Validation of NOAA Unique Combined Atmospheric Processing System (NUCAPS) Carbon Trace Gas EDRs

This presentation overviews the performance of the operational NOAA Unique Combined Atmospheric Processing System (NUCAPS) carbon trace gas environmental data records (EDRs) from the Suomi NPP satellite. The NUCAPS algorithm is an operational retrieval algorithm based upon the well-established AIRS science team algorithm for retrieving global atmospheric temperature, moisture, ozone and carbon trace gas profile EDRs. NUCAPS EDR product assessments are made with reference to the JPSS Level 1 requirements. This work specifically overviews the validation of the SNPP carbon trace gas EDRs (CO, CH₄ and CO₂), versus Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) and Atmospheric Tomography Mission (ATom) in situ aircraft data. In the past, trace gas EDR products did not require validation as no program requirements had been defined, and offline production of SNPP full spectral-resolution (FSR) CrIS SDRs (required for trace gases) did not commence until December 2014, with operational Interface Data Processing Segment (IDPS) production starting in March 2017. Based on our analyses, important algorithm upgrades have been introduced, including new quality assurance, a priori climatologies, channel selections and RTA tuning. The resulting NUCAPS carbon trace gas EDRs show very good agreement against the legacy AIRS sounder, and are shown to be very close to meeting the JPSS Level 1 requirements for partial-column and total-column abundances versus ATom and TCCON, respectively. The validated SNPP NUCAPS trace gas EDRs will be leveraged going forward for the NOAA-20 NUCAPS trace gas EDR validation.