PREVIMER: Improvement of surge, sea level and currents modelling

The pre-operational system PREVIMER provides coastal observations and forecasts along French coasts. It provides, among other variables, currents, sea levels, surges and waves. This paper describes the development and validation of a high temporal (15 minutes) and spatial (250 m) resolution modeling system, based on MARS hydrodynamic model (Lazure and Dumas 2008), along the Atlantic and English Channel coasts. Models benefi t from experiments developed during the PREVIMER project by: (1) taking better into account wind and wave actions (improving surface drag coeffi cient parameterization), (2) taking into account a better meteorological forcing (improving spatial and temporal meteorological resolution). These high resolution models have been integrated in PREVIMER modeling system since 2013.