Session8: Digital twins of the ocean and applications

Conveners: Fei Chai, Naoki Hirose, Jian Liu, Zhong Peng, Zhaoyuan Yu 

Session description:
The ocean is facing challenges from both climate change and increasing impacts caused by anthropogenic activities. Digital twins of the ocean (DTOs) are digital representation of the ocean that help better understand and protect the ocean ecosystems. DTOs can also provide science-based decision support systems for global and regional marine management in many cross-cutting issues such as climate change, marine spatial planning, and ecosystem resilience. This session invites contributions related to DTOs technology development, the latest ocean observing and data sharing, and innovation of the ocean modeling and prediction, visualizing and accessing DTOs information, and showcasing applications of DTOs. This session will also discuss the future direction of DTOs development, including collaboration and partnership with different stakeholders, capacity building, engaging with industry, and the role of DTOs with different UN Decade programs and projects.