scholarly journals A Particle Filter scheme for multivariate data assimilation into a point-scale snowpack model in Alpine environment

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaia Piazzi ◽  
Guillaume Thirel ◽  
Lorenzo Campo ◽  
Simone Gabellani

Abstract. The accuracy of hydrological predictions in snow-dominated regions deeply depends on the quality of the snowpack simulations, whose dynamics strongly affects the local hydrological regime, especially during the melting period. With the aim of reducing the modelling uncertainty, data assimilation techniques are increasingly being implemented for operational purposes. This study aims at investigating the performance of a multivariate Sequential Importance Resampling – Particle Filter scheme designed to jointly assimilate several ground-based snow observations. The system, which relies on a multilayer energy-balance snow model, has been tested at three Alpine sites: Col de Porte (France), Torgnon (Italy), and Weissfluhjoch (Switzerland). The implementation of a multivariate data assimilation scheme faces several challenging issues, which are here addressed and extensively discussed: (1) the effectiveness of the perturbation of the meteorological forcing data in preventing the sample impoverishment; (2) the impact of the parameters resampling on the filter updating of the snowpack state; (3) the system sensitivity to the frequency of the assimilated observations.

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 2287-2306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaia Piazzi ◽  
Guillaume Thirel ◽  
Lorenzo Campo ◽  
Simone Gabellani

Abstract. The accuracy of hydrological predictions in snow-dominated regions deeply depends on the quality of the snowpack simulations, with dynamics that strongly affect the local hydrological regime, especially during the melting period. With the aim of reducing the modelling uncertainty, data assimilation techniques are increasingly being implemented for operational purposes. This study aims to investigate the performance of a multivariate sequential importance resampling – particle filter scheme, designed to jointly assimilate several ground-based snow observations. The system, which relies on a multilayer energy-balance snow model, has been tested at three Alpine sites: Col de Porte (France), Torgnon (Italy), and Weissfluhjoch (Switzerland). The implementation of a multivariate data assimilation scheme faces several challenging issues, which are here addressed and extensively discussed: (1) the effectiveness of the perturbation of the meteorological forcing data in preventing the sample impoverishment; (2) the impact of the parameter perturbation on the filter updating of the snowpack state; the system sensitivity to (3) the frequency of the assimilated observations, and (4) the ensemble size.The perturbation of the meteorological forcing data generally turns out to be insufficient for preventing the sample impoverishment of the particle sample, which is highly limited when jointly perturbating key model parameters. However, the parameter perturbation sharpens the system sensitivity to the frequency of the assimilated observations, which can be successfully relaxed by introducing indirectly estimated information on snow-mass-related variables. The ensemble size is found not to greatly impact the filter performance in this point-scale application.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bertrand Cluzet ◽  
Matthieu Lafaysse ◽  
Marie Dumont ◽  
Emmanuel Cosme ◽  
Clément Albergel

<p>In mountainous areas, detailed snowpack models are essential to capture the high spatio-temporal variability of the snowpack. This task is highly challenging, and models suffer from large simulation errors. In these regions, in-situ observations are scarce, while remote sensing observations are generally patchy owing to complex physiographic features (steep slopes, forests, shadows,...) and weather conditions (clouds). This point is stressing the need for a spatially coherent data assimilation system able to propagate the informations into unobserved locations.</p><p>In this study, we present CRAMPON (CRocus with AssiMilation of snowPack ObservatioNs), an ensemble data assimilation system ingesting snowpack observations in a spatialized context. CRAMPON quantifies snowpack modelling uncertainties with an ensemble and reduces them using a Particle Filter. Stochastic perturbations of meteorological forcings and the multi-physical version of Crocus snowpack model (ESCROC) are used to build the ensemble. Two variants of the Sequential Importance Resampling Particle Filter (PF) were implemented to tackle the common PF degeneracy issue that arises when assimilating a large number of observations. In a first approach (so-called global approach), the observations information is spread across topographic conditions by looking for a global analysis. Degeneracy is mitigated by inflating the observation error covariance matrix, with the side effect of reducing the impact of the assimilation. In a second approach (klocal), we propagate the information and mitigate degeneracy by a localisation of the PF based on background correlation patterns between topographic conditions.</p><p>Here, we investigate the ability of CRAMPON to globally benefit from partial observations in a conceptual semi-distributed domain which accounts for the main features of topographic-induced snowpack variability. We compare simulations without assimilation with experiments assimilating synthetic observations of the Height of Snow and VIS/NIR reflectance. This setup demonstrates the ability of CRAMPON to spread the information of various snow observations into unobserved locations.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaia Piazzi ◽  
Lorenzo Campo ◽  
Simone Gabellani ◽  
Fabio Castelli ◽  
Edoardo Cremonese ◽  
...  

