scholarly journals Impact of Assimilating Lidar Water Vapour and Temperature Profiles with a Hybrid Ensemble Transform Kalman Filter – Three‐Dimensional Variational Analysis on the Convection Permitting Scale

Author(s):  
Rohith Thundathil ◽  
Thomas Schwitalla ◽  
Andreas Behrendt ◽  
Volker Wulfmeyer

2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 501-524 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin L. Tanamachi ◽  
Pamela L. Heinselman ◽  
Louis J. Wicker

Abstract On 24 May 2011, a tornadic supercell (the El Reno, Oklahoma, storm) produced tornadoes rated as category 3 and 5 events on the enhanced Fujita scale (EF3 and EF5, respectively) during a severe weather outbreak. The transition (“handoff”) between the two tornadoes occurred as the El Reno storm merged with a weaker, ancillary storm. To examine the impacts of the merger on the dynamics of these storms, a series of three-dimensional cloud-scale analyses are created by assimilating 1-min volumetric observations from the National Weather Radar Testbed’s phased array radar into a numerical cloud model using the local ensemble transform Kalman filter technique. The El Reno storm, its updrafts, and vortices in the analyzed fields are objectively identified, and the changes in these objects before, during, and after the merger are examined. It is found that the merger did not cause the tornado handoff, which preceded the updraft merger by about 5 min. Instead, the handoff likely resulted from midlevel mesocyclone occlusion, in which the midlevel mesocyclone split and a portion is shed rearward with respect to storm motion. During the merger process, the midlevel mesocyclone and updraft structure in the El Reno storm became relatively disorganized. New updraft pulses that formed above colliding outflow boundaries between the two storms tilted environmental vorticity from low levels to generate an additional midlevel vortex that later merged with the El Reno storm’s midlevel mesocyclone. Once the ~10-min merger process was complete, the El Reno storm and its mesocyclone rapidly reintensified, as access to buoyant inflow sector air was restored.



2017 ◽  
Vol 145 (11) ◽  
pp. 4575-4592 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig H. Bishop ◽  
Jeffrey S. Whitaker ◽  
Lili Lei

To ameliorate suboptimality in ensemble data assimilation, methods have been introduced that involve expanding the ensemble size. Such expansions can incorporate model space covariance localization and/or estimates of climatological or model error covariances. Model space covariance localization in the vertical overcomes problematic aspects of ensemble-based satellite data assimilation. In the case of the ensemble transform Kalman filter (ETKF), the expanded ensemble size associated with vertical covariance localization would also enable the simultaneous update of entire vertical columns of model variables from hyperspectral and multispectral satellite sounders. However, if the original formulation of the ETKF were applied to an expanded ensemble, it would produce an analysis ensemble that was the same size as the expanded forecast ensemble. This article describes a variation on the ETKF called the gain ETKF (GETKF) that takes advantage of covariances from the expanded ensemble, while producing an analysis ensemble that has the required size of the unexpanded forecast ensemble. The approach also yields an inflation factor that depends on the localization length scale that causes the GETKF to perform differently to an ensemble square root filter (EnSRF) using the same expanded ensemble. Experimentation described herein shows that the GETKF outperforms a range of alternative ETKF-based solutions to the aforementioned problems. In cycling data assimilation experiments with a newly developed storm-track version of the Lorenz-96 model, the GETKF analysis root-mean-square error (RMSE) matches the EnSRF RMSE at shorter than optimal localization length scales but is superior in that it yields smaller RMSEs for longer localization length scales.



Author(s):  
Li Chen ◽  
Xiao Ding ◽  
Dunbiao Niu ◽  
Zhujun Cao ◽  
Enbin Song


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 2899-2914
Author(s):  
Yun Liu ◽  
Eugenia Kalnay ◽  
Ning Zeng ◽  
Ghassem Asrar ◽  
Zhaohui Chen ◽  
...  

Abstract. We developed a carbon data assimilation system to estimate surface carbon fluxes using the local ensemble transform Kalman filter (LETKF) and atmospheric transport model GEOS-Chem driven by the MERRA-1 reanalysis of the meteorological field based on the Goddard Earth Observing System model, version 5 (GEOS-5). This assimilation system is inspired by the method of Kang et al. (2011, 2012), who estimated the surface carbon fluxes in an observing system simulation experiment (OSSE) as evolving parameters in the assimilation of the atmospheric CO2, using a short assimilation window of 6 h. They included the assimilation of the standard meteorological variables, so that the ensemble provided a measure of the uncertainty in the CO2 transport. After introducing new techniques such as “variable localization”, and increased observation weights near the surface, they obtained accurate surface carbon fluxes at grid-point resolution. We developed a new version of the local ensemble transform Kalman filter related to the “running-in-place” (RIP) method used to accelerate the spin-up of ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) data assimilation (Kalnay and Yang, 2010; Wang et al., 2013; Yang et al., 2012). Like RIP, the new assimilation system uses the “no cost smoothing” algorithm for the LETKF (Kalnay et al., 2007b), which allows shifting the Kalman filter solution forward or backward within an assimilation window at no cost. In the new scheme a long “observation window” (e.g., 7 d or longer) is used to create a LETKF ensemble at 7 d. Then, the RIP smoother is used to obtain an accurate final analysis at 1 d. This new approach has the advantage of being based on a short assimilation window, which makes it more accurate, and of having been exposed to the future 7 d observations, which improves the analysis and accelerates the spin-up. The assimilation and observation windows are then shifted forward by 1 d, and the process is repeated. This reduces significantly the analysis error, suggesting that the newly developed assimilation method can be used with other Earth system models, especially in order to make greater use of observations in conjunction with models.



2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yun Liu ◽  
Eugenia Kalnay ◽  
Ning Zeng ◽  
Ghassem Asrar ◽  
Zhaohui Chen ◽  
...  

Abstract. We developed a Carbon data assimilation system to estimate the surface carbon fluxes using the Local Ensemble Transform Kalman Filter and atmospheric transfer model of GEOS-Chem driven by the MERRA-1 reanalysis of the meteorological fields based on the Goddard Earth Observing System Model, Version 5 (GEOS-5). This assimilation system is inspired by the method of Kang et al. [2011, 2012], who estimated the surface carbon fluxes in an Observing System Simulation Experiment (OSSE) mode, as evolving parameters in the assimilation of the atmospheric CO2, using a short assimilation window of 6 hours. They included the assimilation of the standard meteorological variables, so that the ensemble provided a measure of the uncertainty in the CO2 transport. After introducing new techniques such as variable localization, and increased observation weights near the surface, they obtained accurate carbon fluxes at grid point resolution. We developed a new version of the LETKF related to the Running-in-Place (RIP) method used to accelerate the spin-up of EnKF data assimilation [Kalnay and Yang, 2010; Wang et al., 2013, Yang et al., 2014]. Like RIP, the new assimilation system uses the no-cost smoothing algorithm for the LETKF [Kalnay et al., 2007b], which allows shifting at no cost the Kalman Filter solution forward or backward within an assimilation window. In the new scheme a long observation window (e.g., 7-days or longer) is used to create an LETKF ensemble at 7-days. Then, the RIP smoother is used to obtain an accurate final analysis at 1-day. This analysis has the advantage of being based on a short assimilation window, which makes it more accurate, and of having been exposed to the future 7-days observations, which accelerates the spin up. The assimilation and observation windows are then shifted forward by one day, and the process is repeated. This reduces significantly the analysis error, suggesting that this method could be used in other data assimilation problems.



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