JPSS Instruments and their Impacts on Applications

The Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) instruments onboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP) satellites are performing extremely after nearly 4 years of service. Applications of satellite data are paramount to transform science and technology to product and services which are used in critical decision making. For the satellite community, good representations of technology are the satellite sensors, while science provides the instrument calibration and derived geophysical parameters. Weather forecasting is an application of the science and technology provided by remote sensing satellites. The JPSS, which includes the SNPP provides formidable science and technology to support many applications and includes support to 1) weather forecasting – data from the JPSS Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) and the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) are used to forecast weather events out to 7 days - nearly 85% of all data used in weather forecasting are from polar orbiting satellites; 2) environmental monitoring -data from the JPSS Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) are used to monitor the environment including the health of coastal ecosystems, drought conditions, fire, smoke, dust, snow and ice, and the state of oceans, including sea surface temperature and ocean color; and 3) climate monitoring – data from JPSS instruments, including OMPS and CERES will provide continuity to climate data records established using NOAA POES and NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) satellite observations. A number of operational and research applications will be presented along with the status of the JPSS instruments