NPOESS Preparatory Project Validation Program for the Imagery and Cloud Mask Data Products from the Visible/Infrared Imager/Radiometer Suite

The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Program, in partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), will launch the NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP), a risk reduction and data continuity mission, prior to the first operational NPOESS launch. The NPOESS Program, in partnership with Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, will execute the NPP Calibration and Validation (Cal/Val) program to ensure the data products comply with the requirements of the sponsoring agencies. The Imagery and VIIRS Cloud Mask (VCM) plans incorporate a combination of real-time users, scientists, and climate specialists to insure a viable and effective set of products. The Imagery team includes subject matter experts and organizations representative of all aspects of imagery application, from clouds to sea ice to aerosols along with ground/ocean features of meteorological interest. The VCM plan considers not only the VCM as a single product, but extensive evaluation regarding its impacts on all downstream VIIRS products. Both leakage and false alarms are accounted for, and users for both the confidently cloudy and confidently clear output are included as part of the evaluation team. Evaluation tools include the capability to display each cloud detection test, match ups between the VCM with CloudSat, CALIPSO, and MODIS, quantitative comparisons between the VCM and manual analysis produced by subject matter experts, and statistical impacts on dependent Environmental Data Products such as SST and surface reflectance. This comprehensive approach will allow all dependent users to obtain a reliable measure of the capabilities of the Imagery and VCM.