Focus: To provide the Unified Data Assimilation System being developed for WRF to the community on a user-onus basis.
The majority of MMM's variational data assimilation effort is focused on research, further development and applications of the "WRF-Var" system. Priority research areas are currently:
1) Direct assimilation of satellite radiances,
2) Radar and GPS data assimilation,
3) Mesoscale multi-incremental 4D-Var, and
4) Polar real-time data assimilation.
The system also supports a number of MMM collaborations with operational partners both in the US (JCSDA, Air Force Weather Agency), and internationally (Korea, Taiwan, India, China). The WRF-Var system is an integral part of the Advanced Research WRF (ARW) system, released and supported by MMM Division to the research community. WRF-Var tutorials are held at regular intervals. The WRF-Var scheme assimilates observations using a range of background error covariance models, permitting comparison of the different approaches adopted in current operational and research systems. Numerous observation operators have also been developed, including conventional observations (surface, sonde, aircraft, and satellite temperature, moisture, and wind retrievals), radar reflectivity and radial velocity, scatterometer winds, microwave radiances, GPS refractivity, and total precipitable water observations.
Find out about WRF Data Assimilation development by visiting the WRF Data Assimilation Working Group page
The MPG Data Assimilation Sub-Group
People
Dale Barker
Andrew Crook
Hans Huang
Chris Snyder
Jenny Sun
Qingnong Xiao