The Analysis of Synoptic Scale Divergence by a Statistical Interpolation Procedure

The direct analysis of the divergent component of the wind has traditionally been difficult. The higher quality datasets now available offer an opportunity to produce meaningful analyses of the divergent wind. The present work considers how the statistical interpolation objective analysis formalism can be generalized to improve the analysis of the divergent wind. The formulation of the prediction error correlation is modified to be weakly divergent instead of completely nondivergent. This formulation is tested on several lower-order analysis systems. The spectral characteristics of the analysis operators are determined and a simple case study is performed with real data. The results suggest that the present formulation is likely to improve the analysis of the divergent wind field.