Impact of TROPICS Retrievals on Tropical Cyclone Prediction in a Regional OSSE

In this study, the Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS) consists of a constellation of 6 cubesats evenly spread across three 550-km altitude, 30-degree inclination orbital planes. Each cubesat hosts a passive microwave radiometer providing atmospheric temperature profiles using channels near the 118 GHz oxygen absorption line, water vapor profiles using channels near the 183 GHz water vapor absorption line, imagery channels near 90 GHz for precipitation measurements and 205 GHz for precipitation-size ice particles. This study will explore the assimilation of the simulated retrievals in a regional observation simulation system experiment (OSSE) using the framework of a three-dimensional variational method (3DVAR) and an ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF). The high-temporal three-dimensional temperature and water vapor profiles were simulated using the NOAA/NESDIS/STAR microwave integrated retrieval system (MiRS) from the Nolan et al. (2013) hurricane nature run. Several aspects of the data impact will be presented, such as the impact from different assimilation techniques and the assimilation of thinned versus superobbed data. Preliminary data impacts on tropical cyclone track, intensity and structure will be presented.