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The National Centre for Ocean Forecasting, based at the Met Office, has been awarded £568,000 to further research into forecasting the 'weather in the oceans'. NCOF was one of 29 innovative British projects awarded a share of the Department of Trade and Industry's £25 million Public Sector Research Exploitation (PSRE) fund, designed to help public sector projects market their cutting edge research. The centre is collaboration between the Met Office, Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, NERC's Environmental Systems Science Centre and National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. It focuses on short-range (5-10 days) predictions of surface waves, storm surges, sea ice, ocean temperatures, salinities and currents and ocean ecosystems for both the deep ocean and shelf and coastal seas. The funding will be used to further the centre's commercial activities. Dr Mike Bell, head of NCOF, said: "This funding is very welcome. It provides an excellent opportunity for us to further develop web-based services and will also help us to both develop and strengthen links with businesses throughout the marine industry." Professor Alan Thorpe, Chief Executive of the Natural Environment
Research Council, also welcomed the award. He said, "NCOF's
work - in helping to predict coastal flooding, for example - provides
valuable knowledge that could save a lot of effort and expense
if the predictions are accurate. It is critically important to
use research for economic benefit and the new funds will help
our scientists to do that. "
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