Winter school on operational oceanography: Indian Ocean circulation and sea level variation.

The "Winter school on operational oceanography: Indian Ocean circulation and sea level variation" is jointly organized by three Indian and two Norwegian partners namely; International Training Centre for Operational Oceanography (ITCOocean), Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (ESSO-INCOIS), Nansen Environmental Research Centre - India (NERCI), Nansen Scientific Society and Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Centre (NERSC). The Government of India Ministry of Earth Sciences has approved the winter school program and cooperation. The winter school will take place will be hosted at the International Training Centre for Operational Oceanography (ITCOocean) located at ESSO-INCOIS in Hyderabad, India during 16-21 October, 2016. Operational oceanography involves reliable, long-term observations of the world's oceans and coastal waters, rapid interpretation and dissemination of data and generation of products and advisories that can be distributed to users in near real time. The recent advances made in observational technologies in the fields of sensors, platforms and real-time communications now provide capability to observe the oceans in detail. The winter school will focus on two aspects of operational oceanography, including data assimilation i.e. Indian Ocean Circulation and sea level variation. In recent years, data assimilation methods have been developed and used in many research areas. Data assimilation improves the model estimates of the ocean and atmosphere physical state by combining the data from measurements and from dynamic models in an optimal way. The results of the research school will be published in a student report and later peer review publication. Participating students may also be recruited for further studies and research tasks associated with the topics addressed during the research school.