Generating Sounder Products at Imager Spatial and Temporal Resolution

With a sounder and imager data fusion process, we have demonstrated the ability to use coarse spatial resolution infrared (IR) sounder measurements to construct radiances and derived products at imager high spatial resolution. Spectral band radiances missing from the imager can be generated from the sounder spectral coverage. Products (e.g. clear sky temperature and moisture layers, total column precipitable water vapor, atmospheric stability, and cloud top pressures) created from the fusion of AIRS high spectral resolution infrared measurements and MODIS infrared split window measurements, when compared with those derived from directly from the full range of MODIS infrared measurements, are found to have differences that are fairly low and unbiased. More generally, sounder products (from HIRS, AIRS, IASI, CrIS) provided at imager spatial resolution, through fusion with paired imager measurements (from AVHRR, MODIS, AVHRR, VIIRS respectively), reveal more horizontal and vertical detail. With the fusion of data from past and present sounders and imagers, it is possible to improve continuity in cloud and moisture products over the generations of weather satellites. In this paper we expand the application of the fusion process to connect LEO sounder products (from CrIS) to time sequences of GEO imager radiances (from ABI) to create a GEO sounder-like perspective of atmospheric changes in time.