Quadratic polynomial regression using serial observation processing: Implementation within DART

It is well known that the ensemble-based variants of the Kalman filter may be thought of as producing a state estimate that is consistent with linear regression. Here, it is shown how quadratic polynomial regression can be performed within a serial data assimilation framework. The addition of quadratic polynomial regression to the Data Assimilation Research Testbed (DART) is also discussed and its performance is illustrated using a hierarchy of models from simple scalar systems to a GCM.