Copernicus In Situ Thematic Assemble Centre (INS-TAC) is a component of the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (https://marine.copernicus.eu/)
It is a distributed system built on the existing activities and services developed previously within the EC supported projects (MyOcean, Euro-Argo, MFSTEP, FerryBox, SEPRISE, ) and EuroGOOS Regional alliances (ROOSes). It aims at providing a research and operational framework to develop and deliver in situ observations and derived products based on such observations, to address progressively global but also regional needs either for monitoring, modeling or downstream service development.
The INS-TAC provides the interface between centres, distributing in situ measurements from national and international observing systems. The Copernicus project established the Global component of the INS-TAC for the physical parameters needed by the Marine Forecasting Centres (MFC) that are using the data for assimilation and validation of the forecasting systems. These efforts result in the strong enhancement of the French Coriolis data centre. The goal within Copernicus is to consolidate and integrate the regional components, based on expertise developed within the ROOSes, and to initiate the set up of the bio-geochemical part of the INS-TAC. In addition, considerable benefits to the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) In Situ users will be gained in terms of in situ product choice, service, timeliness, quality, robustness and accuracy. As an operational infrastructure, the INS TAC sets the necessary production capacities and quality control procedures to answer to Europe's request for service level agreements with the external users as defined in Copernicus.
The INS-TAC Version 0 is a heritage of all the work performed in previous projects. The operational products proposed for this version are near real time and re-processed data for global ocean via Coriolis data centre. The Version 1 of Copernicus INS-TAC complements these products by delivering suitable products for all European regions, new lines of products (real time, biogeochemistry) and to apply improved validation procedures for the products and services. The Version 2 of Copernicus INS TAC prepares re-analysed datasets for reanalysis activities performed by the Copernicus MFCs and external users in collaboration with the SeaDataNet infrastructure.
MyOcean In Situ Thematic Center
Copernicus does not operate in situ observing systems but collect observations from outside Copernicus data providers , mainly from EuroGOOS Regional alliances (ARTIC-ROOS, BOOS, NOOS, IBI-ROOS, MOON et Black Sea GOOS) main global network from JCOMM ( Argo, DBCP , OceanSites, GOSUD, GTSPP,..). It's important that these systems are sustained in the future to guaranty the quality and coverage of the products delivered by Copernicus.
In situ products provided within Copernicus include:
- Temperature and salinity: global and regional, produced in RT and DM (all)
- Currents: global and regional, produced in RT (global, NWS, MedSea, Baltic)
- Sea level: regional, produced in RT (IBI, NWS, Baltic)
- Biogeochemical: global and regional, produced in RT (all)
MyOcean1 period, April 2009-April 2012 : 849 mooring sites