Activities at METNO

METNO is responsible for weather forecasting, ice and ocean forecasting, and climate studies in Norway, its surrounding seas and at Spitsbergen. The quality of these services depend critically on information from the high Arctic. METNO is therefore greatly interested in, and heavily involved in, DAMOCLES.

METNO operates three permanent meteorological stations in the Arctic (Jan Mayen, Bear Island and Hopen). However, the spatial coverage of traditional meteorological observations is poor within the Arctic. Polar orbiting satellite data on the other hand provides very good spatial and temporal coverage of the Arctic and can be used for extraction of information on weather, ice and surface temperatures.

Part of METNO's efforts within DAMOCLES will focus on improving the methodology for extraction of sea ice information from satellite data. Furthermore, it will be attempted to improve the methods for interpretation of satellite retrieved atmospheric temperature profiles over ice covered surfaces. Such temperature profiles from satellite are the most important satellite observations in regions with few conventional observations.

The coverage of oceanographic observations is far worse than for the atmosphere. Thus METNO will deploy new instruments in the Arctic. These instruments will be utilised for surveillance of the ocean heat budget which plays an important role in the ocean circulation.

METNO is also combining observations and numerical simulations through data assimilation. This tool is important both for numerical weather prediction models and for reanalysis. Reanalysis is among the most important tools for analysis of past climate tendencies. METNO operates numerical models for both the atmosphere, the ocean, sea ice and in more advanced systems where these models are coupled. An example of a model simulation produced at METNO can be seen in this animation of sea ice and SST.

All the observations and numerical simulations performed within DAMOCLES will be handled through the DAMOCLES Data Management System. METNO participates in the development of this system and will host it.

For further information on DAMOCLES activities at METNO, please contact Harald Schyberg (email: h.schyberg[the_usual_symbol]met.no)