Comparison of RO-Estimated ATMS Biases Between NOAA-20 and S-NPP

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The Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS)-1 satellite, also known as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-20, was successfully launched onto a sun-synchronous orbit on November 18, 2017. One of the instruments carried on NOAA-20 is the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS). The first set of ATMS observation data was sent back to Earth on November 29, 2017. Using the first month of the observed data, the instrument biases are estimated based on the differences between observed and simulated antenna temperatures. Model simulations are generated by using the Global Positioning System (GPS) radio occultation (RO) temperature and water vapor profiles from COSMIC, KOMPSAT, MetOp-A/-B GRAS as input to the Community Radiative Transfer Model (CRTM). The same procedure is also carried out to ATMS observations from the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) satellite during the same one-month time period. It is shown that ATMS channels 7–9, for which the GPS RO data are most accurate, from NOAA-20 are more negatively biased than the corresponding channels of S-NPP. Further investigations will be carried out as more NOAA-20 observations become available.