Improving forecasts of individual ocean eddies using feature mapping

Marine industries, war fighters, and world leaders demand accurate maps of ocean properties to underpin tactical and strategic decisions. Oceanographers have approached this challenge by borrowing mapping techniques from weather forecasters. However, compared to the atmosphere, the spatial scales of the ocean are small, and ocean properties are vastly under-sampled. Not surprisingly, despite decades of dedicated effort, the quality of maps of under-sea conditions remains poor. Feature mapping is a new approach to this problem that treats every ocean eddy individually. It strictly limits the influence of each observation to the oceanographic feature that it directly observes. Resulting maps are precise and realistic and may revolutionise ocean forecasting.

Automated summary

Marine industries, war fighters, and world leaders require accurate ocean property maps for tactical and strategic decision-making. Oceanographers have applied mapping techniques from weather forecasting, but the small spatial scales and under-sampling of ocean properties have led to poor quality maps. Feature mapping is an innovative approach that treats each ocean eddy individually, resulting in precise and realistic maps that could revolutionize ocean forecasting.