Background errors in a global wave model determined from altimeter data

Abstract

One of the main limitations to current wave data assimilation systems is the lack of an accurate representation of the structure of the background errors. One method that may be used to determine background errors is the observational method of Hollingsworth and Lönnberg [1986]. This method considers correlations of the differences between observations and the background. For the case of Significant Wave Height (SWH), potential observations come from satellite altimeters. In this paper, correlations of the differences between modeled SWH and bias-corrected ERS-2 data are calculated. The irregular sampling pattern of the altimeter is accounted for by adjusting the correlation length scales ac..