Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean

ECCO's overall goal is to bring ocean state estimation from it's experimental status to that of a practical and quasi operational tool for studying large- scale ocean dynamics, designing observational strategies, and examining the ocean's role in climate variability. Their technical goal is the sustained production and evaluation of ... continuing three-dimensional estimates of the global state of the ocean in near-real time in support programs such as GODAE and CLIVAR. The main task is to bring together a global GCM with existing global data streams - including TOPEX/POSEIDON and JASON altimeter observations and in situ hydrographic and flow measurements such as what will be available from the ARGO program - to obtain the best possible estimate of the time evolving ocean circulation and related uncertainties.