Towards an end-to-end analysis and prediction system for weather, climate, and marine applications in the Red Sea

Ibrahim Hoteit, Yasser Abualnaja, Shehzad Afzal, Boujemaa Ait-El-Fquih, Triantaphyllos Akylas, Charls Antony, Clint Dawson, Khaled Asfahani, Robert J. Brewin, Luigi Cavaleri, Ivana Cerovecki, Bruce Cornuelle, Srinivas Desamsetti, Raju Attada, Hari Dasari, Jose Sanchez-Garrido, Lily Genevier, Mohamad El Gharamti, John A. Gittings, Elamurugu GokulGanesh Gopalakrishnan, Daquan Guo, Bilel Hadri, Markus Hadwiger, Mohammed Abed Hammoud, Myrl Hendershott, Mohamad Hittawe, Ashok Karumuri, Omar Knio, Armin Köhl, Samuel Kortas, George Krokos, Ravi Kunchala, Leila Issa, Issam Lakkis, Sabique Langodan, Pierre Lermusiaux, Thang Luong, Jingyi Ma, Olivier Le Maitre, Matthew Mazloff, Samah El Mohtar, Vassilis P. Papadopoulos, Trevor Platt, Larry Pratt, Naila Raboudi, Marie-Fanny Racault, Dionysios E. Raitsos, Shanas Razak, Sivareddy Sanikommu, Shubha Sathyendranath, Sarantis Sofianos, Aneesh Subramanian, Rui Sun, Edriss Titi, Habib Toye, George Triantafyllou, Kostas Tsiaras, Panagiotis Vasou, Yesubabu Viswanadhapalli, Yixin Wang, Fengchao Yao, Peng Zhang, George Zodiatis

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

34 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The Red Sea, home to the second-longest coral reef system in the world, is a vital resource for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Red Sea provides 90% of the Kingdom’s potable water by desalinization, supporting tourism, shipping, aquaculture, and fishing industries, which together contribute about 10%–20% of the country’s GDP. All these activities, and those elsewhere in the Red Sea region, critically depend on oceanic and atmospheric conditions. At a time of mega-development projects along the Red Sea coast, and global warming, authorities are working on optimizing the harnessing of environmental resources, including renewable energy and rainwater harvesting. All these require high-resolution weather and climate information. Toward this end, we have undertaken a multipronged research and development activity in which we are developing an integrated data-driven regional coupled modeling system. The telescopically nested components include 5-km- to 600-m-resolution atmospheric models to address weather and climate challenges, 4-km- to 50-m-resolution ocean models with regional and coastal configurations to simulate and predict the general and mesoscale circulation, 4-km- to 100-m-resolution ecosystem models to simulate the biogeochemistry, and 1-km- to 50-m-resolution wave models. In addition, a complementary probabilistic transport modeling system predicts dispersion of contaminant plumes, oil spill, and marine ecosystem connectivity. Advanced ensemble data assimilation capabilities have also been implemented for accurate forecasting. Resulting achievements include significant advancement in our understanding of the regional circulation and its connection to the global climate, development, and validation of long-term Red Sea regional atmospheric–oceanic–wave reanalyses and forecasting capacities. These products are being extensively used by academia, government, and industry in various weather and marine studies and operations, environmental policies, renewable energy applications, impact assessment, flood forecasting, and more.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)E99–E122
Number of pages24
JournalBulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Volume102
Issue number1
Early online date19 Jan 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2021

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