Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
6 Dongmei Xu
11
12 Man Zhang
14
15
16
17 Submitted to JAMC
18 Aug 2013
19 Corresponding author:
21 hlwang@ucar.edu
22 MMM/NCAR
1
24
ABSTRACT
25
26 Background error modeling plays a key role in a variational data assimilation system. The
27 NMC method has been widely used in variational data assimilation systems to model
29 error modeling via the NMC method are investigated for the variational data assimilation
30 system of the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF-Var). The background
31 error statistics are extracted from the short-term 3km resolution forecasts in June, July
32 and August 2012. It is found that (1) background error variances vary month to month
33 and also have a feature of diurnal variations in low-level atmosphere; (2) u- and v-wind
34 variances are underestimated and their auto-correlations length scales are overestimated
36
37 Two additional control variable transforms (CVT) are proposed to form the background
38 error covariance matrix via the NMC method. One uses u-, v-wind, temperature, surface
39 pressure and pseudo relative humidity as control variables, and the other uses so called
40 alpha control variables to construct the background error covariance matrix. Single
41 observation assimilation experiments show that the two proposed methods give good
42 error variance modeling for u-, v-wind using the NMC method, and the alpha control
44 information and producing multi-variate analysis. The preliminary results from data
45 assimilaton and forecast study for a real convective case shows that the use of the new
2
47
48 1. Introduction
49 The background error (BE) covariance matrix plays a key role in a variational data
51 spreading information from observation points, and by imposing balance between the
52 model control variables (Daley 1991; Bannister 2008a,b). However, the estimation of the
53 BE statistics is not straightforward, since the truth is not known. Two methods are mainly
54 used in current data assimilation systems. The so-called NMC (named for the National
55 Meteorological Center, now called the National Centers for Environmental Prediction)
56 method (Parrish and Derber 1992) is one approach that is widely employed to estimate
57 the BE covariances. This method uses the differences between forecasts of different
58 lengths, but valid at the same time, to evaluate the short-range forecast errors. An
61 Various control variable transforms (CVTs) have been used in variational data
64 modeling for wind analysis are widely used in variational data assimilation. Vorticity and
66 ECMWF (Courtier et al. 1996) and Meteo France (Fischer et al. 2005). Streamfunction
67 and unbalanced velocity potential are widely used as control variables in global data
68 assimilation systems, and some regional data assimilation systems (e.g. Ingleby 2001;
69 Barker et al. 2004, 2012; Zupanski 2005; Rawlins et al. 2007; Huang et al. 2009; Wang et
3
70
al. 2013). Whereas, velocities are employed as control variables in data assimilation
71 systems for mesoscale and convective scales (e.g. Zou et al. 1995; Sun and Crook 1997;
72 Gao et al. 1999; Zupanski et al. 2005; Kawabata et al. 2011). The velocity control
73 variables may be more suitable for mesoscale and convective scale data assimilation
74 since past theoretical analysis found that velocity control variables could combine the
75 background and observations for all scales (Xie et al. 2002; Xie and MacDonals 2011).
76 Assumptions are made to model BE covariances in an efficient and affordable way since
77 the BE matrix is of high dimensions. The present numerical weather prediction model
78 uses a large dimensional space, typically 107 dimensions or more, and so the BE matrix
79 has 1014 elements, which cannot be explicitly modeled. In practice, it is usually assumed
80 that the BE covariances are nearly homogeneous and isotropic. For example, the
81 variational data assimilation system of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF)
82 model (WRF-Var) assumes that the BE covariances are homogeneous and isotropic. It is
83 noted that both choice of CVT and assumptions made to model BE covariances as
86 The WRF-Var system has been extensively used in the research community and
87 operational centers (Barker et al. 2012; Huang et al. 2013). For examples, WRF-Var was
88 adopted in the Rapid Update Cycling Data assimilation and Forecasting System at
89 Beijing Meteorological Bureau (BJ-RUC; Chen et al. 2009), which has been run in
90 operation since June 2008. The WRF-Var system with radar data assimilation has shown
4
93
(CWB) has significantly reduced typhoon track forecast errors (Hisao et al. 2012).
94 The NMC method has been employed in the specification of BE statistics for WRF-Var.
95 WRF-Var is the basic component of the WRF models community data assimilation
96 system (WRFDA; Barker et al. 2012). Barker et al. (2004) suggested to apply empirical
97 tuning factors to the length scales calculated via the NMC method (ranging between 0.5
98 and 1). Previous studies (e.g. Xiao and Sun 2007; Sugimoto 2009; Li et al. 2012; Sun et
99 al. 2012; Wang et al. 2013a) showed that radar radial velocity data assimilation using
100 WRF-Var system with reduced lengthscales improved analyses and forecasts. These
101 provide the motivation to investigate the features of BE modeling via the NMC method to
102 further improve the performance of the WRF-Var system. Moreover, investigations on
104 In WRF-Var, stream function and velocity potential (CV option 5; CV5) are the default
105 option to produce wind analyses. In this paper, background error modeling for u-wind
106 and v-wind using CV5 are investigated, and two additional CVTs are proposed to form
107 the climatological background error covariance matrix via the NMC method. Up to the
108 authors knowledge, this is the first work using the two proposed CVTs to study the
110 This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides a description of the NMC method
111 and features of BE statistics over Beijing region. Two new CVTs are introduced to use
112 climatological background errors with the NMC method in section 3. Single observation
113 data assimilation experiments using several CVTs are presented in section 4. The impacts
114 of the new CVTs on real data assimilation and forecast for a convective case occurred in
5
115
Beijing is presented in section 5. A summary and discussion is given in the final section.
