Explanation of Software for Generating Simulated Observations For the gmao osse prototype By
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- 3.3 Biases in radiances
- 3.4 Thinning of Radiance Data
3.2 Consideration of MW radianceIn version P1, we are assuming that there are no effects of clouds on microwave transmittance through the atmosphere. We assume emissivity modeling over land and ice due to imperfectly known and highly variable surface conditions is such that surface affected channels have large errors that will lead to observation rejection by the GSI quality control. We further assume that, given the broadness of microwave radiative structure functions, many channels are so affected. Consequently, in version P1, observations over land or ice are computed for a surface elevated to some value of sigma such as 0.7 so that few surface-affected channels are used except over water . Precipitation is assumed to affect MW radiances. So, we apply a tunable probability model analogous to the one used for modeling cloud effects on IR radiances. Instead of cloud fractions, however, this is a function of the stratiform and convective precipitation rates. Separate probabilities are computed for each, with the effective sigma level for stratiform below that for convection, so that the latter is considered first. 3.3 Biases in radiancesThere are several sources of biases in real radiance observations from satellites. Some of these concern the instruments; e.g. the satellite antennas detecting interference from the satellite platform itself. This is inferred especially from an asymmetric scan angle bias, since depending on which way the antenna is pointed, it “sees” a different portion of the platform. Biases can also result from the forward model. They may be difficult to determine if, although systematic, they depend on the synoptic state they are observing. In general, these biases have been estimated to be rather large. They must therefore be removed prior to a data assimilation system attempting to extract the useable information in a standard variational procedure that assumes bias-free observations. For the version P1 simulated observations that are intended for ingestion in GSI, the sources for creating basis mentioned above are absent. There is no simulated satellite platform and the forward model (the CRTM) is at most a different version of the same algorithm and program as used in the GSI. Thus, there is no substantial bias introduced and thus there is no need to use radiance bias correction in the GSI when assimilating the P1 observations. By turning off the GSI bias radiance correction, there is no need to spin up files of bias correction coefficients. Obviously, one source of likely error in the OSSE that is unrealistically absent is remaining significant error in the radiance bias correction algorithm. This can be included by adding some sort of bias to the observations that may have any characteristics an experimenter cares to incorporate. For example, biases that are derived from the GSI bias correction model and coefficients can be added easily. Presumably, however, these would then also be effectively removed by the bias correction. There therefore seems little point in adding such biases unless an experimenter has a specific test of the bias correction in mind. In that case, the biases that are added should be carefully designed to test the specific hypothesis proposed; e.g., effects of biases not described by the GSI algorithm. So biases can be added, but in general there seems to be no need to do so for most experiments.
Within a data assimilation program, each satellite observation requires a call to a radiative transfer model that can be computationally expensive. Also, geographically close observations can worsen the conditioning of a minimization problem solved by the data assimilation algorithm, thereby increasing computational requirements. For these reasons, GSI therefore use only a small fraction of the satellite observations available to it. It performs a data selection process to choose observations that are well separated in space or time and that are estimated to have the best quality in some sense. This selection process is called observation thinning. If we produced simulations for all the radiance observations available, most of that effort will be wasted as the observations are thinned by GSI. Also, the computational expense would be great indeed, since each observation would require a call to a radiative transfer model. Therefore, we also thin the data. The procedure is similar to that used by GSI but our thinning is to a lesser degree. In this way we allow the GSI to conduct its own data selection, albeit with a reduced set of observations to consider. The thinning is conducted by defining “thinning boxes” on the globe. These are approximate squares covering the globe, with their size determined by a user-specified length of their sides. The particular box within which each observation is located is first determined. If it is the first observation considered within that box, it is “placed in the box.” If a previously considered observation has been placed in that box, then a selection between the already present and new observation is made. The observation retained is the one less affected by clouds, precipitation, or surface emissivity, as designated by a larger value of its assigned sigma produced by the cloud specification algorithm (see sections 3.1, 3.2). If two observations have the same value of sigma, then the one closest to the synoptic (central) time being considered is retained. Each thinning box thus contains at most 1 observation. Only the locations and times of the thinned set of observations are passed to the interpolation software for constructing simulated atmospheric profiles from the nature run. And only those profiles are submitted to the radiative transfer model for creation of simulated radiance observations. The size of the thinning boxes are user-specified in a resource file (see section 7.1). If the length of a side of one of these boxes is specified as d kilometers, then the number of thinning boxes is approximately m= 5.1 x 10**8/ d**, where the number shown is the earth’s area in squared kilometers. If the swaths of a particular satellite cover only a fraction c of the area of the earth, then approximately that fraction of boxes should contain observations, and roughly n=m*c locations will be used to simulate observations by that satellite. Directory: exper exper -> No: 1 Dirk Smit Shell Chief Scientist for Geophysics exper -> Title: 6 Technical it innovation in Shell: Subsurface insights to locate more energy resources exper -> Tel: 0212 358 1540 ext. 1421 Fax: 0212 287 2465 exper -> Fiu/awc speech exper -> Version history Version exper -> Experimental Amateur-Built Operating Limitations exper -> Experiment 5 Analog Computer (Part 2) Introduction exper -> School of computer science and engineering expert lectures jan 2015 – June 2015 exper -> 15th May 2015, The Atrium, University of South Wales Cardiff Minutes Download 167.78 Kb. Share with your friends:
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