Abstract The knowledge of snowpack dynamics is of critical importance to several real-time applications especially in mountain basins, such as agricultural production, water resource management, flood prevention, hydropower generation. Since simulations are affected by model biases and forcing data uncertainty, an increasing interest focuses on the assimilation of snow-related observations with the purpose of enhancing predictions on snowpack state. The study aims at investigating the effectiveness of snow multivariable data assimilation (DA) at an Alpine site. The system consists of a snow energy-balance model strengthened by a multivariable DA system. An Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF) scheme allows assimilating ground-based and remotely sensed snow observations in order to improve the model simulations. This research aims to investigate and discuss: (1) the limitations and constraints in implementing a multivariate EnKF scheme in the framework of snow modelling, and (2) its performance in consistently updating the snowpack state. The performance of the multivariable DA is shown for the study case of Torgnon station (Aosta Valley, Italy) in the period June 2012 - December 2013. The results of several experiments are discussed with the aim of analyzing system sensitivity to the DA frequency, the ensemble size, and the impact of assimilating different observations.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhenwu Wang ◽  
Rolf Hut ◽  
Natthachet Tangdamrongsub ◽  
Nick van de Giesen

<p>Assimilating surface soil moisture data or GRACE data, retrieved from satellite, into hydrological models has been proven to improve the accuracy of hydrological model estimations and predictions. For data assimilation applications in hydrology, the ensemble Kalm filter(EnKF) is the most commonly used data assimilation(DA) method. Particle filters are a type of non-Gaussian filter that doesn’t need the normality assumption that the EnKF needs. Adding localization defeats the curse of dimensionality that is a problem in normal particle filters. In the present study, we investigated our adaption of the local particle filter based on the Gamma test theory(LPF-GT) to improve discharge estimates by assimilating SMAP satellite soil moisture into the PCR-GLOBWB hydrological model. The study area is the Rhine river basin, driven by forcing data from April 2015 to December 2016. The improved discharge estimates are obtained by using DA to adjust the surface soil moisture in the model. The influence of DA to discharge is not direct but works through the dynamics of the hydrological model.  To explore the potential of LPF-GT, serval sensitivity experiments were conducted to figure out the impact of localization scales and the number of particles on DA's performance. The DA estimates were validated against in situ discharge measurements from gauge stations. To demonstrate the benefit of LPF-GT, EnKF was used as a benchmark in this research. Increases in Nash-Sutcliffe (0.05%– 38%) and decreases in normalized RMSE (0.02%–3.4%) validated the capability of LPF-GT. Results showed that localization scales' impact was substantial. The optimal value of the localization scale was obtained by tuning. LPF-GT achieved a satisfactory performance when only using a few particles, even with as little as five particles. The sample errors posed an adverse impact on the open-loop results. Further improvement could be achieved by considering reduce sample errors due to a small number of particles.</p>


2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark S. Raleigh ◽  
Ben Livneh ◽  
Karl Lapo ◽  
Jessica D. Lundquist

Abstract Physically based models facilitate understanding of seasonal snow processes but require meteorological forcing data beyond air temperature and precipitation (e.g., wind, humidity, shortwave radiation, and longwave radiation) that are typically unavailable at automatic weather stations (AWSs) and instead are often represented with empirical estimates. Research is needed to understand which forcings (after temperature and precipitation) would most benefit snow modeling through expanded observation or improved estimation techniques. Here, the impact of forcing data availability on snow model output is assessed with data-withholding experiments using 3-yr datasets at well-instrumented sites in four climates. The interplay between forcing availability and model complexity is examined among the Utah Energy Balance (UEB), the Distributed Hydrology Soil Vegetation Model (DHSVM) snow submodel, and the snow thermal model (SNTHERM). Sixty-four unique forcing scenarios were evaluated, with different assumptions regarding availability of hourly meteorological observations at each site. Modeled snow water equivalent (SWE) and snow surface temperature Tsurf diverged most often because of availability of longwave radiation, which is the least frequently measured forcing in cold regions in the western United States. Availability of longwave radiation (i.e., observed vs empirically estimated) caused maximum SWE differences up to 234 mm (57% of peak SWE), mean differences up to 6.2°C in Tsurf, and up to 32 days difference in snow disappearance timing. From a model data perspective, more common observations of longwave radiation at AWSs could benefit snow model development and applications, but other aspects (e.g., costs, site access, and maintenance) need consideration.


