Generation and Application of Local High Resolution Multichannel AMVS for Operational NWP in the Australian Region
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has used Himawari geostationary satellite data in support of many operational applications. In one application the Himawari navigated and calibrated imagery has been used in the BOM since 1992 to operationally generate Atmospheric Motion Vectors (AMVs) over the full earth disk viewed from the satellite. These local near continuous AMV data are still used in the BoM’s operational forecast systems. Each vector is error characterised, including the assignment of an Expected Error and Quality Indicator and information from the results of other tests. To further enhance the use of the current 10 minute high temporal and spatial density AMVs in the current operational assimilation systems whose horizontal resolutions now go down to 1.5 km, their spatial, temporal and error distribution has been analysed and improved. The data have subsequently been used with the full BOM operational database to provide forecasts with current operational forecast models including the nested tropical cyclone forecast models. In the current 1.5 km resolution operational models, the local AMVs are on occasion the only AMV data available for the operational assimilation cycle. Results indicate locally generated Himawari-8 and 9 AMVs, which are available every 10 minutes, are of a density and quality which have the ability to improve NWP model initialisation and forecasts.
The results also providing an indication of the latency/processing requirements, temporal density, spatial density and data selection methods appropriate for effective application of these high resolution data in an expanding high resolution, shorter cut off environment.
