The estimation of high density atmospheric motion vectors and their application to operational numerical weather prediction

Wind is a primary variable for describing atmospheric state. Accurate depiction of the wind field in areas with no conventional data is essential for operational weather forecasting and initialisation of NWP models. Measurement of wind from geostationary platforms is important as it provides near continuous data where conventional observations are lacking, particularly over the data-sparse oceans. Studies as early as Bauer (1976) showed that AMVs have a capacity similar in several aspects to that of radiosondes for representing atmospheric flow. Use of cloud-drift wind vectors is now widespread. Applications include nowcasting, global and regional NWP and tropical cyclone forecasting. The characteristics of the winds and their impact on medium-range global NWP was summarised in Kallberg et Aust. Met. Mag. 51 (2002) 173-180