1. Naval Oceanographic Office
Spring COPC Update
27 May 2015
CAPT A.J. Reiss, Commanding Officer
Mr. Tom Cuff, Technical Director
CAPT Greg Ireton, Executive Officer 1

2. Agenda Overview of NAVOCEANO’s missions Structure within Navy
Value of COPC and its related activities

3. NAVOCEANO Mission
To optimize sea power by applying relevant oceanographic knowledge in support of U.S. National Security
Our mission statement emphasizes that our reason for existence is to optimize sea power by applying relevant oceanographic knowledge in support of U.S. National Security.
The key word is relevant. We are not in the business of basic research and development. We are in the business of supplying operational ocean products. We have more of an applied use than our colleagues down the street at the Naval Research Lab. 3

4. Core Competencies MIW Fleet OPS CSG ESG USMC SPECOPS NSW ISR JOINT ASW
PHYSICAL
OCEANOGRAPHY
Fleet OPS
CSG
ESG
USMC
HYDROGRAPHY
BATHYMETRY
SPECOPS
NSW
ISR
JOINT
GEOPHYSICS
ASW
Core disciplines at NAVOCEANO include ocean science and application areas.
Hydrography focuses on the measurements of the physical characteristics of waters and marginal land areas. Bathymetry measures the underwater depth and is collected in both deep and shallow water. Geophysics indicates what type of seabed you have.
Those properties affect acoustics and physical oceanography, which, in turn, impact the water column, salinity and temperature.
All our data are geospatial. The warfare areas—the reason we exist—each receive uniquely tailored products using this information, listed in the middle, to apply to their specific missions.
ACOUSTICS
GEOSPATIAL
SCIENCES 4

5. Physical Battlespace Awareness
Battlespace on Demand generates an operational advantage by fully integrating characterization and prediction of the environment to optimize decision making.
For the naval meteorology and oceanography domain, this is the paradigm of how we collect information and how it has impact. The concept is called Battlespace on Demand—providing information about the battlespace when the Fleet needs it.
Naval Oceanography is about generating competitive advantage across the warfighting and shaping spectrum. Our strategy, Battlespace on Demand, consists of three tiers, each of which builds on the previous tiers to ultimately produce enhanced decision-making capabilities for the warfighter.
At Tier 0, data from various sources are collected, assimilated and fused to provide initial and boundary conditions that accurately describe the current ocean and atmosphere environment, as well as the celestial and temporal reference frames.
Then at Tier 1, data from satellites, altimetry, gliders, buoys and other collection methods are incorporated to initialize computations. Then, our high performance supercomputers run complex models to continually forecast and verify the future state of the ocean and atmosphere.
At Tier 2, the environment modeled in Tier 1 will impact sensors, weapons, platforms and people, providing opportunities and restrictions for operations and warfighting. We define the influences on planning, force structure, targeting, timing, maneuver, tactics, techniques and procedures. The result is a “performance surface” that accounts for both the predicted environment and the capabilities and behaviors of the force – both allies and adversaries.
Finally at Tier 3, performance surfaces are applied to specific decision-making processes to quantify risk and opportunity at strategic, operational and tactical levels. We provide actionable recommendations on force allocation and employment that directly enhance safety and warfighting effectiveness.
This framework illustrates how we provide the right information at the right time.
“Home Field Advantage at the Away Games”

6. Collection and Sensing Tools
+ Military Survey Ships (T-AGS)
+ Hydrographic Survey Launch (HSL)
+ Maritime Homeland Defense Mine Warfare SWATH Vessels
+ Airborne Coastal Survey (ACS)
+ Fleet Survey Team (FST)
+ Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs)
+ Profiling Floats, Buoys & Marine Mammals
+ Environmental Acoustic Recording System (EARS)
+ Naval Platforms (TTS)
+ Satellites
+ National and International Data Exchange Agreements
That brings us to our core business, what we do—the collection and processing of data.
We use a number of different assets, platforms and vehicles to collect data. Our most important capital assets are our ships. Currently, we use six T-AGS 60 multipurpose oceanographic survey ships to collect data. A new, state-of-the-art T-AGS 66 ship is scheduled to become operational in 2015.
There are numerous other ways we collect data such as airplanes that use light detection and ranging, or LIDAR, to map coastal areas and shallow water, unmanned underwater vehicles and satellite imagery.
Persistent & State of the Art

