Assimilation of TES data into a Mars general circulation model using LETKF

Temperature retrievals derived from the Thermal Emission Spectrograph (TES) instrument aboard the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft are assimilated into the NASA / NOAA Mars general circulation model using a 4-dimensional Local Ensemble Transform Kalman Filter (LETKF). Building upon the work of Hoffman et al., 2009 this effort uses real observations without the perfect model assumption.

Our plans include estimating the correlated errors of the TES retrievals using the adaptive method developed for the LETKF by Li et al (2009) and Miyoshi et al., (2009). The quality of the results will be assessed by comparing short range forecasts (0.25 sols) with observations, and by comparing the skill of forecasts started from the LETKF analysis with those started from other available analyses such as the Oxford system.