Abstract
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH,
VOL. 107,
4717,
28 PP., 2002
doi:10.1029/2001JD001552
The impact of observational weighting on the assimilation of GPS/MET bending angle
The impact of observational weighting on the assimilation of GPS/MET bending angle
H. Shao
Department of Meteorology,
Florida State University,
Tallahassee,
Florida,
USA
X. Zou
Department of Meteorology,
Florida State University,
Tallahassee,
Florida,
USA
The sensitivity of Global Positioning System (GPS)/Meteorology (GPS/MET) bending angle assimilation to the specification of
observational weightings is studied. Three weighings are used. The first is estimated based on background and observation
differences. The second comes from a theoretical estimation of the errors in the calculation of radio occultation (RO) bending
angles [
Zou et al., 2002
]. The third is given by
Palmer et al. [2000]
. A total of 52 single GPS/MET occultation experiments are carried out for each of these weightings. The relationships between
the adjustment of the refractivity and the adjustments of the temperature, specific humidity, and surface pressure have been
examined. Collocated radiosonde observations are used as independent data sources for the numerical evaluation of GPS/MET
data assimilation results. The analysis increments of the specific humidity and the surface pressure have the same sign as
that of the refractivity. The larger the analysis increments of the refractivity, the larger the analysis increments of the
specific humidity and the surface pressure. Such a one-to-one correspondence is not found between the analysis increment of
the temperature and the increment of the refractivity. The GPS/MET bending angle assimilation with these three weightings
all provide reasonable improvements to the temperature and specific humidity analyses compared with radiosonde data. The National
Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) background fields are wetter than radiosonde measurements between 800 and 450
hPa. This positive bias of the background specific humidity is largely removed after the GPS/MET data assimilation with all
three weightings. However, it is found that GPS/MET bending angle assimilation slightly increased the difference between the
surface pressure analysis and the radiosonde observations. Different analysis variables have different sensitivities to the
weightings. Among them, the sensitivities of the temperature and the surface pressure are most significant. In a further analysis,
the sensitivities of the data assimilation to the variation of the gravity and the vertical resolution of the assimilated
data are presented. The sensitivity to the gravity is not very significant. However, the increase of the vertical resolution
of the assimilated bending angle observations produces more accurate refractivity and temperature analyses, with little impact
on surface pressure fields. Moreover, the inconsistency between two independent observations may cause the background fields
to be positively biased from one type of observation but negatively biased from the other type of observation. Such an inconsistency
has been seen to affect the evaluation of the GPS/MET bending angle assimilation results using radiosonde observations.
Published 13
December
2002.
Citation: Shao, H., and X. Zou
(2002),
The impact of observational weighting on the assimilation of GPS/MET bending angle,
J. Geophys. Res.,
107(D23),
4717,
doi:10.1029/2001JD001552.