7. Ocean Gliders
Note that temporal variability can increase with depth, down to 1000m, in areas where internal waves are generated (straits, etc).
Another type of AUV used here at NAVOCEANO is the underwater glider. The other AUVs I have mentioned are powered vehicles, which use batteries for propulsion.
However, the glider uses wings for propulsion and a piston to adjust its buoyancy, thus, moving consistently up and down the water column in a sawtooth pattern. Periodically, the glider will rise to the surface, obtain a GPS fix and communicate with the pilots at NAVO. Top speed is about half a knot. So in strong currents, these are not as useful as battery-powered AUVs.
Still, they can provide a lot of useful information and operate in places or at times, perhaps, our survey ships cannot. For example, we deployed several in front of a typhoon some time ago. Although our ships had to leave the area, the gliders could stay, collecting temperature, salinity and optics data.
The gliders do use lithium batteries to operate the sensors, but not for vehicle propulsion.
NAVOCEANO presently operates about gliders at any given time; we expect to have 150 in inventory by This is a major increase in our ability to provide information back to NAVO in real time transmitted via satellite. They stay out as long as the batteries last, from a few weeks to several months.
LBS-Glider Specifications:
Weight kg
Hull Dia cm
Length m
Speed cm/s
Max Depth 200/1000 m
Endurance 4-6 months
Range km
Energy Li-oxyhalide

8. Application of Ocean Gliders
Persistent sampling with gliders in the Physical Battlespace leads to...
Predictive Physical Battlespace Awareness for decision superiority in the maritime domain
Ocean currents – unmanned systems, mine/debris drift models, SAR
SST – sound velocity profiles, acoustic propagation, beam attenuation
Fronts and eddies & sonic layer depth – environmental exploitation
Ocean optics – vertical and horizontal visibility, asset vulnerability

9. Other in situ Measurements
Profiling Floats
Profiling Floats
Drifter vs. RNCOM
iSPHERE Drifter
Davis Drifter
WOCE Drifter
Marine Mammals
Expanded use of Iridium Profiling Floats
Marine Mammals
Decisions on where to deploy, and the priorities, are based on four factors :
Does NAVOCEANO have an operational regional/coastal ocean model in the area?
Is there real-world significance or existing naval requirement?
Is the area used for exercises / training by US Naval Forces?
Do other countries deploy in the area and do they make their data readily available?

10. Ocean Circulation Modeling
Global Regional Local
3.7 km
9 km
500 m
60 m 5
We run a series of nested, higher and higher resolution ocean models (Navy Coastal Ocean Model -NCOM) around the world. These are data assimilating, three dimensional, full physics forecast models. Each day the ocean models assimilate millions of sea surface temperature and sea surface height (altimetry) data points from satellite sources. Thousands of real-time temperature and salinity profiles come in every day from ships, aircraft, profiling floats and ocean gliders. Atmospheric models from FNMOC provide surface forcing conditions.
The global models provide boundary conditions to regional models that provide boundary conditions to local models. In this stepwise fashion, higher and higher resolution features and processes are resolved to match the forecast requirements of operations occurring at the local level.
A number of these Regional NCOM domains are running around the world in areas of Navy interest. In addition to the US East coast NCOM shown here, we have domains running off the southern California coast, around Hawaii and in the Gulf of Mexico / Caribbean region. Nested into the regional domains are higher resolution Coastal NCOMs as shown by the Groton NCOM here. This is running at a 500 meter resolution. This kind of domain supports near coastal operations and approaches to Ports and Harbors. Special very high resolution Port models using Delft3D are setup to support port and harbor scale operations.
From the ocean models come forecasts of currents, temperature, salinity and water height. From these fundamental parameters we calculate object drift and sound speed. The sound speed fields are used to calculate other Anti Submarine Warfare type properties and are used in acoustic modeling. Object drift calculations are used to hind-cast and forecast the movement of objects of concern to the Navy; they also help with Search and Rescue type operations.
Groton
Delft3D
Groton NCOM
Global HYCOM
Currents
Temperature
Salinity
Wave Height
Object Drift
Sound speed
US-East NCOM
3D full physics, Data assimilating, Forecast models

