MERRA Status

At the development meeting today, we reviewed proposed fixes for the GSI statistics. This effort addresses a bias in the upper tropospheric zonal wind. These have been tested at coarse resolution. One fix has proved promising and the system is being rebuilt. This will be tested at the full MERRA spatial resolution. This also impacts certain aspects of the convective parameterization. So, a set of tests are being prepared and executed over the upcoming weekend. Early (but possibly incomplete) results of the tests are expected by Thursday May 10.

These tests will be used to decide the final configuration of the GEOS5 system to execute the MERRA reanalysis. Full system validation will begin with this configuration.

Also, Queen Elizabeth II will visit Goddard, May 8.