Greetings all,

This month’s newsletter is dedicated to regional and coastal oceanography. We review in this issue the impressive work
recently done towards regional to coastal modelling with nesting and open boundary procedures as well as imbrications of
models of increasing resolution and complexity. Moreover, regional and coastal systems have now reached an operational level
and are delivering real time forecast in various areas.

After an introduction by Obaton reminding us of the challenging European and French programs dealing with regional/coastal
oceanography, this issue displays six scientific articles. Chanut et al. are starting with a paper describing the Mercator Ocean
regional system embracing the French Atlantic coast with a 1/36° horizontal resolution. Marsaleix et a l. are then writing about
the North Western Mediterranean Sea system which is currently upgraded in the framework of the ECOOP program. Next paper
by Riflet et al. is dealing with operational ocean forecasting of the Portuguese waters using the Mercator Ocean North Atlantic
high resolution solution at its boundaries. Lecornu et al. are following with an article about the PREVIMER operational MARS
system in the Bay of Biscay. Marchesiello et al. are then describing the effort conducted at IRD in order to provide the
developing countries with tools for operational regional marine forecast. At last, Reffray et al. tell us how the MARS,
SYMPHONIE and NEMO/OPA systems intercompare over the Bay of Biscay during the year 2004.

We wish you a pleasant reading, and we will meet again in October 2008, with a newsletter dedicated to the international
GODAE project, which will hold its final meeting in Nice on November 12-15 2008 (http://www.godae.org/announcement-II.html).
Moreover, let us also remind you that our annual operational oceanography group meeting (Groupe Mission Mercator Coriolis,
GMMC) will take place on October 13 to 15 2008 in Toulouse (MétéoFrance site). We are looking forward to tell you about our
ongoing progress here at Mercator Ocean, and to hear about yours.

• A glance at regional and coastal modelling
• Towards North East Atlantic Regional modelling at 1/12° and 1/36° at Mercator Ocean
• Regional Operational Oceanography in the North Western Mediterranean Sea
• Operational Ocean forecasting of the Portuguese waters
• PREVIMER: Operational MARS system in the Bay of Biscay
• Keys to affordable regional marine forecast systems
• Model intercomparison in the Bay of Biscay during 2004: the front of Ushant and the cold water pool