Earth observation from a highly elliptical orbit: expected benefits for weather prediction

The Canadian Space Agency is proposing for 2016 a constellation of two satellites in a highly elliptical orbit: the Polar Communications and Weather (PCW) mission. Such a constellation will provide geostationary-like imagery over the entire circumpolar domain 55-90 N at a refresh rate of 15 minutes. The main meteorological instrument is a 20-channel imager covering the spectral domain 0.45 to 14.5 micron with pixel resolution varying from 0.5-1 km for visible channels to 2 km for infrared channels. One anticipated benefit for weather prediction should result from the assimilation of atmospheric motion vectors (AMV) made available for the first time over the entire Arctic at high temporal resolution. The presentation will focus on the ongoing observing system simulation experiment (OSSE) aiming at demonstrating that impact. The 2005 nature run from the NASA OSSE set-up is used to generate the observations which are subsequently assimilated in the Canadian global model in 3D-var mode. AMV are extracted from the nature run based on cloud characteristics (essentially cloud height), and perturbed appropriately. Preliminary results should be available at the time of the conference.