Author(s):  
Gražina ŽIBIENĖ ◽  
Alvydas ŽIBAS ◽  
Goda BLAŽAITYTĖ

The construction of dams in rivers negatively affects ecosystems because dams violate the continuity of rivers, transform the biological and physical structure of the river channels, and the most importantly – alter the hydrological regime. The impact on the hydrology of the river can occur through reducing or increasing flows, altering seasonality of flows, changing the frequency, duration and timing of flow events, etc. In order to determine the extent of the mentioned changes, The Indicators of Hydrologic Alteration (IHA) software was used in this paper. The results showed that after the construction of Angiriai dam, such changes occurred in IHA Parameters group as: the water conditions of April month decreased by 31 %; 1-day, 3-days, 7-days and 30-days maximum flow decreased; the date of minimum flow occurred 21 days later; duration of high and low pulses and the frequency of low pulses decreased, but the frequency of high pulses increased, etc. The analysis of the Environmental Flow Components showed, that the essential differences were recorded in groups of the small and large floods, when, after the establishment of the Šušvė Reservoir, the large floods no longer took place and the probability of frequency of the small floods didn’t exceed 1 time per year.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 2103
Author(s):  
Yuchen Liu ◽  
Jia Liu ◽  
Chuanzhe Li ◽  
Fuliang Yu ◽  
Wei Wang

An attempt was made to evaluate the impact of assimilating Doppler Weather Radar (DWR) reflectivity together with Global Telecommunication System (GTS) data in the three-dimensional variational data assimilation (3DVAR) system of the Weather Research Forecast (WRF) model on rain storm prediction in Daqinghe basin of northern China. The aim of this study was to explore the potential effects of data assimilation frequency and to evaluate the outputs from different domain resolutions in improving the meso-scale NWP rainfall products. In this study, four numerical experiments (no assimilation, 1 and 6 h assimilation time interval with DWR and GTS at 1 km horizontal resolution, 6 h assimilation time interval with radar reflectivity, and GTS data at 3 km horizontal resolution) are carried out to evaluate the impact of data assimilation on prediction of convective rain storms. The results show that the assimilation of radar reflectivity and GTS data collectively enhanced the performance of the WRF-3DVAR system over the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region of northern China. It is indicated by the experimental results that the rapid update assimilation has a positive impact on the prediction of the location, tendency, and development of rain storms associated with the study area. In order to explore the influence of data assimilation in the outer domain on the output of the inner domain, the rainfall outputs of 3 and 1 km resolution are compared. The results show that the data assimilation in the outer domain has a positive effect on the output of the inner domain. Since the 3DVAR system is able to analyze certain small-scale and convective-scale features through the incorporation of radar observations, hourly assimilation time interval does not always significantly improve precipitation forecasts because of the inaccurate radar reflectivity observations. Therefore, before data assimilation, the validity of assimilation data should be judged as far as possible in advance, which can not only improve the prediction accuracy, but also improve the assimilation efficiency.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 3939-3954
Author(s):  
Frederik Kurzrock ◽  
Hannah Nguyen ◽  
Jerome Sauer ◽  
Fabrice Chane Ming ◽  
Sylvain Cros ◽  
...  

Abstract. Numerical weather prediction models tend to underestimate cloud presence and therefore often overestimate global horizontal irradiance (GHI). The assimilation of cloud water path (CWP) retrievals from geostationary satellites using an ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) led to improved short-term GHI forecasts of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model in midlatitudes in case studies. An evaluation of the method under tropical conditions and a quantification of this improvement for study periods of more than a few days are still missing. This paper focuses on the assimilation of CWP retrievals in three phases (ice, supercooled, and liquid) in a 6-hourly cycling procedure and on the impact of this method on short-term forecasts of GHI for Réunion Island, a tropical island in the southwest Indian Ocean. The multilayer gridded cloud properties of NASA Langley's Satellite ClOud and Radiation Property retrieval System (SatCORPS) are assimilated using the EnKF of the Data Assimilation Research Testbed (DART) Manhattan release (revision 12002) and the advanced research WRF (ARW) v3.9.1.1. The ability of the method to improve cloud analyses and GHI forecasts is demonstrated, and a comparison using independent radiosoundings shows a reduction of specific humidity bias in the WRF analyses, especially in the low and middle troposphere. Ground-based GHI observations at 12 sites on Réunion Island are used to quantify the impact of CWP DA. Over a total of 44 d during austral summertime, when averaged over all sites, CWP data assimilation has a positive impact on GHI forecasts for all lead times between 5 and 14 h. Root mean square error and mean absolute error are reduced by 4 % and 3 %, respectively.


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