83rd Annual

Tuesday, 11 February 2003
Impact of MODIS winds on DAO systems
Yanqiu Zhu, Data Assimilation Office, NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt, MD; and L. P. Riishojgaard
Wind observations obtained by processing of data from the operational meteorological imagers observing from geostationary orbit have been assimilated with an increasing degree of success in recent years by a number of data assimilation centers. However, from a global numerical weather prediction perspective, an important limitation of these data is the lack of coverage at the high northern and southern latitudes where there are few direct wind observations of any kind, satellite or conventional. Recently, CIMSS scientists have started investigating whether the wind algorithms used for geostationary imagery data could be adapted to data from the MODIS instrument flying on NASA’s Terra platform. This would provide wind observations for the high-latitude regions where the orbits converge. Preliminary studies showed positive impact of MODIS winds on the Goddard Data Assimilation Office (DAO) systems. Currently, the assimilation of quasi-real time Atmospheric Motion Vectors (AMVs) into a global model at DAO is undergoing. The results will be presented at the conference.

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