Copernicus C3S2_601 Advancing ocean data assimilation methodology for climate applications

Tender description

ECMWF, as the Entrusted Entity for the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), invites tenders for advancing the ocean data assimilation methodology in support of climate applications, specifically Earth System reanalyses and initialization of seasonal forecasts, both key elements of the C3S.. Lot 1: ECMWF intends to award a framework agreement with a maximum duration of 36 months for advancing the ocean data assimilation methodology in support of climate applications, specifically Earth System reanalyses and initialization of seasonal forecasts, both key elements of the C3S. The service sought builds on the development already carried out under a previous C3S contract (C3S_321b), which implemented the components needed to enable an ensemble of data assimilations (EDA) for ocean reanalyses. The main goal of this contract is to further integrate these individual components and to develop additional data assimilation (DA) tools so the next generation of C3S climate reanalysis can benefit from better exploitation of the available observations. The ocean data assimilation will be based on the NEMO ocean model, on the NEMOVAR data assimilation system and it will use the (C++ based) Object-Oriented Prediction System (OOPS) infrastructure. The successful tenderer shall run experiments using the ECMWF computer and software infrastructure, and work closely with ECMWF experts on ocean/coupled DA. Please note the important additional information in Section VI.3) regarding funding and eligibility.