Evaluation of Bogus Vortex Techniques with Four-Dimensional Variational Data Assimilation

Abstract

The effectiveness of a four-dimensional variational data assimilation (4DVAR) technique for creating ''bogus'' vortices in numerical simulations of hurricanes is evaluated in this study. A series of numerical experiments is conducted to generate initial vortices for Hurricane Georges and Bonnie (1998) in the Atlantic Ocean by assimilating bogus sea level pressure and wind information into a mesoscale numerical model (MM5). Several different strategies are tested for investigating the sensitivity of the initial vortex representation to the type of bogus information.