sea-wave interactions, more assimilation of higher quality data from satellites...).
  • to develop coastal systems to better address the monitoring of coastal areas. The multi-platform approach has been spotlighted as essential to understand the complexity of the many processes involved at diverse spatio-temporal scales.
  • to expand the catalog (upcoming products, including new data for biology and ecosystems).
  • to support the growing users community via cloud platforms (WEkEO).
  • to increase the number of users and reach out to new communities and sectors

Related links

  • Copernicus Marine Service General Assembly - Agenda (PDF)
  • User Uptake Side Meeting on Thursday May 23rd- Agenda (PDF)
  • A. Révelard. "IBISAR downstream service: helping SAR operators and emergency responders to select the most accurate ocean forecast". Poster (PDF) - Presentation (PDF)
  • CMEMS GA Plenary Session presentations (Link)
  • User-Uptake session presentations (Link, only available for one month)
  • S. Pouliquen & In Situ TAC partners. “In-Situ Thematic Service” (PDF)