Use of Surface Observations to Estimate Upper Air Humidity for the Objective Analysis of Relative Humidity over Indian Region

In the present study objective analyses of relative humidity (RH) at surface and at the levels of 850, 700 and 500 hPa have been made using Gandin's (1963) optimum interpolation scheme. As the horizontal resolution of the radiosonde stations is rather inadequate for upper air humidity analysis, a scheme has been developed, following Rasmussen (1982) to estimate the upper air RH from the surface observations like surface RH, present weather and cloud cover. The relative humidities at the levels 850, 700 and 500 hPa were related to the surface observations through three separate regression relations. The RH values at 850, 700 and 500 hPa levels were estimated from the surface RH, cloud coverage and present weather using the above regression relations and subsequently the objective analyses at 00 GMT for the period from 4 July to 8 July 1979, were made using these estimated data along with the observed radiosonde data. Objective analyses were also made for the same period using only the radiosonde data for comparison to study the impact of those estimated data. Root mean square errors were computed for all the five days by interpolating RH at the observing stations from the objectively analysed field and comparing them with the actually observed RH to examine how best the analyses (with and without estimated data) fitted the observations. Lastly they were compared with satellite cloud pictures. This study shows that the estimated upper air RH values have positive impact on the analysis of upper air RH and could be used over radiosonde data sparse region and even over oceanic regions.

Some Experiments with Multivariate Objective Analysis Scheme of Heights and Winds Using Optimum Interpolation

A two-dimensional, multitvariate objective analysis scheme for simultaneous analysis of geopotential height and wind fields has been developed over Indian and adjoining region for use in numerical weather prediction. The height-height correlations calculated using daily data of four July months (1976-1979), are used to derive the other autocorrelations and cross-correlations assuming geostropic relationship. A Gaussian function is used to model the autocorrelation function. Since the scheme is multivariate the regression coefficients (weights) are matrix.Near the equator, the geostrophic approximation relating mass and wind is decoupled in a way similar to Bergman (1979). The objective analyses were made over Indian and adjoining region for 850, 700, 500, 300 and 200 hPa levels for the period from 4 July to 8 July 1979, 12 GMT. The analyses obtained using multivariate optimum interpolation scheme depict the synoptic situations satisfactorily. The analyses were also compared with the FGGE analyses (from ECMWF) and also with the station observations by computing the root mean square (RMS) errors and the RMS errors are comparable with those obtained in other similar studies.

Construction of Vertical Wind Profile from Satellite-Derived Winds for Objective Analysis of Wind Field

During summer Monex-79, a variety of observing systems viz. research ships, research aircrafts, constant pressure balloons and geostationary satellite etc. were deployed, besides the regular conventional observations. The purpose of these additional systems was to make the best possible data for the studies on various aspects of monsoon circulation. The present study is aimed at the construction of vertical wind profile using cloud motion vectors obtained from GOES (I-O) satellite and to examine whether the constructed wind profiles improves the representation of the monsoon system, flow pattern etc. in the objective analysis. For this purpose, climatological normals of the wind field are considered as the initial guess and the objective analyses of the wind field are made with, first using only data from conventional observations over land areas, subsequently including the constructed winds from cloud motion vectors. These analyses are then compared with the standard analyses of wind field obtained from Quick Look Atlas by T. N. Krishnamurti et al. (1979).It is inferred that satellite estimated mean wind profiles show good agreement with the mean wind profiles of the research ships with RMS errors less than 5 mps below 500 hPa and less than 8 mps above 500 hPa. It is further inferred that the inclusion of constructed winds shows a positive impact on the objective analysis and improvement is seen to be more marked in the data-sparse region of the Arabian sea. Analyses which include the constructed winds show better agreement with the standard analysis, than the analyses obtained using only conventional winds. Thus, results of our study suggest that the wind profiles constructed using cloud motion vectors are of potential use in objective analysis to depict the major circulation features over the Indian region.

Analysis-Prediction Experiments over Indian Region Using Primitive Equation Barotropic Model

The impact of initial guess and grid resolutions on the analysis and prediction has been investigated over the Indian region. For this purpose, an univariate objective analysis scheme and a primitive equation barotropic model have been used. The impact of initial guess and the resolutions on analysis and prediction is discussed.