11. Ocean Forecasting System
Observations Ocean Models Forecasting
Global – Regional – Coastal – Port
Satellite & In situ
9 km km m m
Oceanographers
- Configure models
- Interpret forecasts & observations
- Evaluate uncertainty
- Tailor analysis to Navy mission
- 3D Full Physics
- Assimilation
Forecasts to 7 days
Nesting / Boundary
Civilian – Military Forecasting Teams
NAVGEM / COAMPS
US-East
NCOM
HYCOM
Groton
Delft3D
Groton NCOM
Super Computers – Networks – Servers – Workstations

12. CNMOC Modeling Roadmap
National Earth Systems Prediction Capability (ESPC) is the future of NWP and METOC guidance fields
“Bridge” strategy provides a pathway to the future ESPC from the current infrastructure and model suites

13. High Performance Computing
DoD Supercomputing Resource Center (DSRC)
+ Among the top supercomputing centers in the world
 + Peak computing capability of 777 Teraflops
Petascale Data Storage and Mgmt
+ Top Tier of Nation’s secure and scalable data management and archival facilities
Cutting-edge Networking Connectivity
+ Stennis designated DISA C2 Mega-site
+ Resilient, multi-GB connectivity via Defense Research & Engineering Network (DREN) to all major nationwide gov’t, industrial, and academic networks
The Navy DoD Supercomputing Resource Center, or Navy DSRC, one of five Department of Defense supercomputing sites, is located in NAVOCEANO spaces and managed by CNMOC.
NAVOCEANO is in the data management business and stores very large amounts of data. NAVOCEANO uses much of the data it collects to numerically model the ocean. The physical models that are run computationally require inordinate amounts of computing power. The large numerical models at NAVO are run at the Navy DSRC. Through an agreement with the DOD High Performance Computing Modernization Program, CNMOC reserves up to 15 percent of its computing power to use for operations. The remaining 85% is used by Army, Navy, Air Force, and Defense agency research and development users.
We also use peta-scale storage to store massive amounts of modeling output. A petabyte is 1,000 terabytes. A terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes. To give you an idea of a peta-scale architecture, one petabyte is the equivalent of roughly 6.7 billion digital photos.

14. Agenda Overview of NAVOCEANO’s missions Structure within Navy
Value of COPC and its related activities

15. Fleet Alignment Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Washington, DC
Commander, Fleet Forces Command
(USFF)
Norfolk, VA
Commander, Naval Meteorology
and Oceanography Command
(CNMOC)
Stennis Space Center, MS
Naval Information Dominance Forces,
Type Commander
(NAVIDFOR)
Suffolk, VA
Ops
Man, Train, Equip
Readiness
Naval Oceanography
Operations Command
(NOOC)
Stennis Space Center, MS
Naval Oceanographic Office
(NAVOCEANO)
Stennis Space Center, MS
Fleet Numerical Meteorology
And Oceanography Center
(FNMOC)
Monterey, CA
This is the higher level organizational concept of NAVOCEANO. We report to CNMOC, located right here at Stennis Space Center. They report to USFF in Norfolk, Virginia, who reports to the Chief of Naval Operations.
Our sister commands are Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center, the Naval Observatory, the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Professional Development Center, and the Naval Oceanography Operations Command, who controls all the regional centers, or the dispersed footprint of naval oceanography.
NAVOCEANO’s two subordinate commands are Fleet Survey Team located at Stennis Space Center, Miss., and the Naval Ice Center in Washington, D.C. I’ll explain more about them in a few minutes.
U.S. Naval Observatory
(USNO)
Washington, DC
Naval Meteorology And
Oceanography Professional
Development Center (NMOPDC)
Gulfport, MS
Fleet Survey
Team (FST)
SSC, MS
Naval Ice
Center (NIC)
Suitland, MD 15

