Coastal and Ocean Modeling Testbed

Coastal waters and lowlands of the U.S. are threatened by climate change, sea-level rise, flooding, oxygen depleted “dead zones”, oil spills and unforeseen disasters. With funding from the IOOS Program Office and coordination from the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA), strong and strategic collaborations among experts from academia, federal operational centers and industry were forged to create the U.S. IOOS Coastal and Ocean Modeling Testbed (COMT).

The COMT serves as a conduit between the federal operational and research communities and allows sharing of numerical models, observations and software tools. The COMT supports integration, comparison, scientific analyses and archiving of data and model output needed to elucidate, prioritize, and resolve federal and regional operational coastal ocean issues associated with a range of existing and emerging coastal oceanic, hydrologic, and ecological models. The Testbed has enabled significant community building (within the modeling community as well as enhancing academic and federal operational relations) which has dramatically improved model development.

Projects supported through the COMT are designed to create new knowledge, new model code and tools; develop operational user capacity; and build a repository of evaluation data sets to expand and improve the modeling capabilities of operational partners and the broader coastal and ocean modeling community. Transition from research to operations is enhanced by scoping projects that meet identified operational needs, including both researchers and operational users on project teams, and leveraging transition resources such as NOAA’s Research Transition Acceleration Program (RTAP).

Mission

To use applied research and development to accelerate the transition of scientific and technical advances from the coastal ocean modeling research community to improved operational ocean products and services (i.e. via research to operations and also operations to research)

Vision

To increase the accuracy, reliability, and scope of the federal suite of operational ocean modeling products to meet the needs of a diverse user community. Operational use covers a wide range of society-critical applications including forecasts, forensic studies, risk assessment, and design and system management.

Projects

COMT Round 4 – Years 2021-2024

Chesapeake Bay Environmental Forecasting System

The overarching goals of this proposal are to (1) advance the development of forecasts for harmful algal blooms (HABs) and pathogens in the Chesapeake Bay, and (2) accelerate the transition of these forecasts from a research environment to an integrated operational system with

LiveOcean Model Enhancement

The overall goal of the proposed work is to transition the LiveOcean model to a state of sustainable operations hosted by the Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems (NANOOS) Regional Association of U.S. IOOS. LiveOcean is a realistic numerical model of oce

Multi-Physics Water Level Modeling From Global to Meter Scales

Data Assimilation Algorithms for U.S West and East Coast OFS

This project is directed at enabling NOAA Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS) and IOOS RAs to deliver more accurate and more highly resolved forecasts of water level, velocity, temperature and salinity to key stakeholders concerned with fisherie

Coupled Ocean Modeling Testbed Platform

Coupled ocean modeling testbed platform for physics and contaminant exchange through the river - estuary - ocean continuum, Louisiana State University: The overarching goal of this project is to further develop the coupling between a state-of-the-art process-based community la

COMT Round 3 – Years 2018-2022

Coupling the National Water Model to the Coastal Ocean

Hurricanes Matthew (2016), Harvey (2017) and Irma (2017) caused unprecedented levels of coastal flooding, due to the occurrence of both substantial coastal storm surge and heavy precipitation-related hydrologic/inland flooding propagating toward the coast. The resulting “compo

Northeast Coastal Ocean Forecast System (NECOFS)

The 2016 NOAA Water Initiative Vision and Five-Year Plan promotes a common goal: “To transform water information service delivery to better meet and support evolving societal needs.” The Initiative also identifies flooding and coastal inundation as an area of emphasis. The ove

A Unified Framework for IOOS Model Data Access

In the last decade, IOOS has made remarkable progress toward an interoperable framework for working with ocean forecast model data. Providers deliver data via community standard OPeNDAP services using Climate and Forecast (CF) metadata conventions, and developers then use stan

Advancing the West Coast Ocean Forecasting System

Along the U.S. West Coast, in support of the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System, three Regional Associations (RAs; NANOOS, CeNCOOS, and SCCOOS) maintain a mosaic of ocean modeling activities, run as quasi-operational systems at academic institutions and private organizatio

Operational Forecast System for the Salish Sea & Columbia River

The Salish Sea is located on the Pacific Northwest coast of North America, spanning Puget Sound in Washington, USA, in the south, to the Georgia basin in British Columbia, Canada, to the north. The domain includes several Straits and Islands. This is a rapidly growing region t

COMT Round 2 – Years 2017 – 2018

Chesapeake Bay Hypoxia

Hypoxia is a condition threatening the health of the Chesapeake Bay in which oxygen levels drop so low that fish and other animals are stressed or killed. In the Bay, incidents of hypoxia-causing ‘dead zones’ are on the rise.

Hypoxia in Chesapeake Bay usually occurs in

Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia

The largest hypoxic area in U.S. coastal waters, averaging 15,000 km2, forms every summer over the Texas-Louisiana shelf in the northern Gulf of Mexico. The formation is due to decay of organic matter that is primarily derived from nutrient inputs from the Mississippi/Atchafal

The US West Coast Model Intercomparison Project

Ocean circulation and biochemistry support rich biological diversity in the waters along the US West Coast, across the entire Exclusive Economic Zone within the 200 nautical miles from shore. Pacific waters along the US West Coast span three states and serve a variety of econo

Puerto Rico/U.S. Virgin Islands Storm Surge & Waves

The goal of this COMT project is to extend the present wave/surge operational forecasting capability from mild-sloped coastal areas such as the US East and Gulf of Mexico coasts to steep-sloped areas such as around Caribbean and Pacific islands and transition this capability t

COMT Round 1 – Years 2013 – 2016

Chesapeake Bay Hypoxia

Hypoxia is a condition threatening the health of the Chesapeake Bay in which oxygen levels drop so low that fish and other animals are stressed or killed. In the Bay, incidents of hypoxia-causing ‘dead zones’ are on the rise.

Hypoxia in Chesapeake Bay usually occurs in

Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia

The largest hypoxic area in U.S. coastal waters, averaging 15,000 km2, forms every summer over the Texas-Louisiana shelf in the northern Gulf of Mexico. The formation is due to decay of organic matter that is primarily derived from nutrient inputs from the Mississippi/Atchafal

Coastal Waves, Surge and Inundation in the Gulf of Maine

The goal of this project was to provide guidance on the behavior (e.g., accuracy, robustness, execution speed) and implementation requirements (e.g., resolution, parameterization, computer capacity) of models that are presently in operational use, or that are under considerati

Coastal Waves, Surge and Inundation in the Gulf of Mexico

The goal of this project was to provide guidance on the behavior (e.g., accuracy, robustness, execution speed) and implementation requirements (e.g., resolution, parameterization, computer capacity) of models that are presently in operational use, or that are under considerati