The HYCOM consortium is a multi-institutional effort sponsored by the National Ocean Partnership Program (NOPP), as part of the U. S. Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment (GODAE), to develop and evaluate a data-assimilative hybrid isopycnal-sigma-pressure (generalized) coordinate ocean model (called HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model or HYCOM). The GODAE objectives of three-dimensional depiction of the ocean state at fine resolution in real time, provision of boundary conditions for coastal and regional models, and provision of oceanic boundary conditions for a global coupled ocean-atmosphere prediction model, are being addressed by a partnership of institutions that represent a broad spectrum of the oceanographic community.

Traditional vertical coordinate choices [z-level, terrain-following (sigma), isopycnic] are not by themselves optimal everywhere in the ocean, as pointed out by recent model comparison exercises performed in Europe (DYnamics of North Atlantic MOdels - DYNAMO) and in the U.S. (Data Assimilation and Model Evaluation Experiment - DAMEE). Ideally, an ocean general circulation model (OGCM) should (a) retain its water mass characteristics for centuries (a characteristic of isopycnic coordinates), (b) have high vertical resolution in the surface mixed layer (a characteristic of z-level coordinates) for proper representation of thermodynamical and biochemical processes, (c) maintain sufficient vertical resolution in unstratified or weakly-stratified regions of the ocean, and (d) have high vertical resolution in coastal regions (a characteristic of terrain-following coordinates).

HYCOM.org provides access to near real time global HYCOM + NCODA based ocean prediction system output. The ocean prediction system runs daily at the Navy DoD Supercomputing Resource Center. Upon completion, these data are remotely copied to our local HYCOM.org servers for additional processing. Daily data is typically accessible within 48-hrs of the initial runtime.

This site also provides access to several other global and regional datasets. The data are in NetCDF format and can be accessed using OPeNDAP enabled clients. Click here for a list of pre-packaged OPeNDAP enabled clients. OPeNDAP URL's for all datasets are available from the HYCOM THREDDS Catalog.