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Spatially extended estimates of analysis and short-range forecast error variances Cover

Spatially extended estimates of analysis and short-range forecast error variances

Open Access
|Jan 2017

Figures & Tables

Fig. 1.

Distribution of simulated observations (hollow circle).

Table 1.

Estimated values of parameters x02, α and ρ 1 with the Statistical Analysis and Forecast Error (SAFE) estimation in PT14 and its enhanced version proposed here for the 500 hPa global (GB), Northern (NH) and Southern (SH) Hemisphere, and Tropical belt (TRO) regions. The actual values of the parameters and the SEM corresponding to the 95% significance level are also shown.

GBNHSHTROx02Actual/1.96SEM42.23/2.4332.12/2.7872.82/5.8725.32/1.30New estimate39.5834.0468.1619.51PT14 estimate44.1039.2777.7215.23αActual/1.96SEM0.405/0.0240.574/0.0330.297/0.0240.300/0.027New estimate0.4080.5650.2870.331PT14 estimate0.3910.5400.2700.389ρ1Actual/1.96SEM0.84/0.0100.789/0.0210.859/0.0140.860/0.01New estimate0.8370.7890.8380.844PT14 estimate0.8570.8220.8710.790
Fig. 2.

(a) Globally (vertically and horizontally) averaged 90-day time mean perceived (black) and true (red) forecast error variances, and (b) resulting correlation of true forecast and analysis errors as a function of lead time. Hollow circles and lines represent actual and estimated values (assuming exponential error growth), respectively. Vertical bars show the 95% confidence interval corresponding to sampling uncertainty in the time mean error estimates. Since ρ i (i > 1) is a simple function of ρ 1, a confidence interval is shown only for ρ 1. The estimated and actual values of the unknown parameters are x02 = 48.12, α = 0.392, ρ 1 = 0.836 and 53.0, 0.38, 0.85, respectively.

Fig. 3.

Globally (both vertically and horizontally) averaged 90-day time mean actual (open circles) and simulated (assuming logistic error growth, continuous lines) perceived (a) and true (d) forecast error variances, and their absolute differences (continuous lines for perceived (b and c, the latter a zoom-in version of b), and true error (e and zoom-in f), as well as the 95% confidence level corresponding to sampling uncertainty in the time mean estimates (dotted curves). The correlation between true analysis and forecast errors is shown in (g). The estimated and actual values for the known parameters are x02 = 56.5, α = 0.38, ρ 1 = 0.86, S  = 13672.8, and 53.0, 0.38, 0.85, 13889.1, respectively.

Fig. 4.

Distribution of 90-day sample mean estimated (a) and actual (b) 500 hPa initial ensemble spread and actual 12–84-h ensemble spread. The spatial correlations of panels (b–i) to (a) are listed above the panels.

Fig. 5.

Distribution of 90-day sample mean estimated (a) and actual (b) 500 hPa analysis error variances and 12–84-h actual true forecast error variances. The spatial correlations of panels (b–i) to (a) are listed above the panels.

Fig. 6.

Estimated displacement vector field transposing Fig. 4b to a.

Fig. 7.

Distribution of the actual values for the 500 hPa parameters (a) analysis error variance x02, (b) correlation of analysis and background forecast errors ρ 1 and (c) exponential growth rate. Global mean values are 42.24, 0.829 and 0.379, respectively.

Fig. 8.

Distribution of estimated 500 hPa analysis error variance without (a) and with (b) the application of field alignment (FA) technique, and the estimated exponential error growth rate (d). Global mean value of (a), (b) and (d) are 39.86, 39.79 and 0.382, respectively. (c) Percentage of gridpoints with estimated true forecast error variance within the 95% sampling confidence interval of their respective actual time mean values. For further details, see text.

Table 2.

Spatial correlations between actual perceived and true forecast error variances at different lead times (2nd row). The spatial correlations between estimated (with SAFE algorithm) and actual true forecast error variances are shown on the 3rd row. Their global mean error variances at different lead times are listed on 4th–6th rows, respectively. The initial perceived errors are 0 and thus its field is replaced by the 12-h field when calculating the spatial correlation.

0 h12 h24 h36 h48 h60 h72 h84 h96 hCorrSAFE0.900.870.910.940.950.960.970.970.97PerErr–0.880.910.930.940.960.970.980.98Error Var (m2)SAFE40.047.556.868.382.6100.6123.4152.3189.3PerErr–15.030.949.471.196.3125.0158.8198.2Actual42.250.361.776.695.0116.9143.0174.2211.9
Table 3.

Comparison of EnKF, NMC and SAFE estimates of the actual 500 hPa analysis and first guess forecast error variance fields using global mean magnitude and spatial correlation.

EnKFNMCSAFEActual analysis error variance (m2): 42.2Spatial corr0.92NA0.90Error variance(m2)/deviation of Est19.0/55%NA39.8/6%Actual first guess error variance 12 h (m2): 50.3Spatial corr0.9148–24 h: 0.630.8724–12 h: 0.78Error variance(m2)/deviation of EstBefore inflation: 22.8/55%48–24 h: 48.9/3%47.5/6%After inflation: 38.6/23%24–12 h: 18.9/62%
Language: English
Page range: 1325301 - 1325301
Submitted on: Dec 22, 2016
Accepted on: Apr 27, 2017
Published on: Jan 1, 2017
Published by: Stockholm University Press
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

© 2017 Jie Feng, Zoltan Toth, Malaquias Peña, published by Stockholm University Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.