| Description |
The findings have been used as follows:-
*Sustainability and health of UK national seas: now and the future
NOC was pivotal in providing advice and evidence feeding into UK assessments on "clean, healthy, safe, productive and biologically diverse oceans and seas". These underpin legislation aimed at achieving this vision, specifically the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive. In the UK this took the form of the report: "Charting Progress 2: The State of UK Seas", and the on-going Evidence Groups. Alongside this, the Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership (MCCIP) and UKCP09 provide assessments of potential future conditions. NOC is the leading UK organisation for providing this evidence, advice, information and future projections for physical oceanography. Its scientists were lead / co-authors for CP2 "Ocean Processes" chapter, most MCCIP science reviews, and the UKCP09 Marine Section.
• The UK vision for "clean, healthy, safe, productive and biologically diverse oceans and seas" (Defra, 2002) is reinforced by international obligations, e.g. the Oslo-Paris Convention. Especially, the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD, 2008) lists 11 aspects of "Good Environmental Status" (GES) to be achieved by 2020, and monitored on a six-yearly cycle. Costs of neglecting such Directives can be severe but avoided through good scientific knowledge; NOC's role has been to provide this knowledge in appropriate and timely forms.
• In pursuit of the UK vision and more recently the implementation of MSFD, Defra leads the UK Marine Monitoring and Assessment Strategy (UKMMAS), a "community" of more than 40 member organisations. Through UKMMAS Defra sponsored "Charting Progress 2: The State of UK Seas" (CP2, 2010), a comprehensive report on the state of the UK seas. CP2 "provides a considerably improved assessment of the productivity of our seas, and the extent to which human uses and natural pressures are affecting their quality - addressing the specific species, habitats and economic issues of the eight UK Marine regions. It helps to show whether current environmental protection measures are working, and aims to provide policy makers, planners and the public with a clear evaluation of our progress towards the vision" (Defra introduction therein). CP2 forms the primary evidence base for the Defra 2012 UK Initial Assessment of the state of UK seas under MSFD; this Initial Assessment needed little other evidence than that in CP2 (2010). The CP2 experience has enabled the UK to take the lead across Europe in many aspects of MSFD refinement of GES, defining indicators and targets.
• Annual gross value added by UK marine economic activity is estimated as £47bn, including £37bn oil and gas extraction (CP2, 2010). MSFD poses a challenge to sustain this activity while achieving and maintaining GES. An aspect of this challenge is delivering science to distinguish human from climatic factors in change. The distinction helps to develop an effective Programme of Measures for GES, saving UK plc and Government money. An example is the successful defence of Infraction Proceedings under the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive. Science refutation of this alleged eutrophication in nearshore UK waters (due to nitrate etc. in waste-water) avoided a cost to the UK water industry of £6 bn (of ineffective measures).
• The UK Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership (MCCIP) brings together scientists, government, its agencies and NGOs to provide co-ordinated advice on climate change impacts around our coast and in our seas. The UK marine science strategy states that "Ocean information will be essential and integral to the development and continual improvement of climate information. In this context, MCCIP, in which many organisations contribute to regular assessments of current and future changes, is an example of good practice that the Strategy will seek to support and encourage". Beneficiaries include all those handling marine impacts of climate change. These include Defra and "UK plc": UK business performance vis à vis environmental sustainability and environmental operating conditions.
• UKCP09 is the fifth generation of climate change information for the UK, reflecting significant advances in climate science and computer modelling. For the first time, marine and coastal projections for NW European Seas are included (for sea level rise, storm surge, sea surface and sub-surface temperature, salinity, currents, and waves), including freely available model data sets. MEECE5 and QUEST_FISH6 projects followed this up by exploring climate and direct anthropogenic effects on planktonic ecosystems and fish/fisheries.
• The potential relevance of climate change impacts on fish production to food security are immense, particularly when considered on a global scale, as in QUEST-FISH: about 400 million people rely on fish for >50% of their animal protein.
