Impact of an Ensemble of Ocean Data Assimilations in ECMWF's next generation ocean reanalysis system

TL;DR

This paper introduces an ensemble data assimilation approach for ECMWF's next-generation ocean reanalysis system, improving background-error covariance estimation by blending climatological and flow-dependent information, leading to reduced errors.

Contribution

It develops a hybrid covariance modeling method using ensemble-based flow-dependent and climatological estimates for ECMWF's ocean reanalysis system.

Findings

Significant reduction in background errors with the new hybrid covariance model.

Demonstrated improved analysis quality during the Argo-rich period.

Enhanced specification of flow-dependent vertical and horizontal correlation scales.

Abstract

An Ensemble of Data Assimilations (EDA) can provide valuable information on the analysis and short-range forecast uncertainties. The present ECMWF operational ocean analysis and reanalysis system, called ORAS5, produces an ensemble but does not exploit it for the specification of the background-error covariance matrix $\mathbf{B}$, a key component of the data assimilation system. In this article, we describe EDA developments for the ocean, which take advantage of the short-range forecast ensemble for specifying, in two distinct ways, parameters of a covariance model representation of $\mathbf{B}$. First, we generate a climatological ensemble over an extended period to produce seasonally varying climatological estimates of background-error variances and horizontal correlation length-scales. Second, on each assimilation cycle, we diagnose flow-dependent variances from the ensemble and blend them with the climatological estimates to form hybrid variances. We also use the ensemble to diagnose flow-dependent vertical correlation length-scales. We demonstrate for the Argo-rich period that this new, hybrid formulation of $\mathbf{B}$ results in a significant reduction of background errors compared to the parameterized formulation of $\mathbf{B}$ used in ORAS5. The new ocean EDA system will be employed in ORAS6, ECMWF's next generation ocean reanalysis system.