Hyperspectral Environmental Suite Research Articles

Warning Information in a Preconvection Environment from the Geostationary Advanced Infrared Sounding System—A Simulation Study Using the IHOP Case

Abstract In this paper, a convective initiation event from the International H2O Project (IHOP) field experiment is used to demonstrate the potential utility of a future geostationary advanced infrared (IR) sounder for severe storm nowcasting applications. An advanced IR sounder would provide detailed stability information (e.g., lifted index and other parameters) with high temporal resolution useful for determining favorable locations for convective initiation. Atmospheric data from a high-resolution Weather Research and Forecasting model simulation was used to generate simulated Hyperspectral Environmental Suite (HES) and Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) stability products. Comparison of these products shows that the ABI [or the current Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) Sounder] provides limited stability information before the storm development as a result of the limited spectral IR information for temperature and moisture profiling. The high spatial and temporal geostationary advanced IR sounder, however, can provide critical information about the destabilization much earlier than the current GOES Sounder or ABI.

Recent space sensor developments at ABB Analytical for weather forecasting applications

The generation of daily weather forecasts relies to a large extent on the use of data from dedicated satellites. In recent years, several programs have been targeted at improving the sensors providing weather forecast data, both in polar and geostationary orbits. As part of the US National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), the Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) is the new generation of sounding instruments providing vertical profiles from polar orbits of atmospheric temperature, pressure, and humidity. ABB Analytical has developed the interferometer module and the internal calibration target for the CrIS sensor. An overview of these contributions is presented. The Hyperspectral Environmental Suite (HES) is meant to be the next generation of US weather sounders from geostationary orbits. In Europe, the Meteosat Third Generation will also make use of an improved infrared sounder, the IRS. ABB Analytical has developed a generic interferometer module suitable for these two p...

A robust framework for real-time distributed processing of satellite data

It is estimated that future satellite instruments such as the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) and the Hyperspectral Environmental Suite (HES) on the GOES-R series of satellites will provide raw data volume of about 1.5 Terabyte per day. Due to the high data rate, satellite ground data processing will require considerable computing power to process data in real-time. Cluster technologies employing a multi-processor system present the only current economically viable option. To sustain high levels of system reliability and operability in a cluster-oriented operational environment, a fault-tolerant data processing framework is proposed to provide a platform for encapsulating science algorithms for satellite data processing. The science algorithms together with the framework are hosted on a Linux cluster. In this paper we present an architectural model and a system prototype for providing performance, reliability, and scalability of candidate hardware and software for a satellite data processing system. Furthermore, benchmarking results are presented for a selected number of science algorithms for the Geosynchronous Imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer (GIFTS) instrument showing that considerable performance can be gained without sacrificing the reliability and high availability constraints imposed on the operational cluster system.

Optimal cloud-clearing for AIRS radiances using MODIS

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) onboard the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Earth Observing System's (EOS) Aqua spacecraft, with its high spectral resolution and radiometric accuracy, provides atmospheric vertical temperature and moisture sounding information with high vertical resolution and accuracy for numerical weather prediction (NWP). Due to its relatively coarse spatial resolution (13.5 km at nadir), the chance for an AIRS footprint to be completely cloud free is small. However, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), also on the Aqua satellite, provides colocated clear radiances at several spectrally broad infrared (IR) bands with 1-km spatial resolution; many AIRS cloudy footprints contain clear MODIS pixels. An optimal cloud-correction or cloud-clearing (CC) algorithm, an extension of the traditional single-band N/sup */ technique, is developed. The technique retrieves the hyperspectral infrared sounder clear column radiances from the combined multiband imager IR clear radiance observations with high spatial resolution and the hyperspectral IR sounder cloudy radiances on a single-footprint basis. The concurrent AIRS and MODIS data are used to verify the algorithm. The AIRS cloud-removed or cloud-cleared radiance spectrum is convolved to all the possible MODIS IR spectral bands with spectral response functions (SRFs). The convoluted cloud-cleared brightness temperatures (BTs) are compared with MODIS clear BT observations within AIRS cloud-cleared footprints passing our quality tests. The bias and the standard deviation between the convoluted BTs and MODIS clear BT observations is less than 0.25 and 0.5 K, respectively, over both water and land for most MODIS IR spectral bands. The AIRS cloud-cleared BT spectrum is also compared with its nearby clear BT spectrum, the difference, accounting the effects due to scene nonuniformity, is reasonable according to the analysis. The multiband optimal cloud-clearing is also compared with the traditional single-band N/sup */ cloud-clearing; the performance enhancement of the optimal cloud-clearing over the single-band traditional N/sup */ cloud-clearing is demonstrated and discussed. It is found that more than 30% of the AIRS cloudy (partly and overcast) footprints in this study have been successfully cloud-cleared using the optimal cloud-clearing method, revealing the potential application of this method to the operational processing of hyperspectral IR sounder cloudy radiance measurements when the collocated imager IR data are available. The use of a high spatial resolution imager, along with information from a high spectral resolution sounder for cloud-clearing, is analogous to instruments planned for the next-generation Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-R) instruments-the Advanced Baseline Imager and the Hyperspectral Environmental Suite. Since no microwave instruments are being planned for GOES-R, the cloud-clearing methodology demonstrated in this paper will become the most practical approach for obtaining the reliable clear-column radiances.