Identification

Title

Application of data assimilation in the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model to the study of day-to-day variability in the middle and upper atmosphere

Abstract

The Data Assimilation Research Testbed (DART) ensemble adjustment Kalman filter (EAKF) is employed to perform data assimilation in the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM). To demonstrate the potential of the WACCM+DART for studying short-term variability in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT), results are presented based on the assimilation of synthetic observations that are sampled from a known model truth. We assimilate temperature and wind from radiosondes and aircraft, satellite drift winds, and COSMIC refractivity in the lower atmosphere, and SABER temperature observations in the middle/upper atmosphere. Relative to an unconstrained WACCM simulation, the assimilation of only lower atmosphere observations reduces the global root mean square error (RMSE) in zonal wind by up to 40% at MLT altitudes. Using data assimilation to constrain the lower atmosphere can therefore provide significant insight into MLT variability. The RMSE in the MLT is reduced by an additional 10-15% when SABER observations are also assimilated. The WACCM+DART is shown to be able to reproduce the large-scale features of the day-to-day variability in the zonal mean, migrating, and nonmigrating tides in the MLT. Though our simulation results are based on idealized conditions, they demonstrate that the WACCM+DART can reproduce the day-to-day variability in the MLT. Assimilation of real observations in the WACCM+DART will therefore enable significant insight into the real day-to-day dynamical variability from the surface to the lower thermosphere.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7rv0pkg

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2013-08-28T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact