Data assimilation plays an important part in numerical weather prediction (NWP) in terms of combining forecasted states and observations. While data assimilation methods in NWP usually assume the Gaussian error distribution, some variables in the atmosphere, such as precipitation, are known to have non-Gaussian error statistics. This study extended a widely used ensemble data assimilation algorithm to enable the assimilation of more non-Gaussian observations.

Effective use of observations with numerical weather prediction models, also known as data assimilation, is a key part of weather forecasting systems. For precise prediction at the scales of thunderstorms, fast nonlinear processes pose a grand challenge because most data assimilation systems are based on linear processes and normal distribution errors. We investigate how, every 30 s, weather radar observations can help reduce the effect of nonlinear processes and nonnormal distributions.

This study investigates non-Gaussian statistics of the data from a 10240-member ensemble Kalman filter. The large ensemble size can resolve the detailed structures of the probability density functions (PDFs) and indicates that the non-Gaussian PDF is caused by multimodality and outliers. While the outliers appear randomly, large multimodality corresponds well with large analysis error, mainly in the tropical regions and storm track regions where highly nonlinear processes appear frequently.

The JAXA is surveying the feasibility of a potential satellite mission equipped with a precipitation radar on a geostationary orbit, as a successor of the GPM Core Observatory. We investigate what kind of observation data will be available from the radar using simulation techniques. Although the quality of the observation depends on the radar specifications and the position of precipitation systems, the results demonstrate that it would be possible to obtain three-dimensional precipitation data.

The ensemble forecast sensitivity to observation (EFSO) method can efficiently clarify under what conditions observations are beneficial or detrimental for assimilation. Based on EFSO, an offline assimilation method is proposed to accelerate the development of data selection strategies for new observing systems. The usefulness of this method is demonstrated with the assimilation of global satellite precipitation data.

This is the first study assimilating the satellite-based leaf area index observations every 4 days into a numerical model simulating the growth and death of individual plants. The newly developed data assimilation system successfully reduced the uncertainties of the model parameters related to phenology and carbon dynamics. It also provides better estimates of the present vegetation structure which can be used as the initial states for the simulation of the future vegetation change.

Particle filters in their basic form have been shown to be unusable for large geophysical systems because the number of required particles grows exponentially with the size of the system. We have applied the ideas of localized analyses at each model grid point and use ensemble weight smoothing to blend each local analysis with its neighbors. This new local particle filter (LPF) makes large geophysical applications tractable for particle filters and is competitive with a popular EnKF alternative.

We propose the design and implementation of an ensemble data assimilation framework for weather prediction at a high resolution and with a large ensemble size. We consider the deployment of this framework on the data throughput of file I/O and multi-node communication. With regard to high-performance computing systems, where data throughput performance increases at a slower rate than computational performance, our new framework promises drastic reduction of total execution time.

DasPy is a ready to use open source parallel multivariate land data assimilation framework with joint state and parameter estimation using Local Ensemble Transform Kalman Filter. The Community Land Model (4.5) was integrated as model operator. The Community Microwave Emission Modelling platform, COsmic-ray Soil Moisture Interaction Code and the Two-Source Formulation were integrated as observation operators for the multivariate assimilation of soil moisture and soil temperature, respectively.