Feasibility of Short-Range Numerical Weather Prediction Using Observations from a Network of Profilers

Abstract

Abstract A series of observing system simulation experiments was conducted to investigate the feasibility of shortrange numerical weather prediction using a network of profilers. A mesoscale model was used to generate datasets which mimic observations from a network of profilers and from an array of rawinsondes. The sensitivity of the model forecast to the characteristic measurement errors of a number of hypothetical profiler networks was tested. Our results demonstrate that profiler wind observations would have a positive impact on short-range numerical weather prediction with a simple static initialization. We also found that forecasts based on retrieved temperatures (calculated from profiler wind data) are significantly better than those based on direct radiometric temperature measurements (using climatology as the first guess for radiometric retrieval). However, the temperature fields from either radiometric measurements or from thermodynamic retrieval need further improvement-before they can be as ac...