Met Office

Sea Surface Temperature (SST) is an important parameter for many of the operational systems developed and operated at the Met Office. It and acts as a boundary condition to the atmospheric and ocean models.

Numerical weather prediction There are several groups all working within the Numerical Weather Prediction area of the Met Office, all with the ultimate aim of improving the numerical model that is used to forecast the weather; this in turn increases the accuracy of the forecasts that are issued. The model may be improved by better numerical techniques and representation of the atmosphere, by making better use of existing observations or by developing new observation types.

Observations are crucial to weather forecasting. Many thousand are received each day and these are processed, quality controlled and monitored. Following careful quality control procedures observations are processed and incorporated, or assimilated, into the numerical model. In doing this very important process, one gets a representation of the current state of the atmosphere, i.e. an analysis, from which a forecast is obtained.

Oceanography The Met Office routinely run a number of ocean models to provide forecasts that help rganisations such as ferry operators and oil companies to plan their operations at sea. This includes sea-state forecasting with ocean wave models; development of our Forecasting Ocean Assimilation Model (FOAM), a global real-time ocean analysis and forecast model; and regional modelling of the shelf seas around the UK, for which a long-standing operational application is storm surge prediction.

Seasonal prediction the Met Office provides experimental seasonal predictions, covering all areas of the globe, to UK government departments, United Nations organisations, and national meteorological services worldwide. More-detailed for up to one month ahead are produced and used by the commercial sectors.

Climate The Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, which is part of the Met Office, provides a focus in the United Kingdom for the scientific issues associated with climate change. It receives, quality controls, and archives large amounts of observed climate data. These are used for monitoring the climate, in studies of the causes of climate change, and in climate modelling. The HadISST Global sea ice and SST analyses from the Hadley Centre and GISST Sea surface temperature and sea-ice concentration (with missing data filled in to give global coverage) are reference data sets that are used throughout the world for climate research.

Research and Development The Satellite Infrared Sensing Group is involved in using radiances measured by the ATSR nstruments to retrieve accurate SSTs. The Met Office role is in the processing and validation stage with the goal of delivering an accurate satellite-derived SST product to the Hadley Centre where it will be used to augment existing SST climatological databases. An SST analysis is performed each day using observations received from ships, buoys and from satellites (AVHRR). A separate analysis is performed for our combined atmospheric-ocean model.