The sensitive regions of conditional nonlinear optimal perturbations (CNOPs) and the first singular vector (FSV) for a northwest Pacific typhoon case are reported in this paper. A large number of probes have been designed in the above regions and the ensemble transform Kalman filter (ETKF) techniques are utilized to examine which approach can locate more appropriate regions for typhoon adaptive observations. The results show that, in general, the majority of the probes in the sensitive regions of CNOPs can reduce more forecast error variance than the probes in the sensitive regions of FSV. This implies that adaptive observations in the sensitive regions of CNOPs are more effective than in the sensitive regions of FSV. Furthermore, the reduction of the forecast error variance obtained by the best probe identified by CNOPs is twice the reduction of the forecast error variance obtained by FSV. This implies that dropping sondes, which is the best probe identified by CNOPs, can improve the forecast more than the best probe identified by FSV. These results indicate that the sensitive regions identified by CNOPs are more appropriate for adaptive observations than those identified by FSV.
In this study, the ilnpacts of horizontal resolution on the conditional nonlinear optimal perturbation （CNOP） and on its identified sensitive areas were investigated for tropical cyclone predictions. Three resolutions, 30 km, 60 km, and 120 kin, were studied for three tropical cyclones, TC Mindulle （2004）, TC Meari （2004）, and TC Matsa （2005）. Results show that CNOP may present different structures with different resolutions, and the major parts of CNOP become increasingly localized with increased horizontal resolution. CNOP produces spiral and baroclinic structures, which partially account for its rapid amplification. The differences in CNOP structures result in different sensitive areas, but there are common areas for the CNOP-identified sensitive areas at various resolutions, and the size of the common areas is different from case to case. Generally, the forecasts benefit more from the reduction of the initial errors in the sensitive areas identified using higher resolutions than those using lower resolutions. However, the largest improvement of the forecast can be obtained at the resolution that is not the highest for some cases. In addition, the sensitive areas identified at lower resolutions are also helpful for improving the forecast with a finer resolution, but the sensitive areas identified at the same resolution as the forecast would be the most beneficial.
In this study, a series of sensitivity experiments were performed for two tropical cyclones （TCs）, TC Longwang （2005） and TC Sinlaku （2008）, to explore the roles of locations and patterns of initial errors in uncertainties of TC forecasts. Specifically, three types of initial errors were generated and three types of sensitive areas were determined using conditional nonlinear optimal perturbation （CNOP）, first singular vector （FSV）, and composite singular vector （CSV） methods. Additionally, random initial errors in randomly selected areas were considered. Based on these four types of initial errors and areas, we designed and performed 16 experiments to investigate the impacts of locations and patterns of initial errors on the nonlinear developments of the errors, and to determine which type of initial errors and areas has the greatest impact on TC forecasts. Overall, results from the experiments indicate the following： （1） The impact of random errors introduced into the sensitive areas was greater than that of errors themselves fixed in the randomly selected areas. From the perspective of statisticul analysis, and by comparison, the impact of random errors introduced into the CNOP target area was greatest. （2） The initial errors with CNOP, CSV, or FSV patterns were likely to grow faster than random errors. （3） The initial errors with CNOP patterns in the CNOP target areas had the greatest impacts on the final verification forecasts.
In this paper, several sets of observing system simulation experiments (OSSEs) were designed for three typhoon cases to determine whether or not the additional observation data in the sensitive regions identified by conditional nonlinear optimal perturbations (CNOPs) could improve the short-range forecast of typhoons. The results show that the CNOPs capture the sensitive regions for typhoon forecasts, which implies that conducting additional observation in these specific regions and eliminating initial errors could reduce forecast errors. It is inferred from the results that dropping sondes in the CNOP sensitive regions could lead to improvements in typhoon forecasts.
Conditional nonlinear optimal perturbation (CNOP) is a nonlinear generalization of linear singular vector (LSV) and features the largest nonlinear evolution at prediction time for the initial perturbations in a given constraint. It was proposed initially for predicting the limitation of predictability of weather or climate. Then CNOP has been applied to the studies of the problems related to predictability for weather and climate. In this paper, we focus on reviewing the recent advances of CNOP's applications, which involves the ones of CNOP in problems of ENSO amplitude asymmetry, block onset, and the sensitivity analysis of ecosystem and ocean's circulations, etc. Especially, CNOP has been primarily used to construct the initial perturbation fields of ensemble forecasting, and to determine the sensitive area of target observation for precipitations. These works extend CNOP's applications to investigating the nonlinear dynamical behaviors of atmospheric or oceanic systems, even a coupled system, and studying the problem of the transition between the equilibrium states. These contributions not only attack the particular physical problems, but also show the superiority of CNOP to LSV in revealing the effect of nonlinear physical processes. Consequently, CNOP represents the optimal precursors for a weather or climate event; in predictability studies, CNOP stands for the initial error that has the largest negative effect on prediction; and in sensitivity analysis, CNOP is the most unstable (sensitive) mode. In multi-equilibrium state regime, CNOP is the initial perturbation that induces the transition between equilibriums most probably. Furthermore, CNOP has been used to construct ensemble perturbation fields in ensemble forecast studies and to identify sensitive area of target observation. CNOP theory has become more and more substantial. It is expected that CNOP also serves to improve the predictability of the realistic predictions for weather and climate events plays an increasingly important role in exploring th
