A Comparison of Five Numerical Weather Prediction Analysis Climatologies in Southern High Latitudes

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, numerical weather prediction analyses from four major centers are compared—the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (ABM), the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction–National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP–NCAR), and The Met. Office (UKMO). Two of the series—ECMWF reanalysis (ERA) and NCEP–NCAR reanalysis (NNR)—are “reanalyses”; that is, the data have recently been processed through a consistent, modern analysis system. The other three—ABM, ECMWF operational (EOP), and UKMO—are archived from operational analyses. The primary focus in this paper is on the period of 1979–93, the period used for the reanalyses, and on climatology. However, ABM and NNR are also compared for the period before 1979, for which the evidence tends to favor NNR. The authors are concerned with basic variables—mean sea level pressure, height of the 500-hPa surface, and near-surface temperature—that are available from the basic analy...