Coupled data assimilation in climate research: A brief review of applications in ocean and land

Regions of the cryosphere, including the poles, that are currently unmonitored are expanding, therefore increasing the importance of satellite observations for such regions. With the increasing availability of satellite data in recent years, data assimilation research that combines forecasting model...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Satellite Oceanography and Meteorology
Main Authors: Suzuki 1, Kazuyoshi, Zupanski 2, Milija
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Whioce Publishing Pte Ltd 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ojs.whioce.com/index.php/som/article/view/599
https://doi.org/10.18063/som.v3i2.599
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Summary:Regions of the cryosphere, including the poles, that are currently unmonitored are expanding, therefore increasing the importance of satellite observations for such regions. With the increasing availability of satellite data in recent years, data assimilation research that combines forecasting models with observational data has begun to flourish. Coupled land/ice-atmosphere/ocean models generally improve the forecasting ability of models. Data assimilation plays an important role in such coupled models, by providing initial conditions and/or empirical parameter estimation. Coupled data assimilation can generally be divided into three types: uncoupled, weakly coupled, or strongly coupled. This review provides an overview of coupled data assimilation, introduces examples of its use in research on sea ice-ocean interactions and the land, and discusses its future outlook. Assimilation of coupled data constitutes an effective method for monitoring cold regions for which observational data are scarce and should prove useful for climate change research and the design of efficient monitoring networks in the future.