An Overview of the Navy Earth System Prediction Capability (ESPC): The Operational System to Future Developments.

The Navy Earth System Prediction Capability (ESPC) is a coupled atmosphere-ocean-sea ice forecast system developed to meet US Navy needs for high-resolution global environmental forecasts on timescales from days to months. The existing operational 16-member ensemble system consists of the NAVy Global Environmental Model (NAVGEM) for the atmosphere, the HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM) for the ocean and the Community Ice CodE (CICE) for the cryosphere that are fully coupled and assimilate real-time observations for the atmosphere using the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Atmospheric Variational Data Assimilation System - Accelerated Representer (NAVDAS-AR) and the Navy Coupled Ocean Data Assimilation (NCODA) for the ocean and sea ice. ESPC Version 1 is run by the Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC) and cycles forward daily, and initiates 45-day forecasts each Sunday. Version 2 is under development and is scheduled to be transitioned to FNMOC at the end of FY22 which will include upgrades to the model components and the addition of a wave model (WAVEWATCH III), and improvements to the ensemble formulation including more advanced initialization and accounting for model uncertainty. ESPC Version 1 performance will be presented along with a description of the new capabilities introduced in Version 2.