The NOAA, what is it?
The NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) is the american agency in charge of the ocean and the atmosphere study. Founded in 1807 to the meet the needs of the country regarding the scientific and environmental questions, it has become a world reference. The NOAA scientists use the latest innovative tools to provide reliable scientific data.
The NOAA’s mission:
- Science, Service, and Stewardship.
- To understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts,
- To share that knowledge and information with others, and
- To conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources.
To do so, it is offering for free all its data in oceanography, weather forecast, marine charts, pictures and data from satellites…
http://www.noaa.gov/index.html
The NOAA data that be used in ADRENA
The NOAA marine charts
The ADRENA navigation software are compatible with the raster BSB marine charts available for free on the NOAA website. These charts are built with official data updated weekly and represent a numerical image of the NOAA paper chart.
They cover exclusively the US coasts.
You can download these NOAA raster charts :
- On an interactive chart
- By selecting a file (all charts, by district, by state or by region) BSB charts
The weather predictions
ADRENA is integrating, in its navigation software, a direct friendly interface with the American hydrographic institute NOAA to access for free to their worldwide sea weather predictions.
Based on the american model GFS (Global Forecast System), several types of data are available:
- Wind speed and direction
- Wind at 10 meters
- Wind at 80 meters
- Wind at 850 Hpa
- Wind at 950 Hpa
- Atmospheric pressure
- Precipitations
- Air temperature
- Wave data from model WW3 (WaveWatch 3)
- Swell (height, direction and frequency)
- Wind waves (height and direction)
- Combined waves (height)
- North Atlantic Ocean current (including Gulf Stream)
It is possible to set the Grib precision (ex : 1° or 0.5°), the duration, the time step and types of data to download. The files are refreshed at 0h, 6h, 12h and 18h every day.
The loaded GRIB files can be displayed in ADRENA navigation software and can be used in the routing calculation.
Ensemble predictions and historical GRIBS (Pro version)
Ensemble predictions
The ensemble predictions enable to estimate the weather prediction reliability.
It is possible to calculate automatically several routings with a set of ensemble prediction gribs files. Each grib is created by the same model and set on the same area but one of its variable (pressure, wind, humidity…) is deliberately modified.
It enables to measure the effect of this variable on the routing. When compairing the different routes calculated, if the trajectories are close from one another, it is possible to conclude that the weather situation is quite stable. At the opposite, if the trajectories are quite differents, it is possible to consider that the situation is unstable and that it can change easily.
Historic grib files
The Historic grib files enable to analyse the past weather situations on one single area and one single route. These weather data available in the ADRENA navigation software start from 1979.
It is possible to calculate automatically several routings from these historic Grib files. The routing is going to calculate a route on the same period from the data of each grib file.
Historic: stored and delivered grib files as they were given at their creation date.
Re analyse : Grib files recalculated from the stored data but with new prediction models. This kind of file enable to load older files (from 1979) but they only include wind at 10 meters.
Month: Set the month of the year for which the data will be loaded.
Years : period on which the data of the selected month(s) will be loaded.
Step of time: difference of time between the steps of predictions.
Duration: Gives the ability to load the data from the next month or the two next months in addition to the one selected.
The NOAA websites are filled with so many maritim scientific data, weather, oceanographic or environemental. The issue is to find the adapted data and to be able to use them. The ADRENA navigation software, thanks to the NOAA toolbox, is an open door to access all these available data.
