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Assimilation of lidar back-scatter and wind retrievals of planetary boundary layer height into WRF atmospheric forecast states
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  • Andrew Tangborn,
  • Belay Demoz,
  • Brian J. Carroll,
  • Joseph A. Santanello,
  • Jeffrey L. Anderson
Andrew Tangborn
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Belay Demoz
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
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Brian J. Carroll
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
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Joseph A. Santanello
NASA-GSFC
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Jeffrey L. Anderson
National Center for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)
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Abstract

Lidar backscatter and wind retrievals of the planetary boundary layer height (PBLH) are assimilated into forecasts from the NASA Unified - Weather and Research Forecast (NU-WRF) model during the Plains Elevated Convection Convection at Night (PECAN) campaign on July 11, 2015 in Greensburg, Kansas, using error statistics collected from the model profiles to compute the necessary covariance matrices. Assimilation of the observed PBLH was found to improve the temperature, water vapor and velocity profiles relative to independent sonde profiles in the late afternoon, while little improvement was seen during the night and early morning. The computed forecast error covariances between the PBLH and state variables were found to rise in the late afternoon, leading to the larger improvements at this time.