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- Author or Editor: Ibrahim Hoteit x
- Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society x
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Abstract
Coastal oceans host 40% of the world population and amount to $1.5 trillion of the global economy. Studying, managing, and developing the coastal regions require decades-long information about their environment. Long-term ocean measurements are, however, lacking for most coastal regions and often global reanalyses are used instead. These are, however, coarse in nature and tuned for the global circulations. The Red Sea (RS) is a narrow basin connected to the Indian Ocean through the Bab-al-Mandab Strait. Despite being the busiest commercial crossroad and hosting the world’s third largest coral reef system, the RS lacks long-term observations. A recent increase in population and an unprecedented acceleration in governmental and industrial developments further emphasized the need for long-term datasets to support its development and the sustainability of its habitats, and to understand its response to a changing climate. Toward this end, we have generated a 20-yr high-resolution reanalysis for the RS (RSRA) using a state-of-the-art ensemble data assimilation system incorporating available observations. Compared to global reanalyses, RSRA provides a markedly better description of the RS general and mesoscale circulation features, their variability, and trends. In particular, RSRA accurately captures the three-layer summer transport through the Bab-al-Mandab, simulated as two-layer transport by some global reanalyses. It further reproduces the seasonal anomalies, whereas global reanalyses misidentify some seasons as anomalous. Global reanalyses further overestimate the interannual variations in salinity, misrepresent the trend in temperature, and underestimate the trend in sea level. Our study clearly emphasizes the importance of generating dedicated high-resolution regional ocean reanalyses.
Abstract
Coastal oceans host 40% of the world population and amount to $1.5 trillion of the global economy. Studying, managing, and developing the coastal regions require decades-long information about their environment. Long-term ocean measurements are, however, lacking for most coastal regions and often global reanalyses are used instead. These are, however, coarse in nature and tuned for the global circulations. The Red Sea (RS) is a narrow basin connected to the Indian Ocean through the Bab-al-Mandab Strait. Despite being the busiest commercial crossroad and hosting the world’s third largest coral reef system, the RS lacks long-term observations. A recent increase in population and an unprecedented acceleration in governmental and industrial developments further emphasized the need for long-term datasets to support its development and the sustainability of its habitats, and to understand its response to a changing climate. Toward this end, we have generated a 20-yr high-resolution reanalysis for the RS (RSRA) using a state-of-the-art ensemble data assimilation system incorporating available observations. Compared to global reanalyses, RSRA provides a markedly better description of the RS general and mesoscale circulation features, their variability, and trends. In particular, RSRA accurately captures the three-layer summer transport through the Bab-al-Mandab, simulated as two-layer transport by some global reanalyses. It further reproduces the seasonal anomalies, whereas global reanalyses misidentify some seasons as anomalous. Global reanalyses further overestimate the interannual variations in salinity, misrepresent the trend in temperature, and underestimate the trend in sea level. Our study clearly emphasizes the importance of generating dedicated high-resolution regional ocean reanalyses.
Abstract
The Red Sea, home to the second-longest coral reef system in the world, is a vital resource for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Red Sea provides 90% of the Kingdom’s potable water by desalinization, supporting tourism, shipping, aquaculture, and fishing industries, which together contribute about 10%–20% of the country’s GDP. All these activities, and those elsewhere in the Red Sea region, critically depend on oceanic and atmospheric conditions. At a time of mega-development projects along the Red Sea coast, and global warming, authorities are working on optimizing the harnessing of environmental resources, including renewable energy and rainwater harvesting. All these require high-resolution weather and climate information. Toward this end, we have undertaken a multipronged research and development activity in which we are developing an integrated data-driven regional coupled modeling system. The telescopically nested components include 5-km- to 600-m-resolution atmospheric models to address weather and climate challenges, 4-km- to 50-m-resolution ocean models with regional and coastal configurations to simulate and predict the general and mesoscale circulation, 4-km- to 100-m-resolution ecosystem models to simulate the biogeochemistry, and 1-km- to 50-m-resolution wave models. In addition, a complementary probabilistic transport modeling system predicts dispersion of contaminant plumes, oil spill, and marine ecosystem connectivity. Advanced ensemble data assimilation capabilities have also been implemented for accurate forecasting. Resulting achievements include significant advancement in our understanding of the regional circulation and its connection to the global climate, development, and validation of long-term Red Sea regional atmospheric–oceanic–wave reanalyses and forecasting capacities. These products are being extensively used by academia, government, and industry in various weather and marine studies and operations, environmental policies, renewable energy applications, impact assessment, flood forecasting, and more.
Abstract
The Red Sea, home to the second-longest coral reef system in the world, is a vital resource for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Red Sea provides 90% of the Kingdom’s potable water by desalinization, supporting tourism, shipping, aquaculture, and fishing industries, which together contribute about 10%–20% of the country’s GDP. All these activities, and those elsewhere in the Red Sea region, critically depend on oceanic and atmospheric conditions. At a time of mega-development projects along the Red Sea coast, and global warming, authorities are working on optimizing the harnessing of environmental resources, including renewable energy and rainwater harvesting. All these require high-resolution weather and climate information. Toward this end, we have undertaken a multipronged research and development activity in which we are developing an integrated data-driven regional coupled modeling system. The telescopically nested components include 5-km- to 600-m-resolution atmospheric models to address weather and climate challenges, 4-km- to 50-m-resolution ocean models with regional and coastal configurations to simulate and predict the general and mesoscale circulation, 4-km- to 100-m-resolution ecosystem models to simulate the biogeochemistry, and 1-km- to 50-m-resolution wave models. In addition, a complementary probabilistic transport modeling system predicts dispersion of contaminant plumes, oil spill, and marine ecosystem connectivity. Advanced ensemble data assimilation capabilities have also been implemented for accurate forecasting. Resulting achievements include significant advancement in our understanding of the regional circulation and its connection to the global climate, development, and validation of long-term Red Sea regional atmospheric–oceanic–wave reanalyses and forecasting capacities. These products are being extensively used by academia, government, and industry in various weather and marine studies and operations, environmental policies, renewable energy applications, impact assessment, flood forecasting, and more.