• UKCP098 and MEECE provide a future look at potential changes to GES under MSFD, specifically relevant to the following GES Descriptors: 1, Biological diversity; 3, Population of commercial fish / shell fish; 4, Elements of marine food webs; 5, Eutrophication; 6, Sea floor integrity; 7, Alteration of hydrographical conditions.
*Cost avoidance: underpinning science base for coastal flood hazards NOC science in the areas of sea level study, modelling of storm surges, waves and tsunamis, and the statistics of sea level extremes, underpins many aspects of government policy on coastal defence and the mitigation of risk. The science forms the basis of mature operational partnerships with the Environment Agency and with the Met Office. Through the Natural Hazards Partnership, NOC reviews coastal hazards for the National Risk Assessment (NRA) and advises the Government Chief Scientist on this issue.
Coastal floods affecting the UK represent a threat to life as well as to economic and environmental assets. Around £150 billion of assets and four million people are at risk from coastal flooding in the UK1. Irrespective of any future change in storm climate, mean sea level rise will result in more instances of extreme sea levels. NOC plays a central role in the UK Coastal Monitoring and Forecasting (UKCMF) partnership, developing and maintaining the operational storm surge models as well as managing the network of UK tide gauges. The UKCMF system delivers improved coastal flood warning systems to the Environment Agency (EA). The coastal flood warning system for the UK was established as a direct result of the 1953 North Sea storm surge, which is still the worst natural disaster to affect the country in modern times.
These flood warning systems safeguard lives, property and economic investment in the Thames area. Predictions for the November 2007 storm surge allowed agencies to operate the Thames Barrier and evacuate areas of Norfolk, avoiding fatalities and financial loss (307 lives were lost in the 1953 storm surge). Analysis by the Environment Agency shows that 500,000 homes are at risk of flooding in the Thames floodplain. The estimated value of property protected by the Thames Barrier is £200 billion. If predictive modelling safeguards only 1% of these assets then it protects property to the value of £2 billion per annum. Preserving Foreign Direct Investment to the London economy by alleviating concern of flood risk is also valued at £2 billion per annum; furthermore, the direct economic costs of any flood event in London would cost £94 million per flood day.
The expected annual damages to properties in England at risk of flooding from rivers and the sea is estimated at more than £1 billion. Over 25,400 miles of flood defences help reduce the risk by a factor of four, and in 2008-2009 the budget for flood defences in England was £427 million. Coastal protection is designed using statistical methods, and the Environment Agency funded NOC scientists to work with university and engineering partners to provide the most reliable estimates of extreme water levels in a consistent way around the entire UK coastline.
Through the Natural Hazards Partnership (NHP), NOC science relating to coastal hazards is translated into products and information in support of government. The NHP is a consortium of public bodies that provides information, research and analysis on natural hazards for the development of more effective policies, communications and services for civil contingencies, governments and the responder community across the UK.
Following the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, Horsburgh and Wilson provided the tsunami wave modelling expertise for two Defra-funded studies. These studies assessed the risk to the UK of tsunamis from several plausible sources. NOC scientists and engineers (Woodworth, Holgate, Foden) also contributed towards international efforts to deliver a more effective tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean8, resulting in the saving of thousands of lives. Although the risk to the UK from tsunamis is extremely small, it is important to engage with international warning system initiatives: Horsburgh advises the Cabinet Office on how the UK should receive operational alerts from the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission's (IOC) North East Atlantic and Mediterranean Tsunami Warning System (NEAMTWS).
More recently, the Sendai earthquake off Japan in March 2011, and the resulting disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, prompted a further review of risk to the UK's nuclear infrastructure from tsunamis. NOC were solicited to provide advice on tsunami risk to the UK to HM Chief Inspector of Nuclear Installations.
* NOC Satellite Oceanography supports growth of the UK Space sector
NOC Satellite Oceanography (NOC-SO) delivers research, consultancy and training in ocean remote sensing techniques relevant to monitoring the ocean, shelf seas and coastal regions globally. NOC has developed close relationships with key stakeholders in the UK space sector , leading to significant opportunities for economic growth. Its unique position and long-term outlook allows NOC to define and develop new satellite missions, sensors and Earth Observation products that address the needs of operational users, enhance the international competitive advantage of the UK space industry and are of benefit to science.
1) NOC contributed to significant economic growth in the field of GNSS-Reflectometry. NOC demonstrated in 2009 the scientific value for sea state monitoring of reflected signals of opportunity from Global Navigation Satellite Systems. (e.g. GPS, Galileo). Co-funded by the UK Centre for Earth Observation Instrumentation and the European Space Agency (ESA), NOC research guided hardware developments , leading to the innovative GNSS-R SGR-ReSI receiver to be flown on the TSB-funded TechDemoSat-1 mission in 2013. This international leadership has led to a satellite company being awarded the contract to procure eight SGR-ReSI receivers as the main payload of the NASA-funded US$151.7M CYGNSS Hurricane monitoring mission due for launch in 2016. With growing interest from ESA and EUMETSAT for an equivalent European mission, the company are in a leading position to procure further GNSS-R sensors for a possible bilateral ESA-NASA CYGNSS-2 follow-on mission, which could include as many as 48 satellites in the constellation.
2) NOC provided ground-truthing opportunities for proof of concept airborne trials of the PARIS and the Wavemill instrument concepts. In the case of Wavemill, this has lead to further projects of increasing size with ESA, that have placed this company in a lead position for the Wavemill Mission study . Wavemill provides detailed high-precision maps of ocean currents, offering a major advance in satellite observation of ocean eddy dynamics in the open-ocean and coastal seas. Wavemill will benefit ocean forecasting and operational users of ocean current data (e.g. to minimise the cost and risk of offshore operations). NOC will raise the opportunity of a full mission by providing the scientific lead PI for a UK-led Wavemill proposal as a Core mission (200-300 MEuros) to the ESA Earth Explorer 9 call in 2014.
3) Working with satellite technology companies and the Met Office,since 2011 in the ESA Fine Scale Altimetry study, there have been raised opportunities to procure a possible future constellation of small satellites for a global ocean altimeter mission. Both ESA and the Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) recognise the advantages of constellations of low-cost satellites to provide improved sampling of the ocean mesoscale with a more robust observing system than can be achieved with a single satellite. NOC provides the science lead and defining the mission requirements on the number of satellites needed in the constellation to achieve the scientific objectives for ocean mesoscale sampling.
4) NOC contributed to economic growth and competitive advantage for UK research and development by developing new capability in SAR altimetry over ocean leading to new funding opportunities for the UK from ESA and EUMETSAT in relation to GMES Sentinel-3 and Jason-CS. The guaranteed 15 years of continuous SAR altimeter data from the GMES Sentinel-3A/B missions will revolutionise the exploitation of Earth Observation data, with the long-term availability of satellite data stimulating new operational and commercial services, particularly for coastal applications. NOC also advise the UK Space Agency and the Met Office on SAR altimetry and on UK needs regarding the provision of future altimeter missions (e.g. Jason-CS)
5) NOC contributed to the European Space Agency (ESA) Data User Element (DUE) GlobWave. (2010-present) and ESA eSurge. (2011-present) projects to develop new tools and products for satellite ocean wave and sea level data. These new satellite products are relevant to improve wave and storm surge forecasts and open up opportunities for operational forecasting services (e.g. Met Office) and down-stream commercial services (e.g. HR Wallingford Ltd).
6) A Knowledge Transfer Partnership in 2008 led to global maps of ocean wave power based on satellite altimeter wave period data. Ocean wave power maps are used by renewable energy companies to characterise wave resources worldwide .This allows manufacturers of wave power devices (e.g. Ocean Power Technologies to optimise the design of wave energy converters to minimise the risk of infrastructure loss or damage in extreme sea states and thus produce commercially competitive devices, and b) to select suitable wave farm sites that maximise power generation and income from electricity production. Global maps of wave power benefit renewable energy companies all over the world, which otherwise have to rely on short-term in situ buoy deployments or expensive numerical model output to estimate wave power resources.
