Identification

Title

A comparison of breeding and ensemble transform Kalman filter ensemble forecast schemes

Abstract

The ensemble transform Kalman filter (ETKF) ensemble forecast scheme is introduced and compared with both a simple and a masked breeding scheme. Instead of directly multiplying each forecast perturbation with a constant or regional rescaling factor as in the simple form of breeding and the masked breeding schemes, the ETKF transforms forecast perturbations into analysis perturbations by multiplying by a transformation matrix. This matrix is chosen to ensure that the ensemble-based analysis error covariance matrix would be equal to the true analysis error covariance if the covariance matrix of the raw forecast perturbations were equal to the true forecast error covariance matrix and the data assimilation scheme were optimal. For small ensembles (~100), the computational expense of the ETKF ensemble generation is only slightly greater than that of the masked breeding scheme. Version 3 of the Community Climate Model (CCM3) developed at National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is used to test and compare these ensemble generation schemes. The NCEP-NCAR reanalysis data for the boreal summer in 2000 are used for the initialization of the control forecast and the verifications of the ensemble forecasts. The ETKF and masked breeding ensemble variances at the analysis time show reasonable correspondences between variance and observational density. Examination of eigenvalue spectra of ensemble covariance matrices demonstrates that while the ETKF maintains comparable amounts of variance in all orthogonal and uncorrelated directions spanning its ensemble perturbation subspace, both breeding techniques maintain variance in few directions. The growth of the linear combination of ensemble perturbations that maximizes energy growth is computed for each of the ensemble subspaces. The ETKF maximal amplification is found to significantly exceed that of the breeding techniques. The ETKF ensemble mean has lower root-mean-square errors than the mean of the breeding ensemble. New methods to measure the precision of the ensemble-estimated forecast error variance are presented. All of the methods indicate that the ETKF estimates of forecast error variance are considerably more accurate than those of the breeding techniques.

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document

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http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7p270gz

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Dataset language

eng

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Classification of spatial data and services

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geoscientificInformation

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title

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publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

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publication

effective date

2003-05-01T00:00:00Z

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Copyright 2003 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act (17 USC ยง108, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the AMS's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statement, requires written permission or a license form the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policy, available on the AMS Web site located at (http://www.ametsoc.org/AMS) or from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or copyright@ametsoc.org.

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

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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

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