Ground-Based Validation of the NOAA-20 NUCAPS and OMPS Ozone Profiles for Use in Climate Records

Over the last 40 years, NOAA GML continuously collected, calibrated, and quality-assured ground-based (GB) and in situ ozone and water vapor vertical profile observations. These datasets provide a reference for the operational products collected by the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) and Cross-Track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) instruments flying on Suomi NPP, NOAA-20, and NOAA-21 satellites as part of the Joint Polar Satellite Systems (JPSS) for tracking daily changes in atmosphere, oceans, and land.

The NOAA Unique Combined Atmospheric Processing System (NUCAPS) provides operational retrievals of ozone and water vapor profiles based on the hyperspectral infrared sounding instruments, including the CrIS instrument aboard the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), and the Infrared Atmospheric Sounder (IASI) aboard the Meteorological Operational Satellite Program (Metop). The latest NUCAPS retrievals use the updated trace gas climatological a priori profiles and provide information about uncertainties of the retrievals. The ozone Averaging Kernels are available for comparisons with high vertical resolution profiles, i.e. in-situ ozonesonde observations. The NOAA OMPS instrument operationally produces ozone profiles and ozone column data daily and globally. The NOAA GML ground-based observations are used to assure the stability of ozone satellite records and in support of the combined long-term global satellite records (i.e. COHesive ozone record) which are important for climate research and predictability of the future Earth.

This presentation provides an overview of the NOAA-20 NUCAPS and OMPS ozone profile retrieval evaluation with the NOAA ground-based sonde and Dobson measurements. We use the satellite AKs to analyze the improvements in tracking the Antarctic ozone hole spring to summer transition, as well as ozone variability over mid-latitudes and tropical regions. Finally, ozone retrieval profiles will be evaluated by applying 100-layer averaging kernels to the ozone measurements from the WOUDC and NOAA archives. The ultimate goal is to assess the long-term stability of satellite records for contributing to climate records and trend analyses.