• Climate Change Impacts
Man-made climate change has been estimated to cost the UK economy 5-20% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) amounting to £80-320 billion for 2011 GDP. The National Oceanography Centre (NOC) is providing impartial, independent, world-leading expertise in developing the international scientific consensus that informs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) series of Assessment Reports. NOC provides authoritative oceanographic scientific evidence to underpin the assessments, necessary as climate change has enormous economic and societal implications. NOC research is a significant contributor to the international delivery of evidence on ocean circulation, global temperature, sea level and climate.
The IPCC publishes Assessment Reports (ARs) which are the definitive international resource for understanding the science and impacts of climate change. IPCC Reports underpin UK and global efforts to determine and mitigate the impacts of man-made climate change. Their production relies on impartial, independent advice from world-leading scientists. The reports are used extensively by a diverse UK and international community, including policymakers, NGOs, and emerging low-carbon energy innovation industries. They present research evidence that informs policy debate, internationally and within the UK, including, for example, the Climate Change Act 2008.
NOC ocean science has impact in four main areas, concerned with sustained ocean observing programmes and ocean modelling. They comprise some of the most iconic and societally important manifestations of climate change: sea level rise, global temperature change and ocean variability. The measurements themselves are important for the detection of change; they contribute to the attribution of change through validation of the performance of climate models, and by challenging model performance, they provoke the development of improvements in climate models, leading to reduction in uncertainty in model predictions.
i) Sea-level rise remains one of the most pressing global societal concerns relating to climate change. A significant proportion of the world's population lives close to the coast in potentially vulnerable regions, many in cities with populations of more than 10 million. Potential impacts of sea level rise are large with one estimate being that 146 million people globally and about $1trillion of GDP would be affected by one metre of sea level rise. Global sea-level research, data products and expertise stem from the NOC-hosted Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL), which operates under the auspices of the International Council for Science (ICSU). Moreover PSMSL provides leadership for the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) Global Sea Level Observing System (GLOSS) programme.
ii) Global surface temperature is a fundamental representation of climate change. Ship-based observations of marine near-surface air temperature provide verification of the entire sea surface temperature (SST) record9. Climate-quality SST from space supports the evidence of recent change10. Ocean heat content directly impacts sea-level rise, and measurements from Argo drifting profilers have transformed our knowledge of the temperature and variability of the upper ocean.
iii) In the ocean, heat carried by the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is responsible for the UK's milder winters. RAPID-WATCH is a NOC-led international program measuring the AMOC which has revealed variability in the AMOC outside the range predicted by climate models. Sustained observations across the Antarctic Circumpolar Current at Drake Passage (1993-present) and in the Rockall Trough (1975-present) also give important insights into ocean variability
iv) The fourth science area is ocean modelling. A high-quality, dynamically-interactive ocean model is essential to predictive skill in climate models on all time scales. Such models must be able to reproduce observed climatically-relevant processes such as the AMOC, and ocean temperature variability. Central to the IPCC process are credible predictions of future climate based on state-of-the-art understanding of climate physics as represented in climate models.
*The Marine Renewable Energy Industry
NOC science has underpinned the assessments of both energy resource availabilities and significance of environmental impacts of marine renewable energy installations, enabling growth of the sector and ongoing cost savings for stakeholders. In particular, NOC's strength and reputation in tidal modelling and ocean observations have been of particular interest to an industry that, by definition, plans to extract energy from some of the most extreme marine environments in the world where accurate predictions and measurements of tides and waves are essential.
