The GOES-R Tropical Pacific Proving Ground

The GOES-R Tropical Pacific Proving Ground

Roy Huff and Steven Businger SOEST, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA

Abstract

The Pacific Region of the NWS covers an area more than five times the size of the continental United States, yet ironically it suffers from the greatest paucity of observational data of all six of the NWS regions. Therefore, the potential represented by the suite of GOES-R sensors to produce improved understanding and forecast services is greatest in this region of the NWS. The goal of the GOES-R Tropical Pacific Proving Ground (TPPG) is to facilitate development of new or enhanced GOES-R applications and to explore possibilities for improving the GOES-R Algorithm Working Group (AWG) products with application to the tropical ocean environment of the Pacific including Hawaii. The TPPG will be a focal point to foster communication and collaboration between staff at the NWSFO HFO, the Meteorology Department at UH, the Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research (JIMAR), and the GOES-R Applications Working Group. The TPPG will focus on three forecast challenges that are critical to the tropical Pacific by targeting applications and products that will help improve i) heavy rain forecasting, ii) tropical cyclone prediction and iii) detection and modeling of volcanic emissions. Beginning in January 2012, the GOES-R Tropical Pacific Proving Ground (TPPG) began a major effort in the tropical Pacific to coordinate installation, training, and feedback of existing geostationary satellite data as well as proxy data derived from POES and long-range lightning detection networks for future GOES-R capabilities over the region within Pacific Region government offices. Of highest priority has been the installation of an X-band antenna and satellite downlink system that will allow dedicated real-time POES data to flow the Pacific Region for the first time. Several products have been installed in the TPPG and will be transitioned into AWIPS II from AWIPS I. These products include Convective Initiation (CI), which utilizes cloud top cooling to allow for advanced lead-time in the warning process, Morphed Integrated Microwave Imagery – Total Precipitable Water (MIMIC-TPW), which has demonstrated superior ability to resolve smaller features over smoothed TWP products, and CIMSS Regional Assimilation System (CRAS). Additional products will be integrated into the HFO AWIPS II system in the near future for operational use and reduced latency. These include GOES Sounder Derived Product Imagery (DPI), Rainfall Rate Quantitative Precipitation Estimation (QPE), and POES X-band antenna data products such as Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), among others.