Determination of Mesoscale Predictability Limits with Respect to Uncertainty in the Larger-Scale Environment

Abstract

Our long-term goal is to determine the limits of predictability inherent in atmospheric forecasts due to uncertainty in their initial conditions. These uncertainties are a consequence of inaccuracies of observational data and the algorithms that produce 3-dimensional analysis. Even if a model can simulate atmospheric behavior perfectly, since atmospheric flows exhibit instabilities leading to chaos, any errors in a forecast's initial condition will tend to grow, until information content of the forecast is negligible. The result is a limit to predictability.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 30, 2001
Accession Number
ADA626406

Entities

People

  • David Baumhefner
  • Joseph Tribbia
  • Ronald M. Errico

Organizations

  • National Center for Atmospheric Research

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Algorithms
  • Climate Change
  • Data Science
  • Environment
  • Experimental Design
  • High Resolution
  • Information Science
  • Instability
  • Observation
  • Perturbations
  • Precipitation
  • Probability Distributions
  • Statistical Analysis
  • Statistical Tests
  • Statistics
  • Three Dimensional
  • Uncertainty

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science

Readers

  • Atmospheric Science/Meteorology
  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Plasma Physics / Magnetohydrodynamics