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Global assessments of the NCEP Ensemble Forecast System using altimeter data

Ocean Dynamics volume 70, pages 405–419 (2020)Cite this article

Abstract

Forecasts of 10-m wind (U10) and significant wave height (Hs) from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Ensemble Forecast System are evaluated using altimeter data. Four altimeter missions are selected for the assessment in 2017 that provide a total of 33,229,297 data points matching model state to altimeter measurement. This large quantity of data allows the investigation of the error as a function of forecast ranges, quantiles, and location. Special attention is given to the comparison between the arithmetic mean of the ensemble forecast and the deterministic forecast control run. Error metrics are selected to quantify and separate the systematic and scatter components of the error. Results indicate a large reduction of the scatter errors (SCrmse) in the ensemble mean compared to the control run; more evident for U10, where large SCrmse of 5 m/s associated with strong winds at mid-latitudes beyond forecast day 7 drops to 3 m/s for the ensemble mean. This benefit is transferred to Hs and the largest SCrmse of 1.8 m at the control run is reduced to 1.3 m for the ensemble mean. Although the overall forecast skill of the ensemble forecast is improved, the extreme quantiles of Hs and U10 beyond forecast day 5 tend to underestimate the observations. This implies a need for bias correction algorithms applied during post-processing of the NCEP ensemble products. We conclude that for reliable wind and wave forecasts beyond 7 days at mid- and high latitudes, it is essential to use ensemble forecast products, especially when associated with extratropical areas in the Southern Hemisphere.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge Dr. Todd Spindler, the GEFS atmospheric ensemble team at NCEP, and the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOSC) at the University of Maryland.

Funding

This work has been funded by the US National Weather Service Office of Science and Technology (NWS/OST), NOAA award number NA16NWS4680011, with further support in the last stage of development from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT – Portugal) under the project EXWAV (RD0504) number PTDC/EAM-OCE/31325/2017.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Marine Technology and Ocean Engineering (CENTEC), Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Ricardo Martins Campos

  2. SRG/EMC/NCEP/NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction, College Park, USA

    Jose-Henrique G.M. Alves

  3. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, USA

    Stephen G. Penny

  4. Physical Sciences Division, NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, USA

    Stephen G. Penny

  5. EMC/NCEP/NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction, College Park, USA

    Vladimir Krasnopolsky

Authors
  1. Ricardo Martins Campos
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  2. Jose-Henrique G.M. Alves
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  3. Stephen G. Penny
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  4. Vladimir Krasnopolsky
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ricardo Martins Campos.

Additional information

Responsible Editor: Clemente Augusto Souza Tanajura

This article is part of the Topical Collection on the 10th International Workshop on Modeling the Ocean (IWMO), Santos, Brazil, 25-28 June 2018

Data sources

NCEP’s Global Wave Ensemble Forecast

• ftp://ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/wave/prod

Altimeters

• ftp://avisoftp.cnes.fr/AVISO/pub/

• ftp://ftp.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/pub/sod/lsa/cs2igdr/

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Campos, R.M., Alves, JH.G., Penny, S.G. et al. Global assessments of the NCEP Ensemble Forecast System using altimeter data. Ocean Dynamics 70, 405–419 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-019-01329-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-019-01329-4

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