The NOAA products validation system (NPROVS) and archive summary system (NARCSS) for real-time and long-term monitoring of environmental satellite products

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NOAA/NESDIS) produces global temperature and moisture sounding products from operational polar-orbiting and geostationary satellites. Within the NESDIS Office of SaTellite Applications and Research (STAR), the NOAA PROducts Validation System (NPROVS) now provides a centralized, integrated real-time monitoring and validation function for inter-comparing these products against collocated radiosonde and numerical weather prediction (NWP) forecast data. The satellite product suites compared include Advanced-TOVS (ATOVS), Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS), Microwave Integrated Retrieval System (MIRS), GOES, Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI), and Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate (COSMIC) sounding products. Recently, this capability was augmented with the deployment of the NPROVS ARChive Summary System (NARCSS) for longer term trend monitoring of respective product performance.

The following report summarizes upgrades over the past year to the combined NPROVS and Environmental Data and Graphical Evaluation (EDGE) analytical interface including the addition of new systems, parameters, analytical options and in particular the newly deployed NARCS for long-term trend monitoring of the respective system performance. New products systems accessed by NPROVS include EUMETSAT IASI, MIRS from SSMIS onboard the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) F-16 satellite and the recently deployed NOAA-19 ATOVS satellite. This brings the total number of operational and experimental product systems monitored by NPROVS to nineteen (19). New parameters include drift and cloud observations from ground truth radiosondes and a number of enhanced sampling and statistical analysis options within EDGE for improved scientific analysis. Selected results illustrating the scope of current NPROVS operational system monitoring, troubleshooting and validation support functions are presented.

A significant achievement is the deployment of NARCSS and associated EDGE upgrades which allows access to the NPROVS collocation archive and facilitates user oriented analysis and display of respective system trends in sampling and performance. Analysis and display functions include sampling and display options suitable to real-time, short term analysis and longer term trending.

The above work is supported by the NPOESS Integrated Program Office (IPO) in preparation for the launch of the NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) in 2011 and NPOESS (2014). This includes NPROVS integration into ongoing NPOESS Community Collaborative Cal/Val program and associated Sounding Operational Algorithm Team (SOAT) and Government Resources for Algorithm Verification Independent Testing and Evaluation (GRAVITE) activities in support of next generation Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) /Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) products.

The contents of this report do not necessarily reflect any position of the United States government