Technical note: assessment of observation quality for data assimilation in flood models

Waller, J. A., Garcia-Pintado, J., Mason, D. C. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6092-6081, Dance, S. L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1690-3338 and Nichols, N. K. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1133-5220 (2018) Technical note: assessment of observation quality for data assimilation in flood models. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 22. pp. 3983-3992. ISSN 1027-5606 doi: 10.5194/hess-22-3983-2018

Abstract/Summary

The assimilation of satellite-based water level observations (WLOs) into 2D hydrodynamic models can keep flood forecasts on track or be used for reanalysis to obtain improved assessments of previous flood footprints. In either case, satellites provide spatially dense observation fields, but with spatially correlated errors. To date, assimilation methods in flood forecasting either incorrectly neglect the spatial correlation in the observation errors or, in the best of cases, deal with it by thinning methods. These thinning methods result in a sparse set of observations whose error correlations are assumed to be negligible. Here, with a case study, we show that the assimilation diagnostics that make use of statistical averages of observation-minus-background and observation-minus-analysis residuals are useful to estimate error correlations in WLOs. The average estimated correlation length scale of 7km is longer than the expected value of 250m. Furthermore, the correlations do not decrease monotonically; this unexpected behaviour is shown to be the result of assimilating some anomalous observations. Accurate estimates of the observation error statistics can be used to support quality control protocols and provide insight into which observations it is most beneficial to assimilate. Therefore, the understanding gained in this paper will contribute towards the correct assimilation of denser datasets.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/77369
Identification Number/DOI	10.5194/hess-22-3983-2018
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science > Department of Geography and Environmental Science Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO) Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Mathematics and Statistics Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Publisher	Copernicus
Download/View statistics	View download statistics for this item