118 A common method to model the BE covariance matrix is to take the difference between
119 pairs of forecasts of different lead times but each valid at the same time (Parrish and
120 Derber 1992). Forecast differences are usually calculated over a reasonably long period
121 of time (e.g. a month). This makes the NMC method suitable for climatological forecast
122 error statistics. In WRF-Var, the background error covariance matrix may be considered
125 where x 24 and x12 are 24 h and 12 h forecasts respectively valid at the same time. The
126 overbar denotes an average over time and/or space. The two forecasts can be written in
130 Here, x truth is the true atmospheric state at the valid time. 24 and 12 are the random
131 errors, and b 24 and b12 are the biases in each forecast. Assuming there is no bias or the
6
136
= ( 24 12 )( 24 12 ) T
138
It is seen that the BE modeling using Eq.1 including three parts: 24 h BE, 12 h BE and
139
their correlations. In a real data assimilation and forecast system, analyses are usually
140
update every 6/3 hours. It indicates that the background error covariance generated by
141
forecast differences with longer lead times needs to be tuned in real applications.
142
143
2.2 Error variance estimation using the BJ-RUC operational forecasts
144
Before discussing the BE modeling, it is crucial to check the features of error variance in
145
raw dataset estimates using Eq. 4. The BE modeling should reproduce those features as
146
much as possible. Operational forecasts produced by the BJ_RUC system (Chen et al.
147
2009) during the period of 1 June-31 Aug 2012 are used to calculate short-term BE
148
statistics in this paper. The statistics are over the inner domain (Fig.1) with 3 km grid
149
spacing. The forecast differences between 24 h and 12 h forecasts valid at the same times
150
are employed to model the BE statistics. Hereafter, the forecast differences between
151
forecasts with different lead times but valid at the same times are names as the NMC
152
ensembles in this paper.
153
154
Horizontal distributions of standard deviation of the error variances at three model levels
155
are shown in Fig. 1. It is obvious that even over the inside small domain (about
156
1300x1600 km2) the variance distributions show geographically dependent structures.
157
These features are significant for wind at about the 30th model level, for temperature at
158
about 11th model level. It is noted that the WRFDA uses a domain averaged error
159
variance, thus does not account for these location dependent features. As shown in the
160
next section, an effective yet efficient scheme is poposed for the location dependent error
161
variance modeling for WRFDA. In general, the value of the standard deviation of the
162
wind error is about 3 m s-1 at the 11th and 25th model levels. The value increases to be
163
about 5 m s-1 in the extratropical jet (33rd) level. For temperature, the value is about 1 K
164
in most domain. For relative humidity, the values of the error are between 10-20%. The
7
165
vertical structures of the standard deviation of the error variances are depicted in Fig. 2. It
166
is seen that the error of wind and temperature (Fig. 2a, 2b and 2c) exhibit two maximum
167
regions, one below the 11th model level (approximate 850 hPa), and the other is around
168
30th model level (approximate 250 hPa). Fig.1 and 2 also reveal that the errors for u, v
169
and T in the north region of the model grid are larger than in the south region below the
170
10 th model level. This is related the surface observation density in BJ-RUC as will be
171
discussed in section 5.
172
173
The monthly variations of background errors are found. Figure 3 depicts the BE variances
174 for u , v , T , and RH . It is seen that the BE variances for wind and temperature in June
175 and July are relatively larger than in August. The diurnal variations of forecast error near
176 surface are clearly shown in Fig. 4. The error variances for wind and temperature in the
177 low atmosphere in the evening 1200 UTC (local time 20Z) are larger than those in the
178 morning 0000 UTC (local time 08Z). The above results indicate that even with the
179 climatological BE statistics the time dependent variances can be achieved. Surface
180 observations are important data sources for a regional rapid update cycle data
181 assimilation system. The above results indicate that BE covariances accounting for the
182 diurnal variation and geographically dependent error variance may benefit the surface
184
185
2.2 B modeling in WRF-Var
186 The BE covariance estimated by Eq.4 is not directly used in a variational data
187 assimilation system. The CVTS and some assumptions are made to model BE covariance
188 in an efficient and affordable way. In the WRF-Var system, a control variable transform
189 x = Uv is used to model background errors. v represents control variable vector and
190 x stands for analysis increment vector. The U transform maps control variables from
8
191
control space to analysis space. The CVT x = Uv is implemented through a series of
192 operations x = U p U v U h v (Barker et al. 2004). The default control variables (CV option
193 5; CV5) in WRF-Var includes the streamfunction , the unbalanced part of velocity
194 potential u , the unbalanced part of temperature Tu , the unbalanced part of surface
195 pressure Psu , and pseudorelative humidity RH . The term unbalance refers to the
197 The operators U p , U v and U h are described in Barker et al. (2004) in details. The
199 recursive filters. The horizontal correlations are assumed to be homogeneous (i.e. not
200 dependent on geographic position) and isotropic for each control variable. The vertical
202 the vertical component of BE on model levels. The variances and vertical correlations of
203 each control variable are modeled in this stage. In the default CV5, the time- and domain-
204 averaged vertical component of the BE is used indicating that the variances and vertical
205 correlations are constant on each model level and do not depend on geographic positions.
206 In addition, the horizontal correlation for each control variable is not model in the
207 physical space but in the EOF spaces. The physical variable transform U p involves
208 balance transform and conversion of control variables to analysis variable increments.
9
I 0 0 0 0
C , I 0 0 0 u
210
T = C 0 I 0 0 Tu (5)
T ,
Ps C Ps , 0 0 I 0 Psu
RH
0 0 0 0 I RH
211 where I is the identity matrix, and C , , CT , and C Ps , stand for statistical regression
u Cu , Cu , 0 0 0
v Cv , Cv , 0 0 0
214
T = 0 0 I 0 T
0 (6)
Ps 0 0 0 I 0
Ps
q 0 0 0 0 Cq , rh RH
216 variables u , v , T , Ps and q . Noted that temperature and pressure are required to
217 obtain C q, rh .
