Mercator Ocean wishes you a Happy New Year 2006

For the new year, Mercator Ocean offers you a series of images and animations. Here are the 2005 Mercator seasons...

Autumn 2005

People

Credit: Mercator Ocean

October 14th, 2005, Marie Drévillon, from the "PSY3" team, holds in her hands the first 1/4° global ocean bulletin signed by all the representatives of the different institutions funding Mercator Ocean.

The ocean breath

Sea surface temperature between August 1997 and December 1998, as seen by the global ocean POG model (click to download the animation : 6 MB). The ocean is cooling in the North, while it is warming in the South. The great energetic West edge currents draw sinuous meanders: the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic and the Kuroshio in the North Pacific. In the Gulf of Mexico, eddies are escaping from the Loop Current and moving westwards. The circumpolar current running around the Antarctic make raids northwards and generates the Malvinas Current off Argentina (South-West Atlantic). The Equator is used as a propagation rail by Kelvin waves which are developing during an El Niño event in the Pacific (see below).

Credit: Mercator Ocean

El Niño/La Niña

Credit: Mercator Ocean

El Niño/la Niña : 1997-1998 episodes
The animation as shown opposite (sea level anomaly) simulates the 2 1997-1998 El Niño/la Niña episodes (click to download the animation : 9 MB). El Niño corresponds to equatorial Kelvin waves generated by westerly gales in the Central and West Pacific. Kelvin waves cross the Pacific at a velocity of 260 Km/day, lowers the thermocline depth ("Kelvin down") and unusually warms Chile and Peru waters, cancelling the usual coastal upwelling. Theses waves bounce against the South-American coast and come back as Rossby waves ("Rossby down"), 3 times slower than Kelvin waves. Simultaneously, westerly gales generate also "Rossby up" from East to West, raising the thermocline. The "ping-pong" game goes on. These "Rossby up" bounce against the west Pacific coast (Papua, New Guinea) as "Kelvin up" which reduce El Niño until it disappears or, eventually evolves towards a La Niña episode. Game over.

Sea ice modeling

Sea ice model is approaching in 2005. Here is a SST and sea ice cover 4 years animation (from 1996 to 2000) computed by the Orcalim model.

Credit: Mercator Ocean

GMMC 2005

Credit: Mercator Ocean

The Mercator/Coriolis mission group meets in Toulouse in October for the 4th time. These scientific exchanges are essential for the vital link between operational and research worlds and for the guarantees of the Mercator systems quality.

In situ measurements in the high resolution

An important progress has been made in the Mercator high resolution system: sea surface temperatures and in situ profiles are now assimilated together with altimetry data. With this new version, the Mercator forecast system reaches a notable quality level and becomes a reference model in the North Atlantic.

Credit: Mercator Ocean

Salty Mediterranean eddies walk around the Atlantic...

Credit: Mercator Ocean

900 meters salinity simulation during the year 2000. The meddies are shown as small, grey-centred eddies.

2000th Argo float

In September, Argo is celebrating the launch of its 2000th float. Operational ocean forecasting has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of this international programme, as Argo floats provide operational ocean models with essential vertical temperature and salinity measurements, which are used as input data for assimilation systems.

Credit: Coriolis

Spring-Summer 2005

Mercator is 10 years old

Mercator Ocean team, 10 years later.

Credit: Mercator Ocean

The Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico

Credit: Mercator Ocean

The new high-resolution Mercator prototype is tested in a strategically important area: the Gulf of Mexico, a vast offshore oilfield where extraction operations are carried out at great depths and also a test site for the many operational models used in the region

Annual Mersea meeting

April 2005: Toulouse welcomes the first plenary annual Mersea meeting. This great programme funded by Europe gathers more than 40 partners. Mercator Ocean has the role of global ocean supplier.

Credit: Mersea

Land Ahoy!

Credit: Mercator Ocean

Deep ocean ('deep blue sea') forecasting is the core function of Mercator Ocean. However, this doesn't prevent Mercator from also being interested in matters closer to land… and human activities. In 2005, a growing activity aims of providing 'coastal' models. These new models are now in full swing, with applications which relate to many different environmental issues.

Winter 2005

Convection in the North Atlantic

Deep convection is examined by the forecast team in the Groënland, Irminger and Labrador seas. This phenomenon is essential in the climate balance during interglacial periods.

Credit: Mercator Ocean

Mercator Ocean and the Vendée Globe 2004-2005

Credit: Mercator Ocean

The forecast team publishes every week a "ocean currents bulletin" all around the world during this mythic race.

Thanks

Thanks to Mercator Ocean scientists and partners for suppling images and animations: Romain Bourdallé-Badie, Sylvain Cailleau, Marie Drévillon, Yann Drillet, Gilles Garric, Eric Greiner, Véroniques Landes, Jean-Michel Lellouche, Lucas Nouël.