Suomi NPP ATMS Instrumental Performance and Sensor Data Quality Long Term Monitoring (LTM) in STAR Integrated Cal/Val System (ICVS)

A real time Suomi-NPP spacecraft operational and instrument performance monitoring system developed in NOAA/NESDIS/STAR has served the SNPP missions since the launch in October, 2011. Such system automatically collects SNPP operational raw data products distributed from GRAVITE and immediately generates more than 1300 spacecraft/instrument health status and performance evaluation trending plots. Satellite engineers, data users, and instrument calibration scientists can easily get SNPP operational information from STAR website. Additionally, operational sensor data records (SDR) are also evaluated using NWP forecast outputs and radiative transfer model over cloud-free oceanic scenes. Global mean bias and angular dependent bias long term trending plots, as well as global images, are produced and also post in STAR ICVS website. For example, the key parameters in ATMS SDR calibration equations are either directly extracted from raw data records (RDRs) or calculated using provided coefficients. The stability and accuracy of these parameters are critical for the generation of sensor data records. Other than calibration parameters, sensor performance at each channel is assessed by noise equivalent differential temperature (NEDT) and gain. Meanwhile, sensor health and status parameters, such as scan drive main motor current, are monitored to ensure that ATMS is working flawlessly. ATMS temperature data records (TDR) accuracy is evaluated every day using ECMWF 6-hour forecast and CRTM simulations. The angular dependent bias and global bias at each channel are also visualized in the time series. If there is any anomaly detected, either in instrument or sensor data, designated recipients will receive notification email to quickly response to it. It has been approved that STAR ICVS-LTM is one of the most useful tools for SNPP operational status monitoring and will be serving JPSS program in the future.