Initial results of NPP VIIRS SST processing at NAVOCEANO

Abstract

The Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite was placed in orbit October 28, 2011, and began providing advanced imaging and radiometric data from the Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) in December 2011. The Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVOCEANO) is processing the VIIRS data as part of the generation of sea surface temperature (SST) retrievals for ingest by Navy meteorological and oceanographic analyses and models. This new sensor has an increased number of channels, higher resolution, and larger volume than previous operational polar-orbiting environmental satellites. In order to prepare for processing this new data, a proxy datastream was generated by the Government Resource for Algorithm Verification, Independent Testing, and Evaluation (GRAVITE) from Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data and provided in near real-time. This allowed for NAVOCEANO to write software to ingest, process, and deliver SST products before the actual data began flowing. A discussion of these preparatory activities and the initial results of processing VIIRS SSTs will be presented, including global drifting buoy matchup statistics.