Distributions and convergence of forecast variables in a 1000 member convection-permitting ensemble

Autor(en)

George C. Craig, Matjaz Puh, Christian Keil, Kirsten Tempest, Tobias Necker, Juan Ruiz , Martin Weissmann, Takemasa Miyoshi

Abstrakt

The errors in numerical weather forecasts resulting from limited ensemble size are explored using 1,000-member forecasts of convective weather over Germany at 3-km resolution. A large number of forecast variables at different lead times were examined, and their distributions could be classified into three categories: quasi-normal (e.g., tropospheric temperature), highly skewed (e.g. precipitation), and mixtures (e.g., humidity). Dependence on ensemble size was examined in comparison to the asymptotic convergence law that the sampling error decreases proportional to N-1/2 for large enough ensemble size N, independent of the underlying distribution shape. The asymptotic convergence behavior was observed for the ensemble mean of all forecast variables, even for ensemble sizes less than 10. For the ensemble standard deviation, sizes of up to 100 were required for the convergence law to apply. In contrast, there was no clear sign of convergence for the 95th percentile even with 1,000 members. Methods such as neighborhood statistics or prediction of area-averaged quantities were found to improve accuracy, but only for variables with random small-scale variability, such as convective precipitation.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Meteorologie und Geophysik

Externe Organisation(en)

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmosfera, CIME/CONICET‐UBA, RIKEN

Journal

Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society

Band

148

Seiten

2325-2343

Anzahl der Seiten

19

ISSN

0035-9009

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.4305

Publikationsdatum

10-2021

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

105206 Meteorologie

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Atmospheric Science

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/distributions-and-convergence-of-forecast-variables-in-a-1000-member-convectionpermitting-ensemble(0cfd2c78-6257-4d90-80fb-3b01435e2361).html