An Approach to Extract Effective Information of Monthly Dynamical Prediction-The Use of Ensemble Method

The approach of getting useful information of monthly dynamical prediction from ensemble forecasts is studied. The extended range ensemble forecasts (8 members, the initial perturbations of the lagged average forecast (LAF)(0000, 0600, 1200 and 1800 GMT in two consecutive days) of the 500 hPa height field with the global spectral model (T63L16) from January to May 1997 are provided by the National Climate Center of China. The relationship between the spread of ensemble measured by root–mean–square deviation of ensemble member from ensemble mean and forecast skill (the anomaly correlation or the root–mean–square distance between the ensemble mean forecast and the observation) is significant. The spread of ensemble can evaluate the useful forecast days N for the best estimate of 30 days mean. Thus, a weighted mean approach based on ensemble spread is put forward for monthly dynamical prediction. The anomaly correlation of the weighted monthly mean by the ensemble spread is higher than that of both the arithmetic mean and the linear weighted mean. Better results of the monthly mean circulation and anomaly are obtained from the ensemble spread weighted mean. Key words Monthly prediction - Ensemble method - Spread of ensemble Supported by the Excellent National State Key Laboratory Project (49823002), the National Key Project ‘Study on Chinese Short-Term Climate Forecast System’ (96-908-02) and IAP Innovation Foundation (8-1308).The data were provided through the National Climate Center of China. The authors wish to thank Ms. Chen Lijuan for her assistance.

The Optimized Short-Range Ensemble Forecast Based on Singular Vector Calculations

In ensemble forecast,by summing up ensemble members,filtering the uncertainty,and retaining the common component,the ensemble mean with a better result can be achieved.However,the filtering works only when the initial perturbation develops nonlinearly.If the initial perturbation propagates in a linear space,the positive and negative members will counteract,leading to little difference between ensemble mean and control forecast and finally insignificant ensemble result.In 1-2-day ensemble forecast,based on singular vector（SV） calculations,to avoid this insignificance,the counteracting members originated from the same SV are advised not to put into the ensemble system together;the only candidate should be the one with the better forecast.Based on the ingredient analysis of initial perturbation development,a method to select ensemble members is presented in this paper,which can fulfill the above requirement.The regional model MM5V1 of NCAR/PSU（National Center for Atmosphere Research/Pennsylvania State University） and its corresponding tangent adjoint model are used.The ensemble spread and forecast errors are calculated with dry energy norm.Two mesoscale lows on the Meiyu front along the Yangtze River are examined.According to the analysis of the perturbation ingredient,among couples of counteracting members from different SVs, those members performing better always have smaller or greater spread compared with other members. Following this thinking,an optimized ensemble and an inferior ensemble are identified.The ensemble mean of the optimized ensemble is more accurate than that of the inferior ensemble,and the former also performs better than the traditional ensemble with positive and negative members simultaneously.As for growth of the initial perturbation,those initial perturbations originated from the summed SVs grow more quickly than those from the single SV,and they enlarge the range of spread of the ensemble effectively,thus leading to better performance of ensemble members.

Algorithm based on local breeding of growing modes for convection-allowing ensemble forecasting

We propose a method based on the local breeding of growing modes(LBGM) considering strong local weather characteristics for convection-allowing ensemble forecasting. The impact radius was introduced in the breeding of growing modes to develop the LBGM method. In the local breeding process, the ratio between the root mean square error(RMSE) of local space forecast at each grid point and that of the initial full-field forecast is computed to rescale perturbations. Preliminary evaluations of the method based on a nature run were performed in terms of three aspects: perturbation structure, spread,and the RMSE of the forecast. The experimental results confirm that the local adaptability of perturbation schemes improves after rescaling by the LBGM method. For perturbation physical variables and some near-surface meteorological elements, the LBGM method could increase the spread and reduce the RMSE of forecast,improving the performance of the ensemble forecast system.In addition, different from those existing methods of global orthogonalization approach, this new initial-condition perturbation method takes into full consideration the local characteristics of the convective-scale weather system, thus making convectionallowing ensemble forecast more accurate.

Impact of Assimilating Radiances with the WRFDA ETKF/3DVAR Hybrid System on Prediction of Two Typhoons in 2012

The impacts of AMSU-A and IASI（Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer） radiances assimilation on the prediction of typhoons Vicente and Saola（2012） are studied by using the ensemble transform Kalman filter/three-dimensional variational（ETKF/3DVAR） Hybrid system for the Weather Research and Forecasting（WRF） model. The experiment without assimilating radiance data in 3DVAR is compared with two experiments using the 3DVAR and ETKF/3DVAR hybrid systems to assimilate AMSU-A radiance,respectively. The results show that AMSU-A radiance data have slight positive impacts on track forecasts of the 3DVAR system. When the ETKF/3DVAR hybrid system is employed, typhoon track forecast skills are greatly improved. For 36-h forecasts, the hybrid system has a lower root-mean-square error for wind and temperature at most levels, and specific humidity at low levels, compared to 3DVAR. It is also found that, on average, the use of the IASI radiance data along with AMSU-A radiance data in the hybrid system further increases the track, wind, and specific humidity forecast accuracy compared to the experiment without IASI radiance assimilation.