Identification

Title

Assessing the impact of ICON/MIGHTI zonal and meridional winds on upper atmosphere weather specification in a Whole Atmosphere Data Assimilation System: An observing system simulation experiment

Abstract

Thermospheric data assimilation is limited due to the lack of continuous observation of the neutral state. Recently, the thermospheric wind data from the Michelson Interferometer for Global High-resolution Thermospheric Imaging (MIGHTI) on NASA's Ionospheric CONnection Explorer (ICON) became available. ICON/MIGHTI provides near-continuous observations of the mid- and low-latitude thermospheric meridional and zonal winds ICON/MIGHTI observes the thermosphere zonal and meridional winds at low-middle latitudes between 90 and 300 km during the daytime, and 90-105 and above 210 km during the nighttime. This study assesses the impact of assimilating ICON/MIGHTI winds in the National Center for Atmospheric Research Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model with thermosphere-ionosphere eXtension (WACCM-X) + Data Assimilation Research Testbed (DART) on the specification and short-term forecasting of the thermosphere. Observing system simulation experiments of WACCM-X + DART with and without assimilating synthetic ICON/MIGHTI meridional and zonal wind profiles are performed. The result shows that this new data set can correct the wind specification throughout the mid- and low-latitude thermosphere, especially around the 90-160 km altitude region. A notable impact is also shown in the region above 300 km altitude, which is above the altitude of ICON/MIGHTI wind observations. The impact of ICON/MIGHTI data on the zonal wind field is larger than on the meridional wind field. The errors of the ensemble mean from the truth of meridional and zonal wind fields in the mid-and low-latitude region are reduced by 6% and 12%, respectively, with the help of ICON/MIGHTI wind data.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d78w3hrs

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

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Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

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keyword value

Text

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title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

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Temporal extent

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Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2021-09-01T00:00:00Z

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Conformity

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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

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