Ocean forecasting at the regional scale: actual status

<strong class="journal-contentHeaderColor">Abstract.</strong> Operational ocean forecasting systems provide important information on physical and biogeochemical variables across global, regional, and coastal scales. Regional systems, with higher resolution than global models, capture small-scale processes like eddies and usually include tides but lack detailed land–sea interactions essential for coastal areas. These models, often nested within global systems, vary in spatial resolution (1–20 km) and may include biogeochemical components. While regional systems focus on physical parameters such as sea surface height, temperature, salinity, and currents, only a few incorporate biogeochemical processes. The growing demand for biogeochemical data has prompted advancements and more systems will include this component in the coming years. This paper provides a preliminary overview of the current status of regional forecasting systems, discussing examples such as the Copernicus Marine Service from OceanPredict, analysing the offer in terms of covered regions, resolution, and catalogues of ocean variable products.