Using data assimilation in laboratory experiments of geophysical flows

Abstract

Data assimilation is used in numerical simulations of laboratory experiments in a stratified, rotating fluid. The experiments are performed on the large Coriolis turntable (Grenoble, France), which achieves a high degree of similarity with the ocean, and the simulations are performed with a two-layer shallow water model. Since the flow is measured with a high level of precision and resolution, a detailed analysis of a forecasting system is feasible. Such a task is much more difficult to undertake at the oceanic scale because of the paucity of observations and problems of accuracy and data sampling. This opens the way to an experimental test bed for operational oceanography. To illustrate this, some results on the baroclinic instability of a two-layer vortex are presented.