The GKSS Forschungszentrum Geesthacht GmbH (GKSS) is one of 16 national research facilities belonging to the Hermann von Helmholtz Association (HGF). GKSS has two sites at Geesthacht near Hamburg and Teltow near Berlin with a total staff of approximately 750 employees, including about 480 scientists, engineers and technicians. One of the main research areas is environmental research, in particular physics on coastal seas and atmospheric physics. GKSS comprises 5 research institutes, and its organisational structure is based on a flexible matrix system and project management principles both of which promote networking of GKSS's activities internally and in particular with external partners. The latter include research institutes, universities, communities, private and public companies at both the national and international levels. Research at GKSS is problem-oriented and covers basic as well as applied research including the establishment of both technical and commercial prototypes. About 85 % of GKSS's annual budget is provided by the federal and states governments, while 15 % are generated via EU and national research projects, contract research, and licensing of GKSS patents for products and processes.

High-level training and education for e.g. students, PhD-students, and post-docs plays an important role at GKSS and is provided by its institute and department leaders, several of which being part-time affiliated to universities in Germany and abroad. GKSS maintains central administrative, financial and legal departments providing for full support to its researchers in all related issues.

GKSS has year-long experience and a successful tradition in both the co-ordination of and participation at different sorts of EU research projects; in early 1999 researchers at GKSS have been participating in some 40 EU research projects

The technique has been developed and applied to the NCEP-reanalysis for the period 1957-96 in a national project for an area covering most of Northern Europe and adjacent seas. The data are provided on a 50x50km grid and will be used in the project to force the wave and ocean models at the upper boundary.

GKSS comprises 5 research institutes one of which is the Institute of Hydrophysics which is focused on physics in coastal seas, estuaries and inland waters. The main research topics are numerical modelling and measurements of environmental parameters in the coastal zone, including research in river estuaries and in the Wadden Sea.

Another research topic is regional atmospheric modelling. GKSS was a member of the WAM (Wave Modelling) Group and was actively involved in the development of the third generation wave model WAM and its implementation at the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF). GKSS is a member of the WISE (Waves In Shallow water Environment) group. A number of wave models with special emphasise on shallow water applications (HYPAS, REFRAC, K-Model) have been developed at GKSS and are used in routine applications.

GKSS will contribute to the proposed project by providing the atmospheric forcing data for the partners and by producing a 40-year shallow water wave hindcast for the North Sea south of 56 deg. North along with the statistical analyses of the data and the assessment and the dissemination of the results.