Calibration/Validation and Verification are essential parts of data quality assurance and is critically important for operational radiance assimilation in numerical weather prediction (NWP), climate change detection, generation of all environmental data records, and retrieval continuity across multiple overlapping sensor records, including atmospheric soundings, aerosols, fire, trace gas, cloud, sea surface temperature, ocean color, land, vegetation, and cryosphere. For example, understanding the error characteristics of satellite observations and reconciling the biases are important for data assimilation in NWP models; interpreting the small changes in the time series of temperature, trace gas, aerosols, ocean color, and other products depends on the stability of the underlining reprocessed fundamental data records; analysis of the trend of global climate change highly relies on the assumption that the data used are extremely stable and accurate. As more small satellites are launched into space with new technologies in passive and active sensors providing an unprecedented, large volume of data and covering almost the entire electromagnetic spectrum, data consistency, latency, usability, and sustainability may become challenges for operational forecasters, who need to become prepared to expand the algorithms and skills to take full advantages of the new observations. This session will highlight ongoing calibration and validation research that will aid the operational use of the data to explore opportunities and meet challenges of the evolving multitude of Earth and atmospheric observations from satellites, in-situ, and other platforms in the coming years to benefit the society.

Conveners: Changyong Cao, NOAA/NESDIS/STAR, David Robert Doelling, NASA LaRC, Stephen A. Mango, NOAA/NESDIS/SAE Affiliate and ISS, Inc.

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