The Reprocessed SNPP and JPSS Satellite Observations

The launch of the NOAA/NASA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP) and its follow-on NOAA Joint Polar Satellite Systems (JPSS) satellites marks the beginning of a new era of operational satellite observations of the Earth and atmosphere for environmental applications with high spatial resolution and low latency. The SNPP and JPSS are equipped with five instruments, each with advanced design in Earth sampling and latency speed, including the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS), Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS), Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS), Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), and Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES). Among them, the ATMS is the next generation of microwave sounder measuring temperature profiles from the surface to the upper stratosphere and moisture profiles from the surface to the upper troposphere, while CrIS is the first of a series of advanced operational hyperspectral sounders providing more detailed atmospheric and moisture sounding observations for weather and climate applications. The OMPS measures the concentration of ozone in the Earth’s atmosphere and VIIRS provides global observations of a variety of essential environmental variables over the land, atmosphere, cryosphere, and ocean with visible and infrared imagery. Last but not least, the CERES measures the solar energy reflected by the Earth, the long-wave radiative emission from the Earth, and the role of cloud processes in the Earth’s energy balance. Presently, observations from these instruments on SNPP and JPSS-1 (re-named NOAA-20 after launch) provide near real-time monitoring of the environmental changes and improve weather forecasting by assimilation into numerical weather prediction models.

Envision the need for consistencies in satellite retrievals, improving climate reanalyses, development of climate data records, and improving numerical weather forecasting, the NOAA/Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR) has been reprocessing the SNPP and JPSS observations through their life cycle. The reprocessing generates consistent Level-1 sensor data records using unified and consistent algorithms for each instruments that removes artificial jumps in data owing to operational changes, instrument anomalies, contamination by anomaly views of the environment or spacecraft, and other causes. Such a reprocessing is expected to improve the efficiency in the use of the JPSS satellite data and the accuracy of the observed essential environmental variables through either consistent satellite retrievals or use of the reprocessed data in numerical data assimilation.

To facilitate user applications, this presentaion provides a summary on the instrument observing principles, data characteristics, reprocessing approaches, unified algorithms, and validation results of the reprocessed sensor data records.