Global PBL Temperature and Water Vapor Products from Merged GNSS-RO, IR, and MW Satellite Observations: The SNWG PBL Project

The Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL) is the atmospheric interface between the Earth’s surface and the free atmosphere. Characterizing the PBL thermodynamic properties is vital to understand the diurnal, seasonal, and climate-scale variations of Earth’s atmospheric processes and is key to cloud formation and pollution dispersal. Currently, no single type of observations can provide the desired accuracy and resolutions needed for many applications. However, complementary observations from different sensors could potentially be combined to yield a significantly improved PBL product. Existing hyperspectral infrared sounders, such as AIRS and CrIS, retrieve profiles of temperature and water vapor (among other variables) throughout the atmosphere (~1 km vertical and ~13 km horizontal resolution). GNSS-Radio Occultation (GNSS-RO) also measures profiles of temperature and water vapor throughout the atmosphere (~100 m vertical and ~100 km horizontal resolution). Combining hyperspectral infrared (IR) and microwave (MW) atmospheric sounder data with GNSS-RO data into a merged global product will advance PBL science and will improve weather forecasting and other applications. This is the goal of the Satellite Needs Working Group (SNWG) PBL project that aims to produce a new moderate-resolution PBL dataset with current satellite observation capabilities that will serve the needs from various federal agencies and beyond. In this presentation, we will provide an introduction of the SNWG PBL project. We will present preliminary results in data fusion and validation and discuss the plans for the final merged PBL products. We anticipate that this project will not only yield an unprecedented PBL dataset, but also benefits the NASA Decadal Survey PBL Incubation activities for future PBL observations.