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Introduction

This document forms deliverable D2.6 for the C3S for Global Shipping project and describes the development and progress of the operational indicators up to and including May 2018. The "operational indicators" are offered to the end-users via the C3S Global Shipping service that itself is being provided on ECMWF's CDS platform. They are data products delivering information relevant to the operational activities of the end-users. These products differentiate themselves from the other type of information products provided via the C3S Service, the so called "scientific indicators", in the sense they are a higher/second level product/derivation that is based either on the "scientific indicators" or directly on the CDS's available met-ocean data. These indicators were envisioned to be of direct interest to the end-users, allowing them to assess possible variations in cost/timing/routing/safety factors of their operations, whereas the "scientific indicators" form background information, indirectly used as the context within which end-users plan their operations.
Initial choices for the development and implementation of certain specific operational indicators and their envisioned operational use, were made following a three-day project meeting in Rome at the beginning of January 2018. During this meeting, the findings of the scope refinement process that had taken place during the initial three months of the project together with the feedback from ECMWF on the scope document and its presentation at Reading, were further analysed and discussed among the project members, emphasizing the inputs, comments and needs of the end-users. This resulted in a list of indicators that at the time of discussion were deemed meaningful, technically feasible and reachable within the allotted time-frame. However, since not all information on temporal, spatial and dynamic resolution of the input data nor the full availability of input data as well as envisioned validation data was known at the time of consolidating the indicators list, some priority shifts have taken place within the development strategy of the operational indicators. The following list of operational indicators are in order of development priority which is relative to the level of validity and meaningfulness of the indicator reachable with currently available data and algorithms:

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