She et al. 
Operational Oceanography and Earth System Science 
Frontiers In Earth Science | www.frontlersln.org 
3 
February 2020 | Volume 8 | Article 7 
Dedicated working groups (WGs) identify at Baltic Earth 
conferences and by using assessments of existing research new 
GCs. Currently, the Baltic Earth community has identified 
six GCs for the Baltic Earth system research: (GC1) salinity 
dynamics, (GC2) land-sea biogeochemical linkages, (GC3) 
natural hazards and extreme events, (GC4) sea level dynamics, 
coastal morphology and erosion, (GC5) regional variability 
of water and energy exchanges, and (GC6) multi-drivers of 
regional Earth system changes. For each of the GCs, WGs were 
installed. In addition, WGs on outreach and communication, 
education, and regional climate system modeling are active. 
A new WG on climate and environmental ocean observing 
systems such as the Boknis Eck Time-Series Station is in 
the planning. 
Another important aspect of Baltic Earth are thematic 
assessments that provide an overview over knowledge gaps which 
need to be filled, e.g., by funded projects. Two assessments 
of climate change of the Baltic Sea region, which are research 
community efforts such as the regular assessments of the 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of past, 
present and future climate, have been performed, and a third 
one is on the way (BACC Author Team, 2008; ВАСС II 
Author Team, 2015). Further assessments focussed on Baltic Sea 
models (Eilola et al., 2011; Placke et al., 2018) and ensembles 
of scenario simulations with coupled physical-biogeochemical 
models (Meier et ah, 2018a, 2019), both in past and future 
climates (Meier et ah, 2012). Recently, a more comprehensive 
Baltic Sea Model Inter-comparison Project (BMIP) including also 
process-based assessments has started. 
For the closure of knowledge gaps identified by Baltic Earth 
assessments, several projects funded by national and European 
Union (EU) programs have been carried out under the umbrella 
of Baltic Earth. Selected examples are the BONUS projects 
AMBER, BALTIC-C, ECOSUPPORT, INTEGRAL, BalticAPP, 
and SHEBA (see http://baltic.earth). Baltic Earth is coordinated 
by the International Baltic Earth Secretariat at Helmholtz 
Zentrum Geesthacht, the Baltic Earth Science Steering Group and 
the Baltic Earth Advisory Board. 
However, the BOOS and BALTEX/Baltic Earth communities 
had few interactions in the past two decades. Now it is time 
to enhance cooperation and integration between operational 
oceanography and Earth system science communities. This is in 
line with the recent trend of development in several international 
initiatives such as seamless prediction of the Earth system from 
the World Meteorological Organization (WMO, 2015) where 
observing and modeling development at the synoptic scale 
will be integrated with the climate scale. In the Global Ocean 
Observing System (GOOS), ocean observing has been extended 
from mainly for operational service to cover also climate change 
and ocean health. It is expected that GOOS Regional Alliances 
(GRAs, e.g., EuroGOOS) and Regional Ocean Observing Systems 
(ROOSs) will follow this vision to further integrate the ocean 
observing in operational oceanography, climate change and 
ocean health fields, as indicated by recent development of a 
sustained European Ocean Observing System (EOOS, http:// 
www.eoos-ocean.eu). For the assessment and services in climate 
change adaptation and mitigation, long-term change of extreme 
events are more and more emphasized which needs calibrated 
high quality models to perform trustworthy simulations of 
climate projections. 
In addition, the European Commission has asked for 
“responsive research and innovation” in its research policy in the 
FPs (Rodriguez et ah, 2013; von Schomberg, 2013). Integration 
and interactions between the operational oceanography 
community and research community will certainly enhance the 
responsiveness of our research. 
The purpose of this paper is to introduce the state-of- 
the-art of operational oceanography in the Baltic Sea, set 
up the scene and identify potential areas of collaboration 
between the operational oceanography community and the Baltic 
Earth community. The paper is organized as follows: section 
Operational oceanography in the Baltic Sea reviews the state-of- 
the-art of operational oceanography in the Baltic Sea, including 
operational observing and modeling. Section BALTEX/Baltic 
Earth marine research reviews the state-of-the-art of Baltic 
Earth system science while section Operational oceanography 
and Baltic Earth research—interactions identifies potential 
collaboration areas between the two communities. Section 
Discussions and recommendations gives recommendations for 
future BOOS—Baltic Earth cooperation. Acronyms used in this 
study are explained in Table 1. 
OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHY IN THE 
BALTIC SEA 
Operational Observing—Current Status 
and Major Challenges 
Ocean observing value chain includes three components: 
observing, data management, and data usage. The observing aims 
at generating cost-effective and fit-for-purpose observations; 
the data management is responsible for providing user friendly 
data access while the data usage component will transfer data 
into information products for user applications, in many cases 
through integrating satellite and in-situ observations with 
models. The Baltic Sea has been monitored with comprehensive, 
self-coordinated monitoring programs: operational monitoring 
is coordinated by BOOS, environmental monitoring by 
HELCOM and fishery monitoring by ICES. The research 
monitoring activities are not coordinated but the regional and 
EU research programs (e.g., BONUS and Horizon 2020) have 
their own data policies. 
Operational Monitoring 
The operational observing system in the Baltic Sea provides 
real time (RT) and near real time (NRT) observations by 
BOOS members to fit for the purpose of model validation 
and data assimilation for the improvement of the operational 
forecasting and reanalysis. The observations include sea level, 
temperature/salinity (T/S), currents, waves, dissolved oxygen 
(DO), and chlorophyll a, etc. The station locations and 
types of platforms are illustrated in Figure 1. High resolution 
data are generated by tide gauges (sea level, in 1-60 min 
sampling interval), FerryBox (spatial continuous sampling of