Page 18: of Marine Technology Magazine (March 2023)

OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTRUMENTATION & SENSORS oceans are] a very big place.” and basically improving the forecast, reducing the uncertainty. “The principle’s very simple, technically it’s described as From the ground up, the whole system is designed to be a very data assimilation, which basically means we’re taking all effective way of reducing uncertainty in forecasts,” said Jans- the sensor information we can get our hands on … our own sen. He ? gures that one reason this hasn’t been easy for gov- network of thousands of sensors worldwide, satellite data, ernment organizations is the fact that observations, modeling, data from public networks … and we put all of that informa- and dissemination of the outcomes are separated rigorously, tion into our models on the ‘now’ state. We tell the model, whereas Sofar Ocean has everything under one roof. “How ‘look this is what we know about how the weather is behav- cool is it that a small team like ours can actually run numeri- ing right now, take that, correct whatever you thought was cal weather forecasts in the cloud? That’s cloud computing; it going on, and translate that into what will be happening in wasn’t possible ? ve years ago.” the future.’” So melding sensors – sensors low cost enough to allow de- “We run our own operational numerical weather forecast ployment at scale – with IoT capabilities plus real-time con- models in the cloud, gathering all of this information every six nectivity to drive that information to the models creates a dy- hours, getting everything together, running a forecast cycle, namic and powerful value proposition.

Way? nder is a dynamic voyage guidance system, designed to deliver the most ef? cient and least weather-restricted speed and waypoint recommendations to a ? eet. Powered by Sofar Ocean’s global network of ocean sensors, helping to produce accurate marine weather forecasts and inform detailed

Vessel Performance Models (VPM).

All images courtesy Sofar Ocean 18 March/April 2023

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