HARMONIE Observation Preprocessing

Introduction

The following figure shows different schematic steps in the HARMONIE data assimilation system. It is worth mentioning some differences between the observation pre-processing systems used by ECMWF, Météo France, and HIRLAM. Some of these differences are listed below:

AROME/HARMONIE-AROMEIFS
data format/contentBUFR, but sometimes with own tableBUFR with WMO code
creation of ODB databaseBator converts BUFR to ODBb2o/bufr2odb converts BUFR to ODB
blacklisting techniqueBator (LISTE_LOC, LISTE_NOIRE_DIAP), Screening (hirlam_blacklist.B) & Minim (NOTVAR namelist)Screening only

Observation file preparation

Preprocessing Software

  • Bator: Bator - reads BUFR/HDF5/OBSOUL observation data and writes ODBs used by data assimilation

Other possibilities include:

  • Oulan: Oulan - Converts conventional BUFR data to OBSOUL file that is read by BATOR
  • Cope: Cope - preparation of ODBs used by data assimilation (in development)