NPG Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics NPG Nonlin. Processes Geophys. 1607-7946 Copernicus Publications Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/npg-17-329-2010 Spatio-temporal error growth in the multi-scale Lorenz'96 model Herrera S. 1 Fernández J. 1 Rodríguez M. A. 2 Gutiérrez J. M. 2 University of Cantabria, Department of Applied Mathematics, 39005 Santander, Spain Instituto de Física de Cantabria, CSIC-UC, 39005 Santander, Spain 22 07 2010 17 4 329 337 Copyright: © 2010 S. Herrera et al. 2010 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This article is available from https://npg.copernicus.org/articles/17/329/2010/npg-17-329-2010.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://npg.copernicus.org/articles/17/329/2010/npg-17-329-2010.pdf

The influence of multiple spatio-temporal scales on the error growth and predictability of atmospheric flows is analyzed throughout the paper. To this aim, we consider the two-scale Lorenz'96 model and study the interplay of the slow and fast variables on the error growth dynamics. It is shown that when the coupling between slow and fast variables is weak the slow variables dominate the evolution of fluctuations whereas in the case of strong coupling the fast variables impose a non-trivial complex error growth pattern on the slow variables with two different regimes, before and after saturation of fast variables. This complex behavior is analyzed using the recently introduced Mean-Variance Logarithmic (MVL) diagram.

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