Sea-Ice Ocean and Coupled Assimilation (SOCA)
The SOCA project focuses on meshing atmospheric and marine data assimilation efforts to create innovative data assimilation systems. One of the main goals of SOCA is to make use of surface-sensitive radiances to constrain sea-ice and upper ocean fields (e.g., salinity, temperature, sea-ice fraction, sea-ice temperature, etc.). SOCA project members are currently working with the JEDI team on the possibility of controlling model integration within the JEDI framework.
Some other project objectives include (a) creating a robust design of covariance modeling, and forward operators related to the assimilation of altimeter-based observations, (b) developing an extensive set of marine unified font operators (UFOs), and (c) continuing displacement analysis for the assimilation of sea-surface height and sea-ice fraction.
The Near-Real Time Marine Data Assimilation web application acts as a testbed for SOCA software development, and helps give the public an inside window as to how our development is proceeding. The SOCA team has been actively partnering with NOAA and NASA to develop improved marine data assimilation methods for the next generation of prediction systems.