The Copernicus Marine Service In Situ Thematic Assembly Centre (In Situ TAC) is a distributed system built on the existing activities and services developed previously within the EC supported projects (MERSEA, MyOcean, MFSTEP, FerryBox, SEPRISE…) and EuroGOOS Regional alliances (ROOSes). It provides a research and operational framework to deliver in situ observations and develop derived products based on such observations, to address progressively global but also regional needs either for monitoring, modelling, or downstream service development.
The In Situ TAC provides the interface between centres, distributing in situ measurements from national and international observing systems. The MERSEA project established the global component of the In Situ TAC for the physical parameters needed by the Monitoring and Forecasting Centres (MFC) that use the data for assimilation and validation of the forecasting systems. These efforts resulted in a strong enhancement of the French Coriolis data centre. The goal within Copernicus Marine Service is to consolidate and integrate the regional components, based on expertise developed within the ROOSes, and to initiate the setup of the biogeochemical part of the In Situ TAC. In addition, considerable benefits to the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (COPERNICUS) In Situ users will be gained in terms of In Situ product choice, service, timeliness, quality, robustness, and accuracy. As an operational infrastructure, the In Situ TAC sets the necessary production capacities and quality control procedures to answer Europe's request for service level agreements with the external users as defined in Copernicus Marine Service.
The first In Situ TAC, version 0, was a heritage of all the work performed in previous projects. The operational products proposed for that initial version were near real time and re-processed data for the global ocean via the Coriolis data centre. Next version 1 complemented these products by delivering suitable products for all European regions, introducing new lines of products (real time, biogeochemistry) and applying improved validation procedures for both products and services. The current In Situ TAC, version 2, will additionally deliver, in collaboration with SeaDataNet, Temperature and Salinity re-analysed datasets for the global ocean and regional seas that can feed reanalysis activities performed by the Copernicus Marine Service MFCs and external users.