Microwave Sounding and EDR Products for Operational NWP at FNMOC

The Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) will be onboard the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environment Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP) and Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) platforms. The ATMS inherits most microwave channels from AMSU and MHS, but with improved sampling and coverage. It will provide three sounding Environment Data Records (EDRs), many surface EDRs, and radiance observations in 22 channels (23.8GHz – 183.3GHz). As one of the major operational NPP/JPSS data ingest and processing centers, the US Navy's Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC) will generate and distribute JPSS sounding and surface EDR products by means of the JPSS Interface Data Processing Segment (IDPS) for Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP). Currently, FNMOC is assimilating microwave radiances in the lower atmosphere from SSMIS, AMSU, and MHS into the Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System (NOGAPS) model. The wind speed and Total Precipitable Water (TPW) surface EDRs from SSMI, SSMI/S, and WindSat are also assimilated into both NOGAPS and the Navy's regional NWP model, the Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS). The assimilation of sounding radiances and EDR products has produced significant improvements in forecast skill of the Navy models. A detailed discussion of these improvements will be presented.