16. National / Naval Ice Center
Tri-Agency (Navy, NOAA, USCG) Partnership
Navy-led organization with ~40 military and civilian personnel located in Suitland, MD
World’s only center that provides operational global, regional and tactical scale sea ice and iceberg analyses and forecasts
International collaboration with ice services of the world
The other subordinate command is the Naval Ice Center, or NAVICE, located in Washington, D.C. NAVICE is the Navy arm of the National Ice Center, a cooperative operational center that consists of Navy, Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
NAVICE provides quality, timely, accurate, and relevant snow and ice products and services to meet the strategic, operations, and tactical requirements of the United States interests across the global area of responsibility. It is the only center in world providing operational Arctic and Antarctic ice analysis. With increased attention focused on global climate change and an ice-diminishing Arctic, NAVICE is a very busy command.
The command is made up of approximately 50 military and civilian personnel.
NIC Products
SPecial ARctic Oceanographic Synopsis (SPAROS)
Ice characterization (a.k.a “Egg Charts”)
RADARSAT & OLS Annotated Imagery
World’s only Antarctic iceberg database
Supporting: SUBFOR, ONI, USCG, NOAA, NWS, NSF, MSC, and NASA

17. Agenda Overview of NAVOCEANO’s missions Structure within Navy
Value of COPC and its related activities

18. In-situ Data Inputs & Impacts
Products
BUFR
Character Code
COPC OPCs
FNMOC
Numerical Weather Prediction
NWS/NCWCP
NAVOCEANO
Ocean Forecast Capability
Data Providers Data Type TOC CTDs, Gliders, Profiling Floats, XBTs, Marine Mammals, Moored Buoys, Fixed Stations, Ship Reports, Drifting Buoys AFWA (DoD OTN) CTDs, Gliders, FNMOC CTDs, XBTs, Ship Reports, Drifting Buoys, Moored Buoys, Fixed Stations NAVO CTDs, Gliders, XBTs, Profiling Floats, Ship Reports, Drifting Buoys CLS America/ARGOS Academia
NAVO Specific
Profiling Floats
and Drifters
COPC partners are highlighted in red. All I-situ inputs, COPC and Non-COPC contributors, are included in NAVO products which are distributed to OPCs.
NAVO products impact NWP and Ocean forecast capabilities (where applicable).
NOTE: NAVO products to NCEP are NAVO “specific” profiling floats and drifters. Other OPCs already have their own.

19. Satellite Data Inputs & Impacts
Satellite Inputs
Data Providers Data Type
NOAA/NESDIS MetOp (A&B),
(COPC OTN) N-18, N-19,
MTSAT SST
Jason- 2, Cryosat-2
JPL/IFREMER GHRSST MSG SST
Windsat SST
FMQ-17(NAVO) GOES E&W
AFWA (DoD OTN) S-NPP
CNES ALTIKA
NASA MODIS AQUA
Aquarius
SeaSpace COMS-1 MI
KORDI COMS-1 GOCI
FNMOC (DoD OTN) SSM/I, SSM/IS EDR
JAXA AMSR2
Products
SST
IR Imagery
Ocean Feature Analysis
Annotated AVHRR/VIIRS
Altimetry
SSHA/SWH/WS
Ocean Optics
Visibility & Attenuation
Visible Imagery
Ice Characterization
Sea Surface Salinity
COPC OPCs
FNMOC
Numerical Weather Prediction
NWS/NCWCP
NESDIS/OSPO
Ocean Heat Content
NAVOCEANO
Ocean Forecast Capability
~ 64 million obs/day
~ 450K
obs/day
This includes both operational and non-operational datasets but is basically all of the datasets we’re currently (soon to be) processing.
COPC partners are highlighted in red. All satellite inputs, COPC and Non-COPC contributors, are included in NAVO products which are distributed to OPCs.
NAVO products impact NWP and Ocean forecast capabilities (where applicable) and are color coded to distinguish product type and impact for each OPC.
~ 11 million obs/day

20. Summary COPC partnerships enable:
Access to full range of satellite data
Access to observational data
Sharing of model data
Coordination of standards
Networks to efficiently and safely move METOC information among the partners
Impact: Naval forces get the world’s best environmental data, relevant and timely, to support operations around the globe

21. Questions?