Winds of Change for Future Operational AMV at EUMETSAT

Borde Borde,Hautecoeur Hautecoeur,Carranza Carranza,Barbieux Barbieux

doi:10.3390/rs11182111

Abstract

EUMETSAT, the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, is one of the key contributors to global atmospheric motion vector (AMV) production around the world. Its current contribution includes geostationary satellites at 0.0 and 41.5 degrees east, and several products extracted from the Metop low-orbit satellites. These last ones mainly cover high-latitude regions completing the observations from the geostationary ring. In the upcoming years, EUMETSAT will launch a new generation of geostationary and low-orbit satellites. The imager instruments Flexible Combined Imager (FCI) and METImage will take over the nominal AMV production at EUMETSAT around 2022 and 2024. The enhanced characteristics of these new-generation instruments are expected to increase AMV production and to improve the quality of the products. This paper presents an overview of the current EUMETSAT AMV operational production, together with a roadmap of the preparation activities for the new generation of satellites. The characteristics of the upcoming AMV products are described and compared to the current operational AMV products. This paper also presents a recent investigation into AMV extraction using the Sentinel-3 Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR) instrument, as well as the retrieval of wind profiles from infrared sounders.

Highlights

The improvement of numerical weather prediction (NWP) forecast models requires the near-real-time assimilation of meteorological observations that inform the models about the current state of the atmosphere
As mentioned in the final report of the sixth World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Workshop on the Impact of Various Observing Systems on Numerical Weather Prediction held on 10–13 May 2016 at the Shanghai Meteorological Service in China, Atmospheric motion vectors (AMV) are in the top five of observing systems contributing to the forecast performance of global NWP models [2]
The EUMETSAT contribution to the global AMV production should be increased with the new generations of geostationary and low-orbit polar satellites that are going to be launched in 2021 and 2023, respectively

Summary

Introduction

The improvement of numerical weather prediction (NWP) forecast models requires the near-real-time assimilation of meteorological observations that inform the models about the current state of the atmosphere. The extraction of water-vapor winds from Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites over polar areas is presently ensured by the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on board the NASA EOS-TERRA and EOS-AQUA missions [8]. This is a high-level requirement from the user community, and METImage is expected to take over the water-vapor wind production over polar areas after 2022. Emphasis is given on the benefits on the AMV extraction that are expected from the new generations of geostationary and polar-orbiting satellites that will be operated by EUMETSAT in the upcoming years

Recent Changes in the Operational AMV Production at EUMETSAT

Upcoming AMV Extraction Capabilities at EUMETSAT

Preparation of SENTINEL-3 SLSTR Prototype Code

Findings

Conclusions