218
220 It is seen that the CVT and several assumptions are taken to model the BE matrix
221 approximately in a compact and efficient way. Practically CVT (CV5) is used to model
222 background errors for WRF-Var. A natural question to ask is: what information is
223 lost/filtered out by the CVT and the above assumptions? We compare the error standard
224 deviation in the NMC ensembles to that modeled by WRF-Var using CV5 to answer the
225 question.
10
226
227 The standard deviation in the three-month forecasts directly estimated by Eq. (1) without
228 CVT is named as STD_NMC. The standard deviation derived from B that is generated
229 by WRF-Var gen_be utility is named as STD_CV5. This is achieved through sampling
230 the B matrix in control variable space and then computing statistics in analysis space
231 after CVT (Andersson et al. 2000). 200 samples are taken in this paper. Single
234
235 The vertical profiles of STD_NMC and STD_CV5 are plotted in Fig. 5. It is seen that
236 STDs of all the variables are underestimated and especially for u , v . In the BJ_RUC
237 system for radar data assimilation, the lengthscales are tuned to be half of the original
238 ones. With tuned B (CV5), the u , v variances (STD_CV5_L05 in Fig. 5) are
239 comparable to STD_NMC. This indicates the CVT in WRF-Var may contribute to the
241
242 Horizontal correlations for u (black curves) and v (red curves) in the NMC ensembles,
243 modeled by CV5 at 25th model level (approximate 500 hPa surface) along east-west
244 direction and north-south direction are shown in Fig. 6. The correlations using the NMC
245 ensembles are directly calculated in u and v spaces so that they can be used as time- and
246 domain averaged statistics reference for CV5. It is seen that CV5 slightly overestimates
247 the correlation length for u along east-west direction and significantly overestimates the
248 correlation length along north-south direction. A possible reason is that with the
11
249
climatological BE statistics one gets an average correlation model that is not the optimal
250 one for any particular situation. Other possible reasons for the overestimation of
251 correlation length for u and v are that the horizontal correlation modeling is carried out on
252 EOF (decomposed from time-averaged vertical covariance) spaces and only one Gaussian
253 fitting is used to model the pattern of horizontal correlations. There is a noticeable
254 negative correlation for u in south-north direction, and for v in weat-east direction. This
255 feature is modeled by CV5, however CV5 produces a larger negative correlation.
256
258 In this paper, two CVTs are proposed to account for background errors statistics in the
259 NMC ensembles. A natural choice is to use u and v as control variables for wind
260 analyses since u and v have been used as control variables in data assimilation systems
261 for mesoscale and convective-scale forecasts (e.g. Zou et al. 1995; Sun and Crook 1997;
262 Gao et al. 1999; Zupanski et al. 2005; Kawabata et al. 2011).
264 The new formulation, which uses u , v , T , Ps and RH s (pseudo relative humidity) as
265 control variables, is developed in WRF-Var for mesoscale and convective-scale data
268 We followed WRF-Var procedure to use recursive filter and EOFs to model horizontal
269 and vertical correlations respectively which are implemented through U v U h . The
270 homogeneous and isotropic filters, which are used for CV5, are applied to each control
271 variable. In addition, the time- and domain-averaged vertical component of BE is used
12
272
indicating that the BE statistics do not depend on geographic position. It is noted that
273 U p 2 in Eq.7 only involves conversion analysis increments in relative humidity to specific
274 humidity as shown in Eq.6. No statistical balance transform (Eq.5) is applied in this
275 transform.
276
277 The variance and correlation modeling for u and v using CV7 are investigated. The STD
278 derived from the BE matrix using CV7 is shown in Fig. 5 (STD_CV7). It is shown that
279 the use of u and v , which are WRF model prognostic variables, as control variables
280 gives a good STD modeling. However, the horizontal correlation lengths are
281 underestimated (Fig. 6). The possible reason for the underestimation of correlation length
282 for u and v are that the horizontal correlation modeling is carried out on EOF
283 (decomposed from time-averaged vertical covariance) spaces and only one Gaussian
284 fitting is used to model the pattern of horizontal correlations. It is noted that to better
285 model the anisotropic error correlation for u and v anisotropic filters need to be developed
287
289 Another possible approach that directly uses the NMC ensembles to form the BE
290 covariance matrix is described here. The analysis increment is expressed in a subspace
K
292
x' = ( a k x kd ) (8)
k=1
13
293
where K is the total number, and the vector x kd ( k = 1, K ) is the kth unbiased the NMC
295
(
xdk = xdiff
k )
x / K (9)
296 In practice, the time-averaged bias x is removed from the forecast differences. The
297 vector a k stands for the augmented control variables for the kth forecast difference. a k
298 will be called alpha control variable hereafter in this paper. The symbol denotes the
299 Schur product of the vectors a k and x kd . Let X' = (x1d , x 2d ,..., x kd ,..., x dK ) , it is obvious that
300
(X' X' )! S is the B covariance matrix defined in Eq.1 but with covariance localization
T
301 defined by S = a k (a k )T .
302
303 The transform (Eq.8) has been developed in the WRF hybrid ensemble-3DVar data
304 assimilation system. The readers are referred to Wang et al. (2008) for details. In their
305 scheme, an ensemble of forecast perturbations was used to incorporate flow dependent
306 error covariance of the day. We adopt this idea but use the so called NMC ensembles
308
309 Localization schemes are required to mitigate the sample noise. In the WRF hybrid
310 ensemble-3DVar system, both horizontal and vertical localization can be applied.
