General

The Oceanographic Department (OD) in the Royal Danish Administration of Navigation and Hydrography (RDANH) has continued the operation of

Two tide gauges were set up at the Faroes in 1996; they were withdrawn in April 1997 because of unacceptable rates of duty.

Hydrographic cruise at Greenland

A hydrographic cruise covering six hydrographic east-west sections along the Greenlandic westcoast was carried out in June 1997.

Erik Buch has prepared the salinity and temperature data from this cruise. We will do the formatting and transmission to ICES soon.

GOOS

In February 1998 the head of OD Erik Buch left for the benefit of the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI). As long as his position is not occupied parts of the international effort provided by OD will be slowed down. The work within the GOOS (mainly handled by Erik Buch untill now) will continue with RDANH as associated member. In the spring 1997, a Danish EuroGOOS Committee was set up to coordinate the Danish interests in the EuroGOOS work. The committee consists of representatives among users of oceanographic services and instrument producers. RDANH will continue as a member with the head of the Oceanographic Section Arne Nielsen as a secretary. DMI now chairs the committee.

WWW

In December 1997 DMI arranged a homepage with real time oceanographic data and forecasts based on data from the Danish Coastal Authorithy, DMI and RDANH and on forecasts from a storm surge model operated by DMI. The homepage has the address:

http://vejret.dmi/butik/menudefs/main_maritim.html

The page is updated every quarter of an hour with the latest data and the forecasts are updated every hour. Information on tides are included for selected stations along the Danish westcoast.

Hopefully RDANH will have their own homepage very soon (mainly in Danish!). The page will contain oceanographic data in real time from our tide gauges, current meters and C/T-chains in the Danish waters.

Operational oceanography

The main task of OD is to maintain a network of stations that collect data for dessimination in real time to the users. Also numerical models are important tools in operational oceanography. They provide forecasts for the oceanographic parameters sea level, current, salinity and temperature. OD has no expertise within the development and operation of such numerical models. RDANH has been invited by the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) to take part in a working group for the development of an oceanographic model for the Baltic-North Sea area called HIROMB (High Resolution Ocean Model for the Baltic).

In 1997 RDANH was formally accepted to join a co-operation on the development and operation of HIROMB. The main input from OD will be real time data from our network of stations; validation of the model output will be another topic. The HIROMB model will be operational spring this year and forcasted fields will be available on the Internet.