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From Ocean Observations to Forecasting Systems: A Brief History

From ancient sailors to the Digital Twin Ocean - how ocean forecasting grew over centuries of observation and science.

Today’s ocean forecasting systems didn’t appear overnight. They are the result of decades – indeed centuries – of progress in ocean science, observation, technology, computing, and international collaboration. In this lecture, Stefania Ciliberti traces that long journey.

The story unfolds in stages:

Learning from the sea – ancient sailors read the tides, winds, currents, and waves, navigating by the stars and hard-won experience. Their knowledge was empirical and local
The foundations of physical oceanography (17th-19th centuries) – systematic observation begins, from Mercator’s revolution in ocean mapping and Marsili’s pioneering study of Mediterranean currents to the HMS Challenger expedition (1872-1876), often called the birth of modern oceanography
Expanding networks (early 20th century) – oceanography becomes an organised observing framework, though for centuries ships remained the only way to observe the open ocean
The satellite era and Argo – satellites shifted oceanography from sparse ship measurements to continuous, global, near-real-time monitoring of sea surface temperature, sea level, winds, and more; and the Argo array of over 4,000 profiling floats began measuring temperature and salinity through the upper ocean
Operational oceanography (1980s-2000s) – the 1990s brought a decisive transition: the first operational forecasting centres, global observing systems, and international coordination
The Digital Twin Ocean era – today, the European Digital Twin Ocean builds an interactive, science-based digital replica of the sea, using real-time and historical data alongside numerical models to represent its past, present, and possible futures

The thread running through it all: oceanography evolved from a descriptive science – simply recording what the ocean was doing – into a predictive, operational one. It was the coming together of satellites, in-situ observations, numerical models, and data assimilation that finally made ocean prediction possible – and made forecasting essential for society.