 4. Road Map
In this section, we summarize the research projects the Division will
be working on. For each project, we list its Title, Objective(s), and
Significance. The contribution(s) of each project to Objectives of
NOAA Goals is contained in Section 8: Impact on Society and NOAA Goals.
More detailed information on project tasks, timelines, building blocks,
milestones, etc. is contained in Appendix 2: Road Map Diagrams
1. Active Remote Sensors
Objectives
- Develop prototype and first-generation active sounder algorithms
- Evaluate and assess observations and data products delivered by active sounders
- Transition the space-based active sensor observations to operational use
Significance
- After 45 years of passive remote sensing from satellites, active sensors will add new capabilities
- Temperature and wind fields with unprecedented vertical resolution will be achieved
2. Aerosol Remote Sensing from Operational Satellites
Objectives
- Construct long term aerosol datasets for climate research.
- Monitor aerosol forcing from space.
- Develop aerosol products for air-quality applications for current
and future sensors on NPOESS and GOES-R.
Significance
- Can anthropogenic aerosols cancel the effects of greenhouse warming?
These data sets will help answer this crucial question.
- Increasingly accurate measurements are needed to correct satellite
observations of sea surface temperature and provide input to air
quality assessments and forecasts
3. Air Quality Applications of Satellite Data
Objectives
- Demonstrate the applicability of satellite-derived products for
air quality monitoring and forecasting
- Improve current aerosol retrieval algorithms and develop new
algorithms for future advanced sensors
- Develop capabilities for global air quality monitoring from current and
future operational NOAA/IJPS/NPOESS instruments
- Develop capabilities to transition NASA research satellite data into
NESDIS operations
- Develop chemical data assimilation capabilities to improve air quality forecasts
Significance
- This project will develop the space observations component of NOAA's air
quality forecasts
4. Aviation Hazards
Objective
- Develop, improve, and evaluate potential new products or techniques
derived from GOES or Polar multi-spectral Imager or Sounder data to
improve the detection and short range forecasting of aviation hazards.
Examples of aviation hazards included in this project are: fog and
low clouds, aircraft icing, turbulence, volcanic ash, and convective
wind gusts. Research will focus on the development of algorithms for
optimum detection of conditions suitable for the occurrence of these
hazards based on satellite and ancillary data.
Significance
- Although passenger aircraft are safer than ever, larger capacity
aircraft and more people flying create increasing vulnerabilities
to environmental conditions.
- This focused project will substantially improve the detection of
environmental hazards for aircraft and reduce loss of life and property
5. Community Radiative Transfer Model
Objective
- Develop the community radiative transfer model that can be directly
implemented at the U.S. NWP centers in their NWP models by including
atmospheric and surface radiative transfer processes for all sky
conditions, including clouds and precipitation.
Significance
- Radiative transfer is the glue that connects satellite observations
to atmospheric and surface variables of interest
- This project's all-sky radiative transfer model will lead to
improved predictions of clouds and precipitation, two weather
conditions difficult to forecast
6. GOES Surface Ultraviolet Radiation
Objective
- Develop a reliable surface ultraviolet irradiance product derived
from GOES that will serve as a reference for the evaluation of the NWS
UV Index forecast, and at the same time provide much needed data for
research in the fields of climate, biology, agriculture, fishery, and industry.
Significance
- This project is one of SMCD's initiatives to expand the use of satellite
observations to assess and predict environmental hazards
7. Instrument Calibration
Objective
- Provide calibration support for NOAA's satellite operations, which
include both the polar-orbiting and geostationary systems, each has 2-3
spacecrafts in operation at any time, and each spacecraft has a number
of instruments. To meet the operation continuity requirements, this
project also provides calibration support for NOAA's satellite
operations in the past and future.
Significance
- Well calibrated instruments are the foundation of quantitative
remote sensing.
- This project will keep pace with the increasing demands of the
weather, climate, and ocean sectors for well calibrated observations
8. Ozone
Objective
- Produce high-quality operational and reprocessed ozone estimates from
SBUV/2 and TOVS for use in numerical weather models, UV forecasts, ozone
assessments and other studies.
- Develop the systems to produce total ozone products from the start of
GOME-2 operations and ozone profile products within one year after the
start of operations, to incorporate GOME-2 products into our long-term
monitoring ozone time series, and to produce new atmospheric chemistry
products for ozone science and air quality applications.
- Prepare for the OMPS instruments on NPP and NPOESS.
- Assist the EOS Aura OMI Science Team in validating level 1 UV measurements
and level 2 ozone products from OMI.
- Obtain ozone estimates from the GOES Sounder and EOS AIRS instruments.
Significance
- These ozone data will measure the rate of recovery of the ozone layer from
the losses sustained by decades of CFC pollution
- Ozone is a key contributor to the NWS UV forecasts
9. Precipitation and Floods
Objective
- Improve the accuracy of satellite-based estimates of rainfall and to
enhance their application by forecasters (both domestic and overseas)
and other parties of interest such as the numerical weather modeling
community.
Significance
- More accurate rainfall estimates for hurricanes and severe storms
will facilitate warnings and mitigation efforts in flood prone
regions
10. Radiance Products and Atmospheric Soundings from Advanced
Infrared and Microwave Sensors for Weather and Climate Applications
Objectives
- Develop an integrated processing system for AIRS, CrIS and IASI
which includes other instruments such as AMSU, Advanced Technology
Microwave Sounder (ATMS) - which provides soundings in total overcast
conditions and used in infrared clouding clearing, and MODIS and VIIRS
(used to improve cloud detection and clearing).
- Develop an improved cloud clearing scheme for obtaining clear
radiances for AIRS