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## Section: New Results

### Development of New Methods for Data Assimilation

#### Multigrid Methods for Variational Data Assimilation.

Participants : Laurent Debreu, François-Xavier Le Dimet, Arthur Vidard.

#### Variational Data Assimilation with Control of Model Error

Participant : Arthur Vidard.

One of the main limitations of the current operational variational data assimilation techniques is that they assume the model to be perfect, mainly because of computing cost issues. Numerous researches have been carried out to reduce the cost of controlling model errors by controlling the correction term only in certain privileged directions or by controlling only the systematic and time correlated part of the error.

Both the above methods consider the model errors as a forcing term in the model equations. Trémolet (2006) describes another approach where the full state vector (4D field: 3D spatial + time) is controlled. Because of computing cost one cannot obviously control the model state at each time step. Therefore, the assimilation window is split into sub-windows, and only the initial conditions of each sub-window are controlled, the junctions between each sub-window being penalized. One interesting property is that, in this case, the computation of the gradients, for the different sub-windows, are independent and therefore can be done in parallel.

This method is now implemented in a realistic oceanic framework using OPAVAR/ NEMOVAR. The plan is to extend this study focusing on the parallel aspects of such approach.

#### Assimilation of Images

Participants : François-Xavier Le Dimet, Maëlle Nodet, Arthur Vidard, Nelson Feyeux, Vincent Chabot, Nicolas Papadakis.

##### Direct assimilation of image sequences

At the present time the observation of Earth from space is done by more than thirty satellites. These platforms provide two kinds of observational information:

• Eulerian information as radiance measurements: the radiative properties of the earth and its fluid envelops. These data can be plugged into numerical models by solving some inverse problems.

• Lagrangian information: the movement of fronts and vortices give information on the dynamics of the fluid. Presently this information is scarcely used in meteorology by following small cumulus clouds and using them as Lagrangian tracers, but the selection of these clouds must be done by hand and the altitude of the selected clouds must be known. This is done by using the temperature of the top of the cloud.

MOISE was the leader of the ANR ADDISA project dedicated to the assimilation of images, and is a member of its follow-up GeoFluids (along with EPI FLUMINANCE and CLIME, and LMD, IFREMER and Météo-France) that just ended in 2013.

During the ADDISA project we developed Direct Image Sequences Assimilation (DISA) and proposed a new scheme for the regularization of optical flow problems [102] . Thanks to the nonlinear brightness assumption, we proposed an algorithm to estimate the motion between two images, based on the minimization of a nonlinear cost function. We proved its efficiency and robustness on simulated and experimental geophysical flows [76] . As part of the ANR project GeoFluids, we are investigating new ways to define distance between a couple of images. One idea is to compare the gradient of the images rather than the actual value of the pixels. This leads to promising results. Another idea, currently under investigation, consists in comparing main structures within each image. This can be done using, for example, a wavelet representation of images. Both approaches have been compared, in particular their relative merits in dealing with observation errors, in a paper accepted late 2014 [8] and presented in several national [37] , [38] , [27] and international conferences [30] , [28] , [29] .

Vincent Chabot also defended his PhD in July 2014 [2] .

In recent developments [17] we have also used "Level Sets" methods to describe the evolution of the images. The advantage of this approach is that it permits, thanks to the level sets function, to consider the images as a state variable of the problem. We have derived an Optimality System including the level sets of the images.

#### A Nudging-Based Data Assimilation Method: the Back and Forth Nudging

Participants : Maëlle Nodet, Jacques Blum, Didier Auroux.

The Back and Forth Nudging (BFN) algorithm has been recently introduced for simplicity reasons, as it does not require any linearization, nor adjoint equation, or minimization process in comparison with variational schemes. Nevertheless it provides a new estimation of the initial condition at each iteration.

#### Variational Data Assimilation and Control of Boundary Conditions

Participant : Eugène Kazantsev.

A variational data assimilation technique is applied to the identification of the optimal boundary conditions for a simplified configuration of the NEMO model. A rectangular box model placed in mid-latitudes, and subject to the classical single or double gyre wind forcing, is studied. The model grid can be rotated on a desired angle around the center of the rectangle in order to simulate the boundary approximated by a staircase-like coastlines. The solution of the model on the grid aligned with the box borders was used as a reference solution and as artificial observational data. It is shown in [15] that optimal boundary has a rather complicated geometry which is neither a staircase, nor a straight line. The boundary conditions found in the data assimilation procedure bring the solution toward the reference solution allowing to correct the influence of the rotated grid (see fig. 1 ).

Adjoint models, necessary to variational data assimilation, have been produced by the TAPENADE software, developed by the SCIPORT team. This software is shown to be able to produce the adjoint code, that can be used in data assimilation after a memory usage optimization.

Figure 1. Sea surface elevation: reference solution on the aligned grid (left), solutions on the ${30}^{\circ }$ rotated grid with optimal (center) and classical (right) boundary conditions.