This comprehensive text and reference work on numerical weather prediction covers for the first time, not only methods for numerical modeling, but also the important related areas of data assimilation and predictability.
It incorporates all aspects of environmental computer modeling including an historical overview of the subject, equation of motion and their approximations, a modern and clear description of numerical methods, and the determination of initial conditions using weather observations (an important new science known as data assimilation). Finally, this book provides a clear discussion of the problems of predictability and chaos in dynamical systems and how they can be applied to atmospheric and oceanic systems. This includes discussions of ensemble forecasting, EI Nino events, and how various methods contribute ot improved weather and climate prediction. In each of these areas the emphasis is on clear and intuitive explanations of all the fundamental concepts, followed by a complete and sound development of the theory and applications.
1. Historical overview of numerical weather prediction
2. The contionuous equations
3. Numerical discretization of the equations of motion
4. Introdution to the parameterization of subgrid-scale physical
5. Data assimiation
6. Atmospheric predictability and ensemble forecasting