Observability of Flow-Dependent Structure Functions for Use in Data Assimilation

Lupu, Cristina et Gauthier, Pierre (2011). « Observability of Flow-Dependent Structure Functions for Use in Data Assimilation ». Monthly Weather Review, 139(3), pp. 713-725.

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Résumé

One of the objectives of data assimilation is to produce initial conditions that will improve the quality of forecasts. Studies on singular vectors and sensitivity studies have shown that small changes to the initial conditions can sometimes lead to exponential error growth. This has motivated research to include flow-dependent structures within the assimilation that would have the characteristics to correctly predict the growth or decay of meteorological systems. This relates to the characterization of precursors to atmospheric instability. In this paper, the observability of such structures by observations is discussed. Several studies have shown that deploying observations over regions where changes in the initial conditions may impact the forecast the most do not lead to the expected benefit. In this paper, it is shown that given the small magnitude of the signal to be detected, it is important to take into account the accuracy of the observations. If the signal-to-noise ratio is too low, observations cannot detect and characterize precursors to forecast error growth. From that perspective, the assimilation only has the possibility to extract information about evolved structures of error growth. Experiments with a simple one-dimensional variational data assimilation (1D-Var) system are presented and, then, an adapted three-dimensional variational data assimilation (3D-Var) system with different sensitivity structure functions is used. The results have been obtained by adapting the variational assimilation system of Environment Canada.

Type: Article de revue scientifique
Mots-clés ou Sujets: Data assimilation, Singular vectors, Variational analysis, Sensitivity studies, Numerical weather prediction/forecasting
Unité d'appartenance: Faculté des sciences > Département des sciences de la Terre et de l'atmosphère
Déposé par: Pierre Gauthier
Date de dépôt: 25 avr. 2016 19:57
Dernière modification: 26 mai 2016 14:15
Adresse URL : http://archipel.uqam.ca/id/eprint/8288

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