The Role of the Ocean and Ocean Data in Weather Forecasting

Numerical weather prediction (NWP) relies on the integrations of an appropriate and relevant formulation of fluiddynamics equations of the ‘system’ starting from initial states determined by merging most recently available observations with short-range forecasts, issued from most recent forecasts. For example, the European Centre for Medium-Ranger Weather (ECMWF) forecast that started at 12 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) of 14 May 2017, used as initial conditions the state of the system at 12 UTC, estimated by merging observations collected between in the hours before 12 UTC and a 12-hour forecast that started at 00 UTC.