Preliminary testing of satellite radiance data assimilation within MPAS/JEDI-based prototype regional data assimilation systems for RRFS and geostationary hyperspectral sounder assimilation

The Rapid Refresh Forecast System (RRFS) is NOAA's next-generation regional convection-allowing ensemble forecast system in development for the National Weather Service. The RRFS is being developed collaboratively by the Global Systems Laboratory (GSL) and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction’s (NCEP) Environmental Modeling Center (EMC), as well as the NOAA research labs and the broader research community. The future RRFS version (e.g., RRFS version 2), which is currently under development, will use the Model for Prediction Across Scales (MPAS) and the Joint Effort for Data Assimilation Integration (JEDI).

We have started to test satellite radiance data assimilation capabilities within a prototype CONUS domain for our MPAS/JEDI-based RRFS version 2 system. We are starting with single case testing on a coarsened domain, with the planned transition expansion to hourly cycled radiance data assimilation runs on the planned 3-km implementation domain. In addition, to prepare for the support of Geostationary Extended Observation (GeoXO) satellite systems and future MTG/IRS data assimilation, we have started building/testing a regional prototype data assimilation system covering the Atlantic Ocean, also using MPAS/JEDI. At the conference, we will report on the preliminary results of radiance data assimilation within these regional domains.