The paper “A comparison of 4DVar with ensemble data assimilation methods” has been accepted for publication in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.  The authors are David Fairbairn (EngD student joint between Surrey and the Met Office),  Stephen Pring (Met Office), Andrew Lorenc (Met Office and Visiting Professor at Surrey), and Ian Roulstone.  In the paper three data assimilation methods are compared for their ability to produce the best analysis: (i) 4DVar, (ii) EDA: an exsemble of 4DEnVars, which is a variational method using a 4D ensemble covariance; (iii) the deterministic ensemble Kalman filter (DEnKF, also using a 4D ensemble covariance).  An electronic copy of the final form manuscript can be downloaded  here .