Ongoing Monitoring and Analysis of NOAA-Unique CrIS/ATMS Processing System (NUCAPS) Sounding Product Using NPROVS and its Expansion

The NOAA-Unique CrIS-ATMS Product System (NUCAPS) was developed by the NOAA/NESDIS Center for Satellite Application and Research (STAR) and has been running operationally at the NOAA/NESDIS Office of Satellite and Product Operation (OSPO) since 2013. In this report, we present the ongoing activity of monitoring and validation of the NUCAPS IR+MW and MW-only temperature and water vapor retrievals using the NOAA Products Validation System (NPROVS) and its expansion (NPROVS+), supported by the NOAA Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) EDR cal/val program.

In this work, the NUCAPS retrieval characteristics are analyzed using multiple reference datasets (i.e., global conventional radiosonde observations (RAOBs) and JPSS-funded dedicated (i.e., ARM sites) and intensive field campaign (i.e., AEROSE and 2015 CALWATER/ACAPEX) RAOBs, and NCEP forecast and ECMWP analysis), and compared with legacy NOAA products (e.g., AIRS, IASI, and MiRS), all of which are collected and monitored in NPROVS in a near-real-time mode. This analysis is conducted in terms of both global sampling and case studies, i.e., emphasizing the NUCAPS retrieval applications in monitoring and forecasting of special weather events (e.g., polar vortex, middle and low latitude cyclones, and “atmospheric river”), and in terms of both time-averaging statistics and seasonal and year-to-year variability.