Meeting Abstracts
The US Navy’s RELO Ensemble experiments during the period of 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico
Mozheng Wei, Clark Rowley, Paul Martin, Charlie Barron, Gregg Jacobs
Naval Research Laboratory,Stennis Space Center, MS 39529, USA
(Abstract received 05/16/2012 for session C)
ABSTRACT
The RELO ensemble with 32 members is run for the period of April 15- July 25, 2010. The system consists of an ocean model NCOM and NCODA 3D-Var DA system with 3km resolution in the Gulf of Mexico. It is shown that the ensemble mean is more skillful than single deterministic forecast. As an initial step to account for model related uncertainties, the vertical and horizontal turbulence mixing parameters in NCOM are perturbed with various statistical structures. The ensemble spread is improved by perturbing these mixing parameters. The results indicate that the analysis error variance from the DA system is underestimated and results in a small initial ensemble spread. In order to further improve RELO’s reliability and forecasting skill with more realistic spread amplitude and health growth, more model related uncertainties should be accounted for in NCOM.