311 Specifically, the horizontal and vertical correlation localizations are implemented through
312 recursive filters (Wang et al. 2008) and vertical correlation matrix respectively. A general
14
d (l1 , l2 ) 2
314
Cov (l1 , l2 ) = exp( )
D(l1 ) 2 (10)
315 where Cov(l1, l2 ) represents the correlation between model levels l1 and l2 . d is the
316 distance in a specified coordinate between model level l1 and l2 and D stands for the
318
319 The default vertical correlation matrix in WRF-Var is defined in model level space,
l1
320
specifically,
d (l1, l2 ) = l2 l1,
D(l1 ) = 10 ,
N is the total number of model levels.
N
(l2 l1 ) 2
321
Cov(l1 , l2 ) = exp( ) (11)
l1 2
(10 )
N
322 It is seen that the level-dependent localization radius D(l1 ) only depends on the number
323 index of model level indicating that an observation at model level with large number
324 index will be widely spread in vertical direction. This may reduce the impact of
327 In addition to the above formulation (Eq.11), a specific application of Eq.10 in height
331 localization radius Z (l1 ) is used as done by Li et al. (2012). The above two vertical
15
333
334 In summary, we proposed two CVTs to incorporate climatological B with the NMC
335 method in WRF-Var. The first one uses u , v , T , Ps and RH s as control variables,
336 which is named as CV7 in WRF-Var. The other "alpha" control variable approach can
337 provide geographic location dependent BE covariance modeling, which will be clearly
338 shown in the single observation data assimilation experiments in next section.
339
341 The B matrix weights the background state and spreads out observation information in
342 horizontal and vertical directions in space. Increments from single observation
343 experiments can be used to estimate BE variance and demonstrate how the BE covariance
344 spreads the observation information spatially, which give a graphic representation of the
345 BE structure function (Huang et al. 2009; Gustafsson et al. 2012). The increment x a at
347 x a = ( d ) /( + e) (13)
348 where the scale d is innovation, e is the observation error variance, is the BE
349 variance in observation space. Given d , e , and x a are known, the BE variance can
e x a
351
= (14)
d x a
352
16
354
To better understand the differences in BE representations in the three formulations,
355 single observation data assimilation experiments are conducted to show the BE
357 observation are presented. The innovation is 1.0 m s-1, and the observation error is 1.0 m
358 s-1. The variance scaling factor for each control variable is 1.0 which is the default value
359 in WRF-Var. The single observation is set either at location (271,212,25) or at location
360 (364,150,25) in model grid. The two locations are named as P1 and P2 hereafter.
361
362 The experiments U-CV5-P1 and U-CV5-P2-L05 are designed to see impact of CV5 BE
363 and BE tuning on analysis increments. The length scaling factors with values of 0.5 are
364 adopted from BJ_RUC for radar data assimilation (Wang et al. 2013a). Compared to the
365 above two experiments, two experiments U-CV7-P1 and U-CV7-P2 are carried out to
366 show impact of CV7. CV7 only produces univariate analyses. An incremental diabatic
367 digital filtering initialization (DFI) scheme (Lynch and Huang 1994) is used to spread
369 experiment named U-CV7-P2-DFI (Table. 1) is carried out in which analysis increments
370 are from experiment U-CV7-P2. The model carries out a 30 minutes backward adiabatic
371 integration and a 60 minutes forward diabatic integration with starting time at 0000 UTC
373
374 Four experiments with using the alpha control variable are conducted. The first two
375 experiments are without vertical localization and the other two with vertical localization
376 with the purpose to check the influence of the vertical localization scheme. In WRF-Var,
17
377
the vertical localization is not taken in the default option. Along with U-alpha-L300-P1,
380
382 In this subsection, first the horizontal and vertical structures of u analysis increments
383 will be examined. Then the multivariate features of analysis increments in selected
385
387 The horizontal the u increments on the 25th model level (approximate 500 hPa pressure
388 level) are shown in Fig. 8. The vertical south-north section of the u increments across
389 the single observation location are shown in Fig. 9. The maximum values of the u
390 analysis increments in U-CV5-P1 and U-CV7-P1 are 0.66 (Fig. 8a and Fig. 9a) and 0.89
391 m s-1 (Fig. 8c and Fig. 9c) respectively. The corresponding BE standard deviations
392 derived using Eq.14 are 1.39 and 2.84 m s-1, respectively, indicating that CV5
393 underestimates wind variance more than CV7. This result is consistent with the BE
394 standard deviation estimations presented in section 2.2 (Fig. 5a). It is noted that the four
395 experiments using the alpha control variable produces almost the same value of the
396 maximum analysis increments (Fig. 8e,f,g,h and Fig.9e,f,g,h) as that of U-CV7-P1 (Fig.
397 8c and Fig. 9c). The two new formulations provide a consistent BE variance modeling.
398
18
399
Comparing the horizontal spread of observation information in Fig. 8a to Fig. 8c or Fig.
400 9a to Fig. 9c, it is found that CV5 produces a widest spread of observation information
401 that is consistent with the correlation in Fig. 6. By reducing lengthscale by a half, the
402 maximum value of the u increment in U-CV5-P2-L05 (Fig. 8b and Fig. 9b) is increased
403 to 0.88 m s-1 which is almost same as those in U-CV7-P2 (Fig. 8c and Fig. 9c). The
404 results confirm that reducing the lengthscale increases the wind variance in Fig. 5a,b.
405 Increasing the gradients of streamfucntion and velocity potential by reducing length
406 scales leads to the incensement of the u variance. This may partially explain why radar
407 data assimilation using WRF-Var system with reduced lengthscales improved analyses
408 and forecasts (Xiao and Sun 2007; Sugimoto 2009; Sun et al. 2012; Wang et al. 2013b).
