Currents Forecast : Western North Pacific
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Disclaimer: These model results provide a scientific prediction of existing and future conditions. As with any forecast, however, accuracy cannot be guaranteed and caution is advised. While considerable effort has been made to implement all data components in a thorough, correct, and accurate manner, numerous sources of error are possible. The data are provided free of charge without warranty of any kind.
Disclaimer: These data were generated as part of an academic research project. Accuracy cannot be guaranteed and caution is advised. While considerable effort has been made to implement all data components in a thorough, correct, and accurate manner, numerous sources of error are possible. The data are provided free of charge without warranty of any kind.
PacIOOS’ Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) provides a 7-day, 3-hourly forecast for the region surrounding the Western North Pacific, including Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), the Republic of Palau, and the western half of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) at approximately 8-km (5-mile) resolution. The forecast is run daily and gets updated on this website around 9:30 AM Chamorro Standard Time (UTC+10), which is 11:30 PM UTC. ROMS (http://myroms.org) is an open source, community-supported model widely adopted by the scientific community for a diverse range of applications. Model runs are configured and produced for the Western North Pacific region by Dr. Brian Powell and lab within the Department of Oceanography in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
Boundary conditions are provided by the global, 1/12-degree (~9-km) HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM). Atmospheric forcing is generated by the NOAA/NCEP Global Forecast System (GFS) model for the region surrounding the Western North Pacific at approximately 25-km resolution. Tide forcing uses the Oregon State University (OSU) Tidal Prediction Software (OTPS) TOPEX/Poseidon global inverse solution (TPXO) to derive barotropic tidal elevation and velocity. Furthermore, data are assimilated over the previous 5 days using all available observations to improve the model estimate of the current ocean state before forecasts are run. Assimilated observations are collected independently of PacIOOS and may include satellite-based sea surface temperatures from MODIS, AVHRR, or OSTIA; satellite-based sea surface height from AVISO; surface currents around Palau from CORDC High Frequency Radars (HFR), Scripps Institute of Oceanography; and in-situ water temperature and salinity profiles from ARGO floats.
The ROMS model also provides a Water Temperature Forecast and Salinity Forecast for the Western North Pacific.