Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies
An effort has begun at the
Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies to utilize
operational numerical weather prediction systems for experiments which
show the impact of satellite data. To that end, CIMSS acquired the current
version of the ETA data assimilation system (EDAS) from the
National Centers for Environmental
Prediction. The EDAS runs in non-real time on a high-end SGI Origin
2000 workstation, yielding suitable performance for research applications.
Early experiments show the sensitivity of the EDAS three-dimensional
variational analysis to the inclusion of various types of satellite and
conventional data. The following chart shows the analysis sensitivity
to a single insertion of each of thirty operational datasets at 0000 UTC
on 6 February 1998. The chart was normalized so that the maximum signal
in each of the three verification quantities is equivalent. This experiment
does not show whether the data types are impacting the forecast in a
positive or negative way. Longer term studies are necessary to answer
that question.
Difference fields showing the sensitivity of the 48km EDAS analysis to
each of these operational datasets can be viewed for four
quantities. The data distributions are also shown.
