Lead institution:
Mercator Ocean International – France
Ocean prediction is an essential element across the objectives, challenges, and outcomes of the UN Ocean Decade, and the modelling community is involved in numerous programmes designed to drive the innovation needed to achieve UN Ocean Decade goals.
The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC) has entrusted Mercator Ocean International to coordinate the OceanPrediction Decade Collaborative Center (DCC), with the following mission: “to achieve a predicted ocean through a shared and coordinated global effort within the framework of the UN Ocean Decade”. The centre implements a community-driven agenda that allows the ocean prediction community to collaborate on activities such as communication, outreach, training, cost sharing, joint workshops, and the standardization of language and outputs. Additionally, it facilitates the co-design of an architecture necessary for developing a global ocean prediction system.
The centre acts as a global convener of multidisciplinary ocean prediction expertise, collaborating with intergovernmental programs (e.g., GOOS, ETOOFS, IODE, OBPS) to establish agreements on operational infrastructure, terminology, and standards needed to deliver unified services from multiple geographic and thematic nodes
The OceanPrediction DCC facilitates the structuring and engagement of the ocean prediction community through a collective framework established with partners around a common vision and agenda, standardized methods, mutually reinforcing activities that cut across programmes, silos and value-chain elements, and open, continuous communications.
It is working with UN Ocean Decade and non-UN Ocean Decade programmes and organizations to develop and implement joint training, outreach, and capacity development activities for global and regional engagement.
The OceanPrediction DCC is based on two pillars: a global community and global technical framework. The global community serves as a backbone collaboration structure and gives a collective voice to the ocean prediction community. This community is organised in 9 Regional Teams and around a communication and collaboration hub, focusing and optimising individual efforts on achieving the collective goals of the UN Ocean Decade related to Ocean Forecasting. Through its technical framework, the DCC works on the co-design and implementation, in collaboration with UN Ocean Decade actions and other relevant actors, of a new scenario for ocean forecasting based on interoperability and a shared architecture to ‘deliver as one’, leveraging the coming innovations derived from the digital twinning concept.
The Ocean Prediction DCC is currently implementing two projects in the framework of the DCC that are funded by the European Union. Covering sub-Saharan Africa, OPERA – which stands for “Ocean Prediction Enhancement in Regions of Africa” is a project that aims to strengthen Ocean prediction capabilities and cooperation at national, regional, pan-African levels in the region. In Costa Rica, OP4CR – which stands for “Ocean Prediction Enhancement for Costa Rica” is a project that works to provide tailored Ocean prediction services to strengthen the country’s ocean digital capabilities and connect it to global ocean prediction networks.
For more information :
- Visit the OceanPrediction DCC website
- Follow the OceanPrediction DCC on X/Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn
- Register to join the OceanPrediction Global Community
- Join our Atlas!
- Access our technical resources!
Contact Email: oceanprediction@mercator-ocean.fr