Quantifying uncertainty in Gulf of Mexico forecasts stemming from uncertain initial conditions

Polynomial Chaos (PC) methods are used to quantify the impacts of initial conditions uncertainties on oceanic forecasts of the Gulf of Mexico circulation. Empirical Orthogonal Functions are used as initial conditions perturbations with their modal amplitudes considered as uniformly distributed uncertain random variables. These perturbations impact primarily the Loop Current system and several frontal eddies located in its vicinity. A small ensemble is used to sample the space of the modal amplitudes and to construct a surrogate for the evolution of the model predictions via a nonintrusive Galerkin projection. The analysis of the surrogate yields verification measures for the surrogate's reliability and statistical information for the model output. A variance analysis indicates that the sea surface height predictability in the vicinity of the Loop Current is limited to about 20 days. © 2016. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.