The Inclusion of IWV Estimates from AIRS/AMSU and SSM/I Sensors into the CPTEC/INPE Global Data Assimilation System

Abstract

Abstract Water vapor plays a crucial role in atmospheric processes and its distribution is associated with cloud-cover fraction and rainfall. The inclusion of integrated water vapor (IWV) estimates in numerical weather prediction improves the vertical structure of the humidity analysis and consequently contributes to obtaining a more realistic atmospheric state. Currently, satellite remote sensing is the most important source of humidity measurements in the Southern Hemisphere, providing information with good horizontal resolution and global coverage. In this study, the inclusion of IWV retrieved from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder/Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A (AIRS/AMSU) and Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) were investigated as additional information in the Physical-space Statistical Analysis System (PSAS), which is the operational data assimilation system at the Center for Weather Forecasting and Climate Studies of the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (CPTEC/INPE). Experiments were carried out with and without the assimilation of IWV values from both sensors. Results show that, in general, the IWV assimilation reduces the error in short-range forecasts of humidity profile, particularly over tropical regions. In these experiments, an analysis of the impact of the inclusion of IWV values from SSM/I and AIRS/AMSU sensors was done. Results indicated that the impact of the SSM/I values is significant over high-latitude oceanic regions in the Southern Hemisphere, while the impact of AIRS/AMSU values is more significant over continental regions where surface measurements are scarce, such as the Amazonian region. In that area the assimilation of IWV values from the AIRS/AMSU sensor shows a tendency to reduce the overestimate of the precipitation in short-range forecasts.