Abstract In a series of 5‐day forecasts with a 3‐layer/2.8° hemispheric model, horizontal diffusion schemes of the second and fourth degree are compared with a numericalfilter technique. The results, which are discussed mainly in terms of spectral energetics in zonal wavenumber space, indicate that fourth‐degree diffusion is more scale selective than second‐degree and equivalent to filtering. The seventh‐order filter applied only intermittently to the prognostic variables is superior to fourth‐degree diffusion from the viewpoint of computational economy. Excessive dissipation of the long waves may inhibit the production of eddy kinetic energy from eddy available potential energy.