Project description
AI-driven evolution of marine weather forecasting
Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the EcSAM project will introduce a transformative approach to studying ocean swells – long-period waves generated by intense meteorological events that are currently miscalculated by state-of-the-art models. EcSAM will adopt an event-centric Lagrangian framework to track waves through three specific stages: growth, relaxation, and propagation. Utilising advanced satellite missions such as SWOT and high-fidelity simulations, a primary goal is to resolve the relaxation stage, which remains poorly understood in scientific literature. Ultimately, the project will integrate artificial intelligence with physical modelling to create superior swell-specific predictive tools for marine weather forecasting. This strategy may enhance our understanding of how massive wave events influence global air-sea interactions, representing a paradigm shift in swell analysis.
Objective
Swells are long-period ocean surface waves generated by intense meteorological events. Despite their prevalence, swells remain inaccurately predicted by state-of-the-art spectral wave models, and high-impact events are poorly characterised. Recent satellite missions such as SWOT and CFOSAT have provided unprecedented observations and revealed key gaps in our understanding. By integrating advanced observational networks with numerical models, there is now a unique opportunity to advance the physical understanding of the processes that govern swell generation and evolution. Achieving this requires a unified framework that captures the full swell life cycle and places both models and observations on a consistent space-time grid.
The Event-centric Swell Analysis and Modelling (EcSAM) project adopts such a framework to examine swells in a Lagrangian coordinate defined by traveling storm systems. It identifies three stages of development—growth, relaxation, and propagation. EcSAM will first investigate the least understood relaxation stage using recently developed high-fidelity numerical tools. It will then perform event-centric composite analyses that integrate satellite and in-situ data, validating numerical results and identifying space-time regions more or less dominated by nonlinear wave–wave interactions. Finally, EcSAM will develop a global predictive wave model with a dedicated swell component following the event-centric framework. Drawing on insights from both simulations and observations, the last stage will explore physics-based parametric formulations alongside AI-based surrogate models.
EcSAM represents a paradigm shift in swell analysis and modelling. It seeks to obtain deeper physical insight and provide more accurate, efficient, and swell-specific prediction tools. The results will support advances in wave data assimilation, marine weather forecasting, and assessment of swells’ role in nonlocal air–sea interaction.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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29280 Plouzane
France
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