Hawaiian Islands Operational System

Souza,J. A. M. C. and Powell, B. - SOEST, University of Hawaii

An operational, nowcast and forecast ocean system for the Hawaiian archipelago is presented. This system is part of the Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS) project. It is formed by an outer grid and two nested grids for improved resolution near the islands of Maui, Lanai, Molokai and Oahu (2 kilometers to 700 meters resolution), and the southern shore of Oahu (60m resolution). The outer grid domain extends approximately from 164.5ºW to 152.5ºW and 16.5ºN to 24.5ºN with a ~6km horizontal resolution. This grid uses boundary conditions provided by the Navy Coastal Ocean Model (NCOM) and surface forcing fields from the Weather Regional Forecast (WRF) model. The tidal circulation is spectrally introduced as a separate forcing derived from the Oregon State University TOPEX/Poseidon Global Inverse Solution (TPXO). The system assimilates a variety of data (SLA, SST, Argo and ocean glider profiles, HF radars, etc.) through a 4D-Var scheme and predicts conditions for the next week. The validation of the model against the available observations is discussed.