NOAA is embarking on an ambitious effort, the Climate, Ecosystems and Fisheries Initiative (CEFI), to develop and deploy a nation-wide ocean modeling, prediction, and decision support system to meet the challenge of coastal ecosystem management in a changing climate.

As described in the link above, CEFI will integrate expertise and capabilities across NOAA’s line offices to accomplish this task, establishing strong feedback loops between model development and the intended application. The primary role of NOAA’s office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) in this effort is the development and delivery of a national network of ocean modeling and predictions systems for climate-scale applications, including seasonal predictions (12 months), decadal predictions (10 years), and multi-decadal projections (to the end of the 21st century). These simulations must include both physical and biogeochemical drivers of ecosystem change, must be of sufficient resolution to capture continental shelf-scale dynamics critical for fisheries and other living marine resources, and must include sufficient ensembles to quantify uncertainties.

We are leveraging NOAA’s Modular Ocean Model 6 (MOM6) and its associated biogeochemical components, which were initially developed at the Geophysical Dynamics Laboratory, to accomplish this task. The combination of resolution, comprehensiveness, ensembles, and regional tailoring, however, precludes a global approach. CEFI’s climate-scale effort will thus build upon MOM6’s regional ocean modeling capabilities.