Oceanography Projects: Australian Bureau of Meteorology

Oceanic conditions are a critical factor in the earth's climate system. They directly influence fisheries and most aquaculture endeavours, while knowledge of them is essential for such diverse applications as coastal construction, maritime safety, marine pollution response and sustainable management of the marine environment.

Oceanographic Services comprise some of the most recent additions to the suite of services provided by the Bureau of Meteorology. Since taking responsibility for operating the national centre for tidal expertise (the National Tidal Centre or NTC) in 2004, operational oceanographic services in the Bureau have grown rapidly.

With the introduction of the routine provision of several new products from the BLUElink ocean prediction system, Oceanographic Services now encompass a substantial set of informative products which support the safer and more intelligent use of the ocean by users who undertake a wide range of activities on or near Australia's great oceanic environments. BLUElink is a multi-million dollar initiative by the Bureau, the CSIRO and the Royal Australian Navy to provide the nation with a major step forward in our ongoing understanding of the behaviour of the vast coastal and ocean areas in our neighbourhood, and for our ability to operate in those environments more safely, more effectively and for a more sustainable future.

The Bureau has been providing tidal services, including predictions, tsunami services, ocean surface wave predictions, and a range of products concerning ocean temperature including sea surface temperature (SST) analyses and temperature-depth analyses, for some time. The new products from the BLUElink system now provide both analyses and daily forecasts out to 7 days, for a range of surface oceanographic variables, including SST, surface currents, surface salinity, and sea level elevation anomaly. These products support improvement to regional climate forecasts, ship routing to achieve greater fuel savings, improvement to maritime rescue and safety capabilities, and the identification of changes in coastal water temperatures, salinity and currents that directly influence reefs, aquaculture and all forms of marine life.

Oceanographic Services encompasses a wide range of National and International Projects associated with the Bureau of Meteorology. These include the Australian Baseline Sea Level Monitoring Project, BLUElink Ocean Forecasting Australia, the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS), the Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre (JATWC), and the South Pacific Sea Level and Climate Monitoring Project. To learn more about these projects and view their online data, click on the links below.