At GEOMAR, we are developing Digital Twins of the Ocean using a process-oriented and co-designed approach. Instead of building one large model, we create modular systems that reflect local needs and priorities. A key focus is the West African region, with its unique environmental and social challenges. These digital twins combine in-situ measurements, satellite data, and advanced models that...
Imagine a world, where data and information can be easily and effectively shared, linked, transformed, and combined to answer future research questions and plan sustainable governance actions. Digital twins are one viewpoint from which to build the technologies needed to establish the required interoperability and transparency of data products and predition methods. This presentation will...
The Western Baltic Sea (WB) is under increasing impacts from climate change and biodiversity degradation caused by eutrophication, pollution, increased land use and increased resource uptake. Between 1994 and 2019, WB has been overfished, leading to fish stock depletion of cod (Gadus morhua), herring (Clupea harengus), and sprat (Sprattus sprattus). The interconnected dynamics between...
The ocean and its biodiversity are vital to life on Earth. Understanding their current state and how that state may change requires comprehensive data on biodiversity and related pressures. Protecting and restoring biodiversity is a key goal of the Horizon Europe Mission to restore oceans and waters by 2030, supporting the EU Green Deal and Biodiversity 2030 targets. A Digital Twin of the...
With underwater noise pollution increasing globally—and formally recognized under the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD, Descriptor 11)—significant knowledge gaps remain regarding its effects on marine life, especially invertebrates. Addressing this requires monitoring and predicting the key elements of underwater noise, acoustic pressure and particle motion, while accounting for...
Digital ocean twins (DOTs) are applications that bring together data and expert knowledge to support decision-making for sustainable ocean management. In the SEADOTs (Social-Ecological Ocean Management Applications using Digital Ocean Twins) project, we integrate social, economic, and ecological data with data on human activities, ocean data, ecosystem data, and a variety of models into DOTs....
Risk from climate hazards is commonly defined as the interplay of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. In recent years, response capacity and adaptation have been recognized as additional dimensions in comprehensive risk frameworks. Digital twins offer a powerful approach to integrate all these components into one coherent and dynamic system. However, to adequately assess risk, digital twins...
The EOM working group is engaged in the development of remote sensing-based evaluation algorithms for the analysis of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. We use different sensors to map coastal areas, and in particular shallow water zones, from cm to decameter scale. Examples are water depth, water constituents (e.g., Chl, TSM), benthos mapping (seagrass, macroalgae), floating algae or beach...
This short presentation addresses one of DHI's decision support systems, BlueCast. This forecasting system is supported by several global metocean models and data sets to provide reliable assessments of wave, wind and currents at specific user-defined locations. With a multitude of applications oriented towards improving decision-making for and risk assessment of maritime operations,...
Exploring seafloor morphology and benthic habitats is essential for understanding the interactions between biology and geology. While findings have traditionally been shared through maps and graphs, effectively communicating environmental change and mitigation scenarios to stakeholders is becoming increasingly important. Immersive and dynamic environments offer a new way of transferring...
A good understanding of fluid flows inside the ocean is crucial to develop digital twins of it. In our new Laboratory of Numerical Mechanics and Flow Measurement Technology at the University of Applied Sciences in Kiel (FH Kiel) we are currently conducting measurements of fluid structures with optical measurement techniques such as Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and...
Over the past decade and together with a group of international collaborators, we have developed the Advanced Solver for Planetary Evolution, Convection and Tectonics (ASPECT, https://aspect.geodynamics.org/)—research software building on modern numerical methods and showing parallel scaling up to >100,000 compute cores. ASPECT has been widely used to simulate the Earth's mantle and crust,...
The SWOT mission has opened a new chapter in understanding mesoscale and sub-mesoscale ocean dynamics, providing a constantly growing amount of high-resolution Sea Surface Height (SSH) observations. However, this extremely valuable repository of data is still not fully exploited by researchers, largely due to technical reasons and the novelty of the product. In particular, the KaRIn...