409
410 In CV7, B does not depend on horizontal locations as clearly shown in Fig. 8c,d and Fig.
411 9c,d. However, experiments using the alpha control variable show location dependent
412 error structures (Fig. 8e,f,g,h and Fig. 9e,f,g,h). The structures of horizontal increments in
413 the experiment using CV5 (Fig. 8a,b and Fig. 9a,b) much assemble those in the
414 experiments using the alpha control variables with large horizontal localization length
416
417 The vertical localization scheme (Eq.11) works well to keep observation information
418 around the observation location as shown in Fig. 9g and h. Comparing to Fig. 9e and f,
419 the negative u increment in low-level atmosphere is not seen. At the observation 25th
420 level, the information can be spread about 5 km in vertical direction (Fig. 7a).
421
19
422
The horizontal and vertical increments in the experiment U-CV7-P2 are shown in Fig. 10.
423 It is seen that the u analysis increment is not isotropic but stretched in west-east
424 direction (Fig. 10a). In addition, the maximum wind increment is reduced to 0.76
425 comparing to 0.89 before DFI (Fig. 9d). The extended west-east structure is derived by
426 DFI balancing in addition to the wind advection in backward and forward model
427 integration. The similar results are found by using a back and forth nudging algorithm
428 (Boilley and Mahfouf 2012). Comparing to Fig. 9d, Fig. 10b shows that the vertical
429 increments are spread in west-east direction. Small negative increments under about the
430 10th model are derived by DFI as well. The structures of positive increments shown in Fig.
431 10 much resemble those produced by CV5 (Fig. 8b and Fig. 9b) indicating that statistical
432 correlation presented in CV5 implicitly includes the model dynamical information.
433
435 The features of the multivariate analysis increments are analyzed. Figure 11 shows v
436 increments by assimilating a single u observation. The results from the experiments U-
438 It is interesting that CV7-P2-DFI produces a similar pattern for v to that in U-CV5-P2.
439 However, the increment amplitude is much smaller. Comparing experiments U-alpha-P2-
440 L300-VL1 (Fig. 11c) and U-alpha-P2-L100-VL1 (Fig. 11d), it is obvious that the smaller
441 horizontal localization length scale limits the increment to a local area around the single
443 obvious that the amplitudes of increments are small indicating that the correlations
444 between temperature and u-wind are weak at the model level. Large sensitivity to the
20
445
horizontal localization scales (Fig. 12b,c) is found when the alpha control variables are
446 used.
447
448 In general, the two proposed methods give good variance modeling in the NMC
449 ensembles. Compared to CV7, the use of the NMC ensembles through the alpha control
450 variables has the benefits of incorporating the geographically dependent covariance
451 information and producing a multi-variate analysis. We do see some noises in the single
452 observation experiments using the alpha control variable. It is expected that the use of
453 data from dense observing network such as radar, satellite and surface stations will
454 alleviate the sampling noises. In addition, the use of an real ensemble of forecasts valid at
455 the time can also reduce the samples noises. For CV7, DFI can help the analysis to
457
459 As shown in Fig. 7a, the default vertical localization scheme (Eq.11) has small vertical
460 localization radius in low-level atmosphere. Experiments with the vertical localization
461 scheme (Eq.12) are conducted to show analysis sensitivity to vertical correlation matrix
462 specifications. In the experiments using the vertical localization matrix (Eq.12), the
463 localization radius is 3 km, which has been used for radar radial velocity assimilation (Li
465
466 The vertical west-east section of the u increments for the single u observation
21
468
are shown in Fig. 13. Comparing the experiments U-alpha-L100-P1-VL1 and U-alpha-
469 L100-P1-VL2 (Fig. 9h and Fig. 13a), the vertical correlation schemes produce almost the
470 same analysis increment structures. But for an observation at 15th model, the observation
471 spread in the vertical direction is very different (Fig. 13b and c). Compared to the default
472 formulation Eq.11, the Eq.12 might be more efficient to spread observation vertically in
474
476 In this section, the impact of the new CVTs on data assimilation and forecasts of a
477 convective case occurred on 21 July 2012 in Beijing is studied. First, the synoptic
478 background of the case will be briefly described, and then experimental setup and results
481 A warm season convective case that caused extreme precipitation with hourly rainfall
482 rates exceeding 85 mm occurred in Beijing on 21 July 2012 is studied. The 850 hPa
483 large-scale circulations at 0000 UTC are shown in Fig. 15a. The heavy rain took place in
484 a favorite synoptic environment that southwesterly monsoonal flow with high moisture in
485 the planetary boundary layer are over the Beijing region. It seen that a northeast-
486 southwest-oriented trough axis and a well-defined wind-shift line associated with a low-
487 leve vortex moving northward into southern Beijing. The south flow supplies moisture
22
490
The BJ-RUC operating at Beijing Meteorology Bureau ()is employed. BJ-RUC employs
491 a one-way, two-domain nested grid. The horizontal grid resolutions of the outer and inner
492 domains are 9 and 3 km, respectively. First, a long (e.g. 30-h) forecast for the outer
493 domain is made at 1800 UTC 20 July 2012. The initial and boundary fields are
494 interpolated from National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Global
495 Forecast System (GFS) 1 1 analyses and forecasts for this run, which then provides
497 Four numerical experiments are conducted to examine the impacts of the background
498 error covariance modeling on analyses and forecasts. The control experiment
499 (CONTROL) is the 18-h 3km forecast initiated from GFS analysis at 1800 UTC 20 July
500 2012 at the inner domain. Its 6-h forecast provides the background in the data
501 assimilation experiments. The three data assimilation experiments using CVTS of CV5,
502 CV7 and alpha are named as 3DVAR-CV5-L05, 3DVAR-CV7, and 3DVAR-alpha,
503 respectively. In 3DVAR-CV5-L05, operational tuning factors with values of 0.5 are used
504 for each control variable. The forecasts in experiment using CV5 without tuning are not
505 discussed in this paper since they are less accurate than 3DVAR-CV5-L05. We do not
506 run cycles at later times (e.g. at 0300 UTC) because the precipitation began on 0200 UTC
507 21 July 2012. A 12-h forecast is made for each analysis. The forecasts after that time
508 have less value to forecasters. All the operational data including radar radial winds are
509 assimilated. The distributions of the observations assimilated are shown in Fig. 14. The
510 operational observations include radiosonde, sysnop, automated weather system surface
511 observations, and Global Position System precipitable water, aircraft data and radar radial
512 velocity.
