Ensemble Assimilation of Doppler Radar Observations

Abstract

Abstract : The final goal of this project is to provide the US Navy with an increased capability of using Doppler radar observations in the detection and prediction of hazardous weather events that usually have a strong randomness in nature and affect the Navy operations, especially over oceans and in remote areas. By developing a high-resolution data assimilation capability that can effectively assimilate Doppler radar observations along with other conventional and remotely-sensed data, the US Navy will have the ability to analyze and forecast the battlespace atmospheric conditions with sufficient detail and accuracy for supporting the Navy mission in threat detection, weapons deployment, and weather safe operations. The objective of the study is to develop an advanced ensemble-based radar data assimilation system for the US Navy and to address some critical scientific and technique issues associated with ensemble radar data assimilation. The radar data system that will be developed will use flow-dependent background error covariance (instead of the static background error covariance) to account for the complexity and rapid change in the dynamical and microphysical structures inside and outside storms. The system will assimilate all the observed variables from different types of sensors, including Doppler radars, satellites, UASs, and conventional meteorological observations, simultaneously to allow full interactions among the assimilated variables during the data assimilation to keep the balances among the dynamics, thermodynamics and microphysics in the model initial fields. The system will be able to use the observations from many types of radars on different platforms (WSR-88D, DoD meteorological radars and tactical radars both on-land and shipboard, etc.) with an appropriate quality control. Multi-scale data assimilation capability will also be one of the major features of the new radar data assimilation system that allows observational data at different scales to be as