Impact of different initialisation methods on the quality of sea forecasts for the Sicily Channel

An operational ocean forecasting system provided numerical predictions on the mainhydrodynamics in the seas around Sicily. The system is evaluated using an independent datasetof sea surface temperature (SST) satellite observations. A set of specific numerical experimentsare carried and the simulated SST data was compared with the satellite data observed atselected dates. Two kinds of initialisation techniques are adopted to generate different initialconditions: 'slave mode' and 'partially active mode'. The accuracy of both approaches is analysedto individuate the optimal nesting strategy. The results show that the partially active modeimproves the forecasts, resulting in a model accuracy increase of up to about 30%.