The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NOAA/NESDIS) produces operational global temperature and moisture soundings from several polar-orbiting and geostationary satellites. Within the NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR), the function of centralized scientific monitoring and validation of operational atmospheric derived product systems for 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) is provided by the NOAA Products Validation System (NPROVS). As part of the NPROVS effort, a comprehensive system has been created to handle and display a large variety and volume of data from each satellite system.

The following report summarizes the flow of data through the NPROVS system. This begins with the access of the ground target radiosonde and dropsonde observations followed by the access of the respective satellite observations comprised of polar, geostationary and GPSRO environmental data from over 12 independently operated environmental satellite platforms. The ingestion of the data, the daily creation of the collocated radiosonde, dropsonde and multiple satellite platform observations including various real-time and climate analysis numerical weather prediction observations and the various strategies for accessing, collocating and monitoring the respective data sets will be discussed. Emphasis will be placed on the challenges of obtaining data from the respective satellite and ground target systems that have many differences, the difficulties in handling large volumes of data and associated troubleshooting and corrective actions when problems occur.

A collection of Java-based graphical programs was developed in order to provide users with the ability to view and analyze the NPROVS data and also to perform short-term and longer term trend analysis of the data. One of the significant challenges in the development of the graphical programs has been the need to remain highly flexible. Because data from new satellite systems are often added to NPROVS, the graphical programs must be able to handle the new data while remaining compatible with older data. The methods used to achieve such flexibility will be discussed. The delivery of the data and graphical programs to users via the NPROVS website will also be described.

The above work is supported by the NOAA Integrated Program Office in conjunction with CrIS/ATMS Cal/Val team activities in preparation for NPOESS level 2 product systems (2013) and pending NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) products. The contents of this report do not necessarily reflect any position of the United States government or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.