The Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United States of America is scheduled to organize the Technology Show Open Day in early May 2019 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the inauguration of the Sino-US Diplomatic Relations and the 40th anniversary of the signing of China-US Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement, showcasing the achievements of China's technological development to the American public. The Department of International Cooperation at the Ministry of Science and Technology, as the major organizer, solicited the exhibit candidates across the country, and "Ocean Forecasting System for the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road" of the First Institute of Oceanography (FIO), MNR was selected for the show. It is learnt that only 40 technological results were included for this show throughout the country, including two from marine field.

Influenced by global climate change in recent years, extreme marine disasters such as typhoons, billows, storm waves and coastal erosion happen more frequently, which seriously endanger the people's life and their properties and cause huge financial losses for coastal countries. For instance, the Typhoon Haiyan attacked the Philippines and Vietnam on November 8-11, 2013, destroying houses of 110,000 families and claiming the lives of more than 4,600 people. The development of a high precision ocean forecasting system and provision of an accurate marine prediction is the technological essential for disaster mitigation and prevention.

The development of the marine numerical model has long been dominated by developed European and American countries. Although remarkable progress has been made in the development of international marine numerical models, a great common deviation exists for almost all such models. The simulated and predicated sea surface temperature is high, while the sub-surface temperature is lower. In the face of the above common problems, FIO has created the wave-induced non-breaking turbulence, and developed the world's first wave-tide-circulating current coupling numerical model. This has significantly improved the marine numerical model, which has long been hampered by the higher simulated sea surface temperature and thinner mixed layer. This theory has been used by many research teams in USA, Germany, France, UK, Sweden, Hungary and Australia among other countries, and has successfully improved the simulation and prediction accuracy of their marine numerical models.

Therefore, FIO has developed the "Ocean Forecasting System for the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road" after years of arduous efforts. According to the inspection results of IVTT, the international standard method, the accuracy of this prediction system has reached the internationally leading level. Upon the invitation of IOC/WESTPAC of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, this predication system has been officially released to the whole world on December 10, 2018. Global users may inquire about the predication results of marine environment for the following 5 days, such as temperature, salinity, ocean currents, sea surface height, wave height and cycle, by visiting http://221.215.61.118:2018/ofs/ via the PC client or the mobile APP "Global Ocean on Desk" at any place.

Sea water currents not only control the drifting path of ocean contaminants, drifting wastes on the sea and microplastic, but also influence the search and rescue on the ocean. After the wreck accident in Phuket, Thailand on July 5, 2018, upon the request of the Government of Thailand and the approval by the Ministry of Natural Resources, FIO worked closely with competent departments of Thailand, and offered the prediction of search and rescue scope, which has been verified accurate by the subsequent salvage results and highly lauded by the international community. The too hot sea water will result in the reef bleaching, and this prediction system has been directly applied to the conservation of coral reef ecological system in Southeast Asia.

The inclusion of this system into the technology show of the Embassy of China in the United States will further showcase China's inventive achievements in the field of marine environment prediction and improve China's international clout in the fields of marine environment prediction theory and technology.