A Preliminary Assessment of the Impact of Assimilating Satellite Soil Moisture Data Products on NCEP Global Forecast System

Figure 6

(Top) mean 7-day bias of geopotential heights at 500 hPa (a) and 850 (b) averaged both spatially over the global region and temporally over the period of 2 April to5 May 2012, for 7-day GFS forecast from CTL (black) and EnKF (red); (bottom) as in (top) but shows difference of CTL and EnKF, plus the results of a statistical Student’s t-test/significance test. The differences outside of the hollow bars attain the 95% confidence level based on Student’s t-tests. Corresponding RMSE of CTL (black) and EnKF (red) at 500 hPa (c) and 850 hPa (d) for the same period as in (a) or (b).

(a)

(b)

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(d)