The Impact of Dynamical Constraints on the Selection of Initial Conditions for Ensemble Predictions: Low-Order Perfect Model Results

A number of operational atmospheric prediction centers now produce ensemble forecasts of the atmosphere. Because of the high-dimensional phase spaces associated with operational forecast models, many centers use constraints derived from the dynamics of the forecast model to define a greatly reduced subspace from which ensemble initial conditions are chosen. For instance, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts uses singular vectors of the forecast model and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction use the ‘‘breeding cycle’’ to determine a limited set of directions in phase space that are sampled by the ensemble