23
513
5.3 Results
515 We first examine the analysis increments to show the influence of the three background
516 error modeling implementations on data assimilation. The wind and relative humidity
517 increments at the 11th model level (aproximate 850 hPa) are shown in Fig. 15b,c,d.
518 Though the maximum locations of analysis increments for the wind and relative humidity
519 in the three experiments are similar, the patterns of the increments are quite different. The
520 maximum (minimum) values in 3DVAR-alpha are larger (smaller) then 3DVAR-CV5
521 and 3DVAR-CV7. This is because CV5 and CV7 produce an overall slightly error
522 variances modeling as shown in Fig. 5. The location dependent error modeling benefits
523 the analysis in 3DVAR-alpha by producing the increments with large amplitudes and
524 well-defined structures in the north model region. The reason is that in general the error
525 variances in the north region are larger than in south region at the model level (Fig. 1 and
526 Fig. 2). It is also seen that the structures of the relative analysis increments are quite
528 covariance.
530 The analyses and forecasts are verified against radar radial velocity observations. Figure
531 16 shows the root mean square erorr (RMSE) of wind forecasts against radar radial
532 velocity observations at anlaysis time and 12 h forecast time. As expected that the
533 RMSEs in three data assimilation experiments are smaller than the CONTROL
534 experiment. In the three data assimilation experiments, 3DVAR-alpha bestly fit the
24
535
observations, then 3DVAR-CV7 and 3DVAR-CV5. This result is well consistand with
536 the error variance modeling by the three CVTs (Fig. 5a and 5b). The two data
537 assimilation experiments 3DVAR-CV7 and 3DVAR-alpha using the new CVTs improve
538 radar radial velocity forecasts up to 12 hours over the control run (Fig. 16b).
539 The forecast skill of hourly precipation are examined by the neighborhood-based
540 fractions skill score (FSS; Roberts and Lean 2008). If a forecast is prefect, the value of
541 FSS is 1.0. An hourly radar quantitative precipitation estimate (QPE) that is produced
542 operationally at BMB is taken as the observation for verifying the model forecasts. Fig.
543 17 shows FSS for thresholds of 1 mm-1 and (b) 10 mm h-1. Overall, the experiment
544 3DVAR-alpha produces a best FSS among the three data assimilatoin experiments. The
545 experiment 3DVAR-CV7 produces a slightly better skill than the experiment 3DVAR-
546 CV5. Fig. 18 shows the 12 hourly and 1 hourly accumulated radar QPE at 1200 UTC 21
547 July 2012. It is seen that the sprious precipitation in the northwest to Beijing in the
548 CONTROL is not corrected in the threre data assimilation experiments. the precipitation
549 in the north region of Beijing is presented in the experiment 3DVAR-CV7 and 3DVAR-
550 alpha, and the later gives the best 12 hourly accumulated precipitation forecasts (Fig.
551 18a). For the hourly precipitation at 1200 UTC, the control run has a southwest
552 displacement bias, which is noticably reduced in the experiments 3DVAR-CV5 and
553 3DVAR-alpha. In summary, the preliminary results shows that the use of the new CVTs
556 In this paper, the features of background error modeling via the NMC method are
25
557
investigated in details for the WRF-Var system. The aim of this work is to further
558 improve the performance of the WRF-Var system through the best use of the
559 climatological background error covariance estimation. The short-term regional 3km
560 resolution forecasts in June, July and August 2012 from BJ-RUC are used to extract
561 background error statistics. The two new CVTs are proposed and described to incorporate
562 climatological B via the NMC method in WRF-Var. Up to the authors knowledge, this
563 is the first work using the two proposed CVTs to study climatological BE modeling in
564 context of the WRF-Var system. The features of several CVTs are investigated in detail
567
The location dependent BE variances of various variables vary from month to
568
month.
572 Two CVTs that are proposed to incorporate climatological B with the NMC
573 method in WRF-Var are investigated. The first one uses u , v , T , Ps and RH s
577 The two proposed methods give good variance modeling in the NMC ensembles. The use
578 of the NMC forecast differences through the alpha control variable has the benefits of
26
579
incorporating geographically dependent covariance information and producing multi-
580 variate analysis. However, analysis increments are sensitive to horizontal and vertical
581 localization radii using the alpha control variable. The preliminary results from data
582 assimilaton and forecast study for a real convective case shows that the use of the new
584 Though the new proposed CV7 only produces the univariate analyses, the multi-variate
585 analyses are achieved by use of digital filter or initialization technique in this paper. The
586 developments will benefit other components such as 4DVar, hybrid Var-ensemble data
587 assimilation in the WRF community data assimilation system (Barker et al. 2012; Huang
589 In WRF-Var, the climatological statistical correlations between relative humidity and
590 other control variables can be taken into account with CV option 6 (CV6) (Chen et al.
591 2013). These climatological statistical correlations between relative humidity and other
592 variables can be achieved by the use of the alpha control variable as well. Moreover, CV7
593 can also be used to model BE covariance of the day using an ensemble of short-term
594 forecasts.
