Meteorology Commons^™

Local Adjustment Of The Background Error Correlation For Surface Analyses Over Complex Terrain, David T. Myrick, John D. Horel, Steven M. Lazarus

Aeronautics Faculty Publications

The terrain between grid points is used to modify locally the background error correlation matrix in an objective analysis system. This modification helps to reduce the influence across mountain barriers of corrections to the background field that are derived from surface observations. This change to the background error correlation matrix is tested using an analytic case of surface temperature that encapsulates the significant features of nocturnal radiation inversions in mountain basins, which can be difficult to analyze because of locally sharp gradients in temperature. Bratseth successive corrections, optimal interpolation, and three-dimensional variational approaches are shown to yield exactly the same …