Evaluation of Hyperspectral Infrared Soundings in Tropical Cyclone Environments

The next generation U.S. polar-orbiting (NPOESS) and geostationary (GOES-R) satellite systems will include hyperspectral infrared (IR) sounders with on the order of 1000 spectral bands. This represents a two order of magnitude increase in the number of bands relative to the current GOES sounder, and will provide vertical temperature and moisture profiles in relatively cloud free areas with much greater vertical resolution. One potential application of hyperspectral IR sounders is to improve the measurements in the environments of tropical cyclones. Although tropical cyclones contain large amounts of deep convection near their centers, they are often surrounded by relatively cloud free regions. To begin an evaluation of the utility of hyperspectral IR soundings in tropical cyclone environments, temperature and moisture retrievals from the Atmospheric IR Sounder (AIRS) from the NASA Aqua satellite are being compared with GPS soundings from the NOAA Gulfstream Jet surveillance missions into Hurricanes Lili (2002), Fabian (2003), and Isabel (2003). Temperature and moisture error characteristics for co-located GPS and AIRS soundings will be presented.