126 a 72 hour hindcast to assimilate fields which include recent observations, and a 72 hour forecast. Global NCOM produced sea surface height, salinity, temperature, u-velocity and v-velocity. Global NCOM can include atmospheric forcing, but it does not include tidal heights and currents. Global NCOM was retired on 5 April 2013 and replaced by operational 1/12° HYCOM. After the Fukushima Daiichi NPP accident took place, 3 hour averaged 3-D currents near the Fukushima region were produced from NCOM, operated by the US Navy operational global Nowcast/Forecast system between 12 March and 30 June 2011. There were 40 vertical levels and the spatial resolution was 1 km. XI-4. HYCOM, HYBRID COORDINATE OCEAN MODEL The HYCOM consortium is a multi-institutional e?ort sponsored by the National Ocean Partnership (NOPP) as a part of the United States of America Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment (GODAE) [XI-13]. HYCOM is a primitive equation, general circulation model with vertical coordinates that remain isopycnic in the open stratified ocean. Computations in global HYCOM are carried out on a Mercator grid between 78o S and 47o N (1/12? horizontal resolution at the equator). A bipolar patch is used for regions north of 47o N. The horizontal dimensions of the global grid are 4500 × 3298 grid points resulting in ? 7 km spacing on average. There are 33 vertical layers. Surface forcing includes wind stress, wind speed, heat ?ux and precipitation. HYCOM uses the United States of America Navy Coupled Ocean Data Assimilation System (NCODA) for data assimilation. The outputs are surface heat ?ux, sea surface height, surface salinity trend, surface temperature trend, salinity, potential temperature, u-velocity and v-velocity. Global HYCOM can include atmospheric forcing, but it does not include tidal heights and currents. XI-5. KYOTO UNIVERSITY The coastal model was developed by Kyoto University, Japan Agency of Marine-Earth Science and Technology and the Japan Marine Science Foundation [XI-14]. A nesting method enables downscale calculation from the largest area that covers the northwestern part of North Pacific, with horizontal resolutions of 1/8° in latitude and 1/6° in longitude, to the two-step-nested finer domain around the Fukushima area, with horizontal resolutions of 1/72° in latitude and 1/54° in longitude (approximately 1.5 km). The model domain for the coastal model extends from 140.5°E to 144°E longitude and from 35.5°N to 38.5°N latitude. There are 78 layers set in the vertical. The four dimensional variation (4-D-VAR) method was applied for the outermost model to obtain the reanalysis data. XI-6. MARS3D, IFREMER (FRANCE) Circulation modelling was performed using the operational MARS3D code (3-D hydrodynamical Model for Applications at Regional Scale) developed by IFREMER (French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea). This is a 3-D model with reduced sigma vertical coordinates based on the resolution of the Navier–Stokes equations [XI-15]. This model with free surface resolves primitive equations using a time-splitting scheme under assumptions of Boussinesq approximation, hydrostatic equilibrium and incompressibility.