Find in Library

This paper proposes an efficient and practical implementation of the Maximum Likelihood Ensemble Filter via a Modified Cholesky decomposition (MLEF-MC). The method works as follows: via an ensemble of model realizations, a well-conditioned and full-rank square-root approximation of the background error covariance matrix is obtained. This square-root approximation serves as a control space onto which analysis increments can be computed. These are calculated via Line-Search (LS) optimization. We theoretically prove the convergence of the MLEF-MC. Experimental simulations were performed using an Atmospheric General Circulation Model (AT-GCM) and a highly nonlinear observation operator. The results reveal that the proposed method can obtain posterior error estimates within reasonable accuracies in terms of <inline-formula> <math display="inline"> <semantics> <mrow> <mo>ℓ</mo> <mo>&#8722;</mo> <mn>2</mn> </mrow> </semantics> </math> </inline-formula> error norms. Furthermore, our analysis estimates are similar to those of the MLEF with large ensemble sizes and full observational networks.