• Mapping the UK tidal energy resource for the DTI (now DECC) Atlas of UK Marine Renewable Energy Resources. Originally published in 2004, refined in 2008 to include vertical current profiles, and fronted by ABPmer, the freely available atlas provided an independent energy resource assessment based on best available tidal models developed at NOC. The atlas helped establish the location and extent of energy resources that enabled government, industry and investors to commit to developing areas of UK waters for energy exploitation and develop the technologies needed to achieve this. The resulting atlas has been online since 2008 as an interactive webGIS version freely available to all. Other downloadable outputs include pre-prepared atlas maps in PDF format, a technical report and resource data layers (ArcGIS and MapInfo formats). The atlas has been widely used by government, industry and third sector organisations, for example, in HM Government 's Marine Energy Action Plan (2010).
• Contribution to a feasibility study for a future tidal barrage across the Mersey Estuary. Following the 'Joule' (NWDA-funded) study which showed that tidal barrages in the Eastern Irish Sea could contribute 50% of the North West's present electricity needs, NOC contributed advice on tidal principles, modelled a range of operating options and compiled a "Review of Existing Knowledge of Hydrodynamics and Water Levels in Liverpool Bay and the Mersey Estuary" for Peel Holdings in Liverpool. Peel's study concluded in 2011 that a Mersey Barrage was technically feasible without significant detrimental effects to the environment and could generate sufficient electricity to power 200,000 average homes. However, it was unlikely to go ahead without long term financial vehicles to balance the high up-front construction costs with the anticipated long operating lifetime of 120 years and security of supply benefits. Wider applicability to other potential tidal schemes has also been cited.
• Development of a globally applicable, robust algorithm for wave energy resource assessment. Skills were successfully migrated from NOC and University of Southampton into Pelamis Wave Power Ltd, adding increased levels of awareness of the use and importance of statistical techniques. The Knowledge Transfer Partnership project developed resources and software to assess the wave energy resource at potential sites for wave energy farms equipped with wave energy converters for any location in the world. Energy productivity can now be assessed at any location in the world, a unique selling proposition, providing a significant competitor advantage. Pelamis Wave Power is recognised as being the industry leader in developing wave energy technology, with the world's first grid connected wave energy converter and the world's first multiple machine wave installation.
• Assessing impact of offshore wind farm (OWF) monopiles on constructive/destructive interference patterns of waves - concluded no need for monitoring. This study resulted in direct cost savings for the industry by removing the requirement for the monitoring for the effects of wave diffraction/interference effects. The final report prepared by CEFAS advised: "Defra's Marine Consents and Environment Unit (MCEU) are advised not to require developers of OWFs to monitor waves for diffraction/interference effects under a FEPA licence." Before and after installation studies by radar could be expected to cost upwards of £100k per wind farm (NOC estimate of radar deployment cost, the figure of £50k per deployment also ageed as a reasonable figure by Dr Jon Rees, CEFAS). Cumulative savings on the 17 currently operating wind farms10 would therefore be estimated at £1.6M. A further 20 wind farms are at construction, consenting or planning stages, with potential cumulative savings of a further £2M to the industry, and by implication to the UK as users of the resulting electricity. There are 40GW of further offshore wind capacity leased or at pre-planning stages which will have corresponding cost savings. The indirect benefits of reducing installation costs are far reaching, and likely to feed through to energy prices via reduced costs in servicing the project construction capital.
Increased stakeholder-researcher collaboration in marine renewable energy (MRE) Sector. NOC hosts the NERC Marine Renewable Energy Knowledge Exchange Programme which is actively facilitating collaborations between NERC funded researchers across the UK and MRE industry, test centre and stakeholder groups. The small KE team have facilitated a range of workshops, meetings, conferences and demonstrations of NERC-funded science. They are taking advantage of existing focus points for the sector such as the European Marine Energy Centre Developers Forum and the National Renewable Energy Centre (Narec) to bring researchers together with industry to help solve sector issues such as impacts of underwater noise, cost effective monitoring, and population consequences of disturbance to marine mammals amongst others. The catalytic effect of these activities is enabling the sector to access the state of the art in all aspects of marine environmental science although it is too early to cite direct industry impacts. |
