The direct inversion method for data assimilation using isentropic tracer advection

International audienceA new data assimilation algorithm is applied to MIPAS and SBUV measurements of stratospheric ozone. The results are validated against HALOE, POAM III, SAGE II and III, OSIRIS and ozonesonde data. The new assimilation algorithm has the accuracy of the Kalman smoother but is, for the systems studied here with up to 200 000 variables per time step and 61 million control variables in total, many orders of magnitude less computationally expensive. The analysis produced minimises a single penalty function evaluated over an analysis window of over one month. The cost of the analysis is found to increase nearly linearly with the number of control variables. Compared with 850 profiles from Electrochemical Concentration Cell sondes at 29 sites the analysis is found to be merely 0.1% high at 420 K, rising to 0.4% at 650 K (813 sonde profiles). Comparison against the other satellites imply that the bias remains small up to 1250 K (38 km) and then increases to around ?10% at 1650 K (44 km). Between 20 and 35 km the root-mean-square difference relative to HALOE, SAGE II and III, and POAM is in the 5 to 10% range, with larger discrepancies relative to other instruments. Outside this height range rms differences are generally larger, though agreement with HALOE remains good up to 50 km

Evaluation of MIPAS ozone fields assimilated using a new algorithm constrained by isentropic tracer advection

A new data assimilation algorithm, using the isentropic advection equation, is applied to MIPAS and SBUV measurements of stratospheric ozone. The system is solved separately on each isentropic level, with neither vertical advection nor chemical reactions represented. The results are validated against HALOE, POAM III, SAGE II & III, OSIRIS and ozone sonde data. The new assimilation algorithm has the accuracy of the Kalman smoother but is, for the systems studied here with up to 200 000 variables per time step and 61 million control variables in total, many orders of magnitude less computationally expensive. The analysis produced minimises a single penalty function evaluated over an analysis window of over one month. The cost of the analysis is found to increase nearly linearly with the number of control variables. Compared with over 800 profiles from Electrochemical Concentration Cell sondes at 29 sites the analysis is found to be merely 0.1% high at 420 K, rising to 0.4% at 650 K. Comparison against the other satellites imply that the bias remains small up to 1250 K (38 km) and then increases to around −10% at 1650 K (44 km). Between 20 and 35 km the root-mean-square difference relative to HALOE, SAGE II & III, and POAM is in the 5 to 10% range, with larger discrepancies relative to other instruments. Outside this height range rms differences are generally larger, though agreement with HALOE remains good up to 50 km. The assimilation has closer agreement to independent observations than found in direct near-neighbour comparisons between profiles, demonstrating that the assimilation can add value to the observations

The stability of a two-dimensional vorticity filament under uniform strain

The quantitative effects of uniform strain and background rotation on the stability of a strip of constant vorticity (a simple shear layer) are examined. The thickness of the strip decreases in time under the strain, so it is necessary to formulate the linear stability analysis for a time-dependent basic flow. The results show that even a strain rate γ (scaled with the vorticity of the strip) as small as 0.25 suppresses the conventional Rayleigh shear instability mechanism, in the sense that the r.m.s. wave steepness cannot amplify by more than a certain factor, and must eventually decay. For γ < 0.25 the amplification factor increases as γ decreases; however, it is only 3 when γ e 0.065. Numerical simulations confirm the predictions of linear theory at small steepness and predict a threshold value necessary for the formation of coherent vortices. The results help to explain the impression from numerous simulations of two-dimensional turbulence reported in the literature that filaments of vorticity infrequently roll up into vortices. The stabilization effect may be expected to extend to two- and three-dimensional quasi-geostrophic flows

Storing and manipulating environmental big data with JASMIN

JASMIN is a super-data-cluster designed to provide a high-performance high-volume data analysis environment for the UK environmental science community. Thus far JASMIN has been used primarily by the atmospheric science and earth observation communities, both to support their direct scientific workflow, and the curation of data products in the STFC Centre for Environmental Data Archival (CEDA). Initial JASMIN configuration and first experiences are reported here. Useful improvements in scientific workflow are presented. It is clear from the explosive growth in stored data and use that there was a pent up demand for a suitable big-data analysis environment. This demand is not yet satisfied, in part because JASMIN does not yet have enough compute, the storage is fully allocated, and not all software needs are met. Plans to address these constraints are introduced

Requirements for a global data infrastructure in support of CMIP6

The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP)’s Working Group on Climate Modelling (WGCM) Infrastructure Panel (WIP) was formed in 2014 in response to the explosive growth in size and complexity of Coupled Model Intercomparison Projects (CMIPs) between CMIP3 (2005–2006) and CMIP5 (2011–2012). This article presents the WIP recommendations for the global data infrastruc- ture needed to support CMIP design, future growth, and evolution. Developed in close coordination with those who build and run the existing infrastructure (the Earth System Grid Federation; ESGF), the recommendations are based on several principles beginning with the need to separate requirements, implementation, and operations. Other im- portant principles include the consideration of the diversity of community needs around data – a data ecosystem – the importance of provenance, the need for automation, and the obligation to measure costs and benefits. This paper concentrates on requirements, recognizing the diversity of communities involved (modelers, analysts, soft- ware developers, and downstream users). Such requirements include the need for scientific reproducibility and account- ability alongside the need to record and track data usage. One key element is to generate a dataset-centric rather than system-centric focus, with an aim to making the infrastruc- ture less prone to systemic failure. With these overarching principles and requirements, the WIP has produced a set of position papers, which are summa- rized in the latter pages of this document. They provide spec- ifications for managing and delivering model output, includ- ing strategies for replication and versioning, licensing, data quality assurance, citation, long-term archiving, and dataset tracking. They also describe a new and more formal approach for specifying what data, and associated metadata, should be saved, which enables future data volumes to be estimated, particularly for well-defined projects such as CMIP6. The paper concludes with a future facing consideration of the global data infrastructure evolution that follows from the blurring of boundaries between climate and weather, and the changing nature of published scientific results in the digital age

An annual cycle of long lived stratospheric gases from MIPAS

International audienceMIPAS, on ENVISAT, has made high quality observations of ozone, methane and water vapour. Gridded fields, at 4 hourly intervals and, have been calculated for all of 2003 using data assimilation with isentropic advection as a constraint. The gridded fields are validated against independent measurements (from 7 other instruments in the case of ozone, 3 for water vapour and one for methane). For ozone the results are in agreement with previously published results. For water vapour the bias relative to HALOE is below 10% between 20 and 48 km, and the standard deviation is below 12% in this range. Departures from SAGE II and POAM III are substantially larger. The methane analysis has a bias of less than 5% relative to HALOE between 23 and 40 km, with a standard deviation less than 10% in this height range. The water vapour field clearly reflects the upward motion in the lower tropical stratosphere, while both water vapour and methane show the signature of advection higher up. In the polar regions the descent in the vortex is clearly visible, with strong descent in autumn giving way to weaker descent through the winter. Descent rates of around 10?3\ms are found during the formation of the polar vortices, slowing to around 3×10?4\ms during the winter. Ascent of around 2×10?4\ms in the tropics is revealed by the water vapour and total observed hydrogen fields (4 times the methane plus twice the water vapour concentration). The total observed hydrogen is depleted in the polar upper stratosphere when air is advected down from the upper mesosphere