NUCAPS: The NOAA Unique Combined Atmospheric Processing System for the JPSS Series of Hyper Spectral Thermal Polar-Orbiting Sounders

NUCAPS is the NOAA official operational algorithm to produce atmospheric thermodynamic and composition variables from the hyper spectral thermal polar orbiting sounders onboard the JPSS series of satellites.

NOAA/NESDIS/OSPO has been operationally running NUCAPS on the Suomi-NPP CrIS/ATMS suite since the Fall of 2013. First light results from NUCAPS NOAA-20 processing were generated as early as 24 hours following the acquisition of the first measurements from NOAA-20 CrIS, on January 4th, 2018. Comparisons with respect to SNPP NUCAPS showed remarkable similarity already at that preliminary stage and set the foundation for successfully passing the provisional maturity review for NUCAPS NOAA-20 temperature and water vapor products in June 2018, and for OLR and trace gas products in September 2018.

As we complete one full year of NOAA-20 operations and start preparing for MetOp C and J2 operations, a fully automated and unified processor becomes of paramount importance for execution time, operational continuity and scientific consistency. As of April 4th, 2018, NUCAPS is being run in the HEAP, a unified framework that operates on LINUX and literally employs the same exact executable to process all different operational sounders run at NOAA/NESDIS/OSPO. Besides the JPSS series, these are: the Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder/Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AIRS/AMSU), in operations since 2003; 2) the MetOp A (since 2008) and B (since 2014) Infrared Atmospheric Sounder Interferometer/ Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit/Microwave Humidity Sounder (IASI/AMSU/MHS). The long term strategy of NOAA/NESDIS involves the operational processing of the future JPSS and MetOp C missions, spanning a total period of ~30 years of hyper spectral remote sounding data processing.

Focus of this talk is to provide an overview on the status of the NUCAPS system, with a strong focus on the inter-comparison between the SNPP and NOAA-20 operational products.