595 The monthly and diurnal variations of variances can be considered in climatological BE
597 dependent. The current BE statistics using the NMC method may not be optimal to
598 provide the BE covariance of the day for mesoscale and convective scale data
599 assimilation. A super ensemble including the NMC forecast differences and short-term
600 ensemble forecasts could be used to blend climatological error covariances and flow-
27
601
dependent error covariances of the day in a hybrid system. The investigation of the
602 impact of the new CVTs on numerical weather prediction with real radar data
604
605 Acknowledgments. This work was supported by a project between UCAR and IUM/BMB.
606 NCAR is sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Any opinions, findings, and
607 conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors
608 and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
28
References
609 Andersson, E., M. Fisher, R. Munro and A. McNally, 2000: Diagnosis of background
610 errors for radiances and other observable quantities in a variational data assimilation
611 scheme, and the explanation of a case of poor convergence. Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc.
613 Bannister, R. N., 2008a: A review of forecast error covariance statistics in atmospheric
616 Bannister, R. N., 2008b: A review of forecast error covariance statistics in atmospheric
617 variational data assimilation. II: Modelling the forecast error covariance statistics.
619 Barker, D. M., W. Huang, Y.-R. Guo, A. J. Bourgeois, and Q. N. Xiao, 2004: A three-
620 dimensional variational data assimilation system for MM5: Implementation and initial
622 Barker, D. M., 2005: Southern High-Latitude Ensemble Data Assimilation in the
623 Antarctic Mesoscale Prediction System. Mon. Wea. Rev., 133, 34313449.
624 Barker, D. M., and Coauthors, 2012: The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF)
627 Boilley, Alexandre, and Jean-Franois, Mahfouf, 2012: Assimilation of low-level wind in
29
628
a high-resolution mesoscale model using the back and forth nudging algorithm. Tellus
630 Chen, M., S. Fan, J. Zhong, X.-Y. Huang, Y.-R. Guo, W. Wang, Y. Wang, and B. Kuo,
631 2009: A WRF-based rapid updating cycling forecast system of BMB and its
632 performance during the summer and Olympic Games 2008. 10th WRF Users
634 http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/wrf/users/workshops/WS2009/abstracts/P3B-37.pdf.]
635 Chen, Y., S.R.H. Rizvi, X.-Y. Huang, J. Min, and X. Zhang, 2013: Balance
637 analyses and forecasts in Tropics and Arctic. Meteor. Atmos. Phys., 121, 79-98.
641 1807.
642 Daley, R. 1991: Atmospheric data analysis. Cambridge University Press, pp. 460.
643 Fisher M., 2003: Background error covariance modelling. P. 45 64 in ECMWF Seminar
646 Fischer C., T. Montmerle, L. Berre, L. Auger, S.E. tefnescu, 2005: An overview of the
30
649
Gao, J., M. Xue, A. Shapiro, and K. K. Droegemeier, 1999: A variational analysis for the
650 retrieval of three-dimensional mesoscale wind fields from two Doppler radars, Mon.
652 Houtekamer PL, L. Lefaivre, J. Derome, H. Ritchie, and H.L. Mitchell, 1996: A system
653 simulation approach to ensemble prediction. Mon. Weather Rev. 124: 12251242.
654 Gustafsson, N., X.-Y. Huang, X. Yang, K.S. Mongensen, M. Lindskog, O. Vignes, T.
656 assimilation for a limited area model. Tellus A, 64, 14985, DOI:
657 10.3402/tellusa.v64i0.14985.
658 Hsiao, L-F, D-S Chen, Y-H Kuo, Y-R Guo, T-C Yeh, J-S Hong, C-T Fong, and C-S Lee,
660 Impact of Outer Loop and Partial Cycling Approaches. Wea. Forecasting, 27, 1249
661 1263.
662 Huang, X.-Y., and coauthors, 2009: Four-Dimensional Variational Data Assimilation for
663 WRF: Formulation and Preliminary Results. Mon. Wea. Rev., 137, 299-314.
664 Huang, X.-Y., and coauthors, 2013: The 2013 WRFDA overview. 14th WRF Users'
665 Workshop, Boulder, Colorado, 24-28 June 2013. Extended Abstract 1.2.
666 [http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/wrf/users/workshops/WS2013/WorkshopPapers.php]
667 Ingleby, N., 2001: The statistical structure of forecast errors and its representation in The
668 Met. Office global 3-D variational data assimilation scheme. Quart. J. Roy. Meteor.
31
670
Kawabata, T., T. Kuroda, H. Seko, and K. Saito, 2011: A cloud-resolving 4DVAR
671 assimilation experiment for a local heavy rainfall event in the Tokyo metropolitan area.
673 Li, Y., X. Wang, and M. Xue, 2012: Assimilation of Radar Radial Velocity Data with the
674 WRF Hybrid Ensemble3DVAR System for the Prediction of Hurricane Ike (2008).
676 Lynch, P. and X.-Y. Huang, 1994: Diabatic initialization using recursive
678 Parrish, D., and J. Derber, 1992: The National Meteorological Centers spectral statistical
680 Rawlins, F., and coauthors, 2007: The Met Office global four-dimensional variational
681 data assimilation scheme. Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., 133, 347362.
683 accumulations from high-resolution forecasts of convective events. Mon. Wea. Rev.,
685 Skamarock, W. C., and Coauthors, 2008: A description of the advanced research WRF
687 Sugimoto, S., N. A. Crook, J. Sun, Q. Xiao, and D. M. Barker, 2009: An Examination of
688 WRF 3DVAR Radar Data Assimilation on Its Capability in Retrieving Unobserved
32
690
Experiments. Mon. Wea. Rev., 137, 40114029.
