Harmonie Verification and Evaluation

This document constitutes a summary of verification and evaluation research of
the Harmonie model. Main attention is on differences between Cy36-based Har-
monie and more recent Cy38- and Cy40-based versions but results with the Hirlam
and ECMWF model are also included. Apart from the more standard verification
against synops and radiosonds, this paper presents comparisons of the models against
a wide variety of observation like; MSG retrieved radiation and cloud cover, scat-
terometer winds, radiosond trajectories, radar rain data, MODES data, and buoys.
In this way, conclusions on model performance can be better founded than with
standard verification. The results clearly demonstrate the overall improvement with
the fully updated cy38 (which is similar to the reference cy40) against the cy36
version, most notable in the wind speed. Moreover, the updated cy38 Harmonie
version substantially outperforms the ECMWF and Hirlam model on e.g. 10m wind
speed and 2m tempterature. Additional spatial verification of precipitation (using
a.o. Fractional Skill Score) are presented in a separate document [de Vries, 2016]
and are consistent with the results shown here.