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For sub-daily data for the HRES (stream=oper/wave) the analyses (type=an) are available hourly. The short forecasts, run twice daily from 06 and 18 UTC, provide hourly output forecast steps from 0 to 18 hours. For the EDA, the sub-daily non-wave data (stream=enda) are available every 3 hours but the sub-daily wave data (stream=ewda) are available hourly in MARS and 3 hourly on the CDS disks.
Accuracy and uncertainty
ERA5 is produced using 4D-Var data assimilation and model forecasts in CY41R2 of the IFS. The 4D-Var in ERA5 utilises 12 hour assimilation windows from 9-21 UTC and 21-9 UTC, where the background forecast and all the observations falling within a time window are used to specify all the analyses during that window. However, the accuracy of the analyses is not uniform throughout each window. If the model and observations are unbiased and their errors follow Gaussian distributions and if the observations are homogeneous in space and time, then the analysis error will be smallest in the middle of the assimilation window. However, because none of these assumptions are actually true in the IFS, the particular parameter and location of interest are important, too. Knowing that, a careful study should show at which points during the assimilation windows the analysis is most accurate.
The 10 member ensemble is required for the data assimilation procedure. However, as a useful by-product, this ensemble also provides an estimate of the relative, random uncertainty. The "spread" of the 10 member ensemble, encapsulated by the standard deviation, provides a measure of this uncertainty and is larger for time periods and spatial locations where the uncertainty is relatively large and is smaller when and where there is more certainty in the analysed/forecast values. The spread is a measure of the relative uncertainty, so the numbers do not provide the absolute uncertainty. On the whole, the uncertainty becomes larger as you go back in time, when the observing system was not as good as in the present day, and in data sparse locations such as the pre-satellite era, southern hemisphere. In general, apart from that for the sea surface temperature, the spread does not represent systematic uncertainty, only random, or "synoptic", uncertainty. For more information, see ERA5: uncertainty estimation.
Instantaneous parameters
All the analysed parameters and many of the forecast parameters are described as "instantaneous". For more information on what instantaneous means, see Parameters valid at the specified time. Such instantaneous parameters may, or may not, have been averaged in time, to produce monthly means.
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