691 Sun, J., and N. A. Crook, 1997: Dynamical and Microphysical Retrieval from Doppler
692 Radar Observations Using a Cloud Model and Its Adjoint. Part I: Model Development
694 Sun, J., S. B. Trier, Q. Xiao, M. L. Weisman, H. Wang, Z. Ying, M. Xu, and Y. Zhang,
695 2012: Sensitivity of 012-h Warm-Season Precipitation Forecasts over the Central
697 Xiao, Q., and J. Sun, 2007: Multiple-Radar Data Assimilation and Short-Range
700 Wang, H., J. Sun, S. Fan, and X.-Y. Huang, 2013a: Indirect Assimilation of Radar
701 Reflectivity with WRF 3D-Var and Its Impact on Prediction of Four Summertime
703 Wang, H., J. Sun, X. Zhang, X.-Y. Huang, and T. Aulign, 2013b: Radar Data
704 Assimilation with WRF 4D-Var: Part I. System Development and Preliminary Testing.
706 Wang, X., D. M. Barker, C. Snyder, and T. M. Hamill, 2008: A Hybrid ETKF3DVAR
707 Data Assimilation Scheme for the WRF Model. Part I: Observing System Simulation
709 Xie, Y., C. Lu, and G. L. Browning, 2002: Impact of formulation of cost function and
710 constraints on three-dimensional variational data assimilation. Mon. Wea. Rev., 130,
711 24332447.
33
712
Xie Y. and A. E. MacDonals, 2011: Selection of momentum variables for a three-
713 dimensional variational analysis. Pure and Applied Geophysics, 169, 335351.
714 Zou, X., Y.-H. Kuo, and Y.-R. Guo, 1995: Assimilation of atmospheric radio refractivity
715 using a nonhydrostatic adjoint model. Mon. Wea. Rev., 123, 2229-2249.
716 Zupanski M, D. Zupanski, T. Vukicevic, K. Eis, and T. Vonder Haar. 2005: CIRA/CSU
717 four dimensional variational data assimilation system. Mon. Weather Rev. 133: 829
718 843.
34
719
Table. 1 List of single observation data assimilation experiments
721
35
724
11th
model
level
25th
model
level
33th
model
level
u
u
725
v
v
726
727
RH
728
729
Fig.1. Horizontal distribution of geographically dependent standard deviation of the error
730
variances for u (1st row), v (2nd row), T (3rd row) and RH (4th row) at the 11 th model
731
level (left column), the 25 th (middle column) and the 33 th model level (right column).
36
732
733
734
Fig. 2. Standard deviation of the error variances as functions of the model level and
735
distance (km) in south-north direction for (a) u, (b) v, (c) T and (d) RH as functions of
736
distance in south-north direction and the number of model levels.
37
737
738
739
Fig. 3. Profiles of forecast error in terms of STD for (a) u, (b) v, (c) T, (d) RH estimated
740 by the NMC method for June, July and August 2012.
38
741
742
Fig. 4. Profiles of forecast error in terms of STD for (a) u, (b) v, (c) T, (d) RH estimated
743 by NMC method at 0000 UTC (black curve) and 1200 UTC (red curve).
39
744
745
Fig. 5. The vertical profiles of STD_NMC, STD_CV5, STD_CV5_L05 and STD_CV7.
746
40
747
748
Fig. 6. Horizontal correlations for u (black curves) and v (red curves) in the NMC
749
ensembles (diamond mark), by BE modeling using CV5 (square mark) and CV7 (circle
750
mark) at 25th model level (approximate 500 hPa surface) along east-west direction (upper
751
panel) and north-south direction (low panel).
41
752
753
754
Fig. 7. The correlation matrixes for the alpha control variable localization using (a) Eq.10,
42
756
757
Fig. 8. The structures of the u increments on the 25th model level for the single u
758 observation experiments. (a) U-CV5-P1, (b) U-CV5-L05-P2, (c) U-CV7-P1, (d) U-CV7-
759 P2, (e) U-alpha-L300-P1, (f) U-alpha-L300-P02, (g) U-alpha-L100-P1-VL1, and (h) U-
760 alpha-L100-P2-VL1.
43
761
762
Fig. 9. The vertical structures of the u increments as functions of the model level and the
763 distance in the west-east direction in the single u observation experiments. (a) U-CV5-
764 P1, (b) U-CV5-L05-P2, (c) U-CV7-P1, (d) U-CV7-P2, (e) U-alpha-L300-P1, (f) U-alpha-
44
766
767
Fig. 10. The u increments in the experiment U-CV7-P2-DFI. (a) the structures of at the
768 25th model level, and (b) the vertical structures of the u increments as functions of the
45
770
771
772
Fig. 11. The strucgtures of the v increments at the 25th model level in the single u data
46
775
776
Fig. 12. The strucgtures of the T increments at the 25th model level in the four single u
777 data assimilation experiments (a) U-CV5-P2, (b) U-alpha-L300-P2, (c) U-alpha-L100-
778 P2-VL1.
779
47
780
781
Fig. 13. The vertical structures of the u increments as functions of model level and
782 distance in the west-east direction in the single u observation experiments (a) U-
784
785
48
786
787
788
Fig. 14 The distributions of the observations assimilated in the three data assimilation
789
experiments.
790
791
792
793
Fig. 15. (a) Background, and the analysis increments for the experiment, (b) 3DVAR-
794
CV5-L05, (c) 3DVAR-CV5, and (d) 3DVAR-alpha. Relative humidity (%) is shown in
795
shaded contours.
796
49
797
798
799
800
Fig. 16. Root mean square erorr of wind forecasts against radar radial velocity
801
observations at (a) 0000 UTC and (b) 1200 UTC 21 July 2012.
802
50
803
804
805
Fig. 17. FSS of the four experiments for thresholds of (a) 1 mm-1 and (b) 10 mm h-1.
806
807
51
808
809
810
811
812
813
52
814
Fig. 18. (a) 12 hour accumlated precipitation and (b) 1 hour accumlated precipitation at
53