The NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Services (NESDIS) Extended Clouds from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) (CLAVR-x) is a processing system used to detect clouds at the pixel level in the AVHRR data and to derive needed cloud properties. CLAVR-x meets the constraints of real-time processing with a minimal of ancillary data needed for real-time applications and generates global cloud products requested by NOAA's customers. It serves multiple AVHRR applications and provides clear and cloudy pixels and cloud properties with enough quality control to allow for accurate estimation of both clear and cloudy environmental data records.

CLAVR-x uses the National Center for Environmental Prediction NCEP's GFS model 12-hour forecasts of temperature profiles and water vapor to account for radiative effects in the estimation of cloud pressure and cloud heights. It also takes advantage of monthly surface reflectance maps derived from 4 years of CLAVR-x data to improve cloud detection and cloud optical depth retrievals. Clear sky radiative transfer parameters are computed from the NOAA operational atmospheric standard model PFAST, instead of using the non-standard lookup tables as in the previous versions. It also adopts the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) scattering model and produces cloud optical depths, particle size distribution and the cloud height estimates more physically consistent with those from MODIS. The system produces various pixel level products in HDF format including cloud properties (liquid and ice water content, optical depth, emissivity and reflectivity), cloud mask, cloud height, quality flags and composite gridded products.

CLAVR-x has been extended and adapted to use data from the AVHRR/3 fly on the new European MetOp-1 operational satellite, launched on October 2006. MetOp-1 replaces the current NOAA AM (morning) NOAA-17 satellite and the first polar-orbiting satellite dedicated to operational meteorology. This poster will discuss the CLAVR-x operational activities in NOAA/NESDIS and show results generated using data from the new MetOp-1 satellite.