TOPAZ 36 month scientific report — Final

The TOPAZ project, together with its precursor DIADEM, constitutes a significant step in developing ocean modelling from a research activity to an operational service producing regular nowcasting and forecasting fields of physical oceanographic parameters, including sea-ice. Built within entities formally independent from national agencies, the project was reactive and free to select modern and original techniques. TOPAZ developed an advanced state of the art ocean monitoring and forecasting system. It has developed and applied novel scientific methodologies which offer a wide range of possible applications. Several new projects have been generated as a spin-off from TOPAZ.

The interactions with forecast users are expected to be the most stimulating and will be a major driving force for the future developments of TOPAZ. The range of possible applications has considerably increased during the project and long sight perspectives are open towards numerous marine engineering applications (support for ship routing, wind farms), environmental monitoring, support for fisheries and climate research. TOPAZ also received a considerable attention among the ocean forecasting community when presented at conferences and scientific workshops. By demonstrating the feasibility of a large-scale system based on advanced sequential data assimilation methods, the project provides evidence that sequential data assimilation is an efficient and cost-effective alternative — or complement — to variational methods. Its participation to the GODAE initiative and MERSEA IP as the Arctic component of the global high-resolution model are secured and all of the TOPAZ partners are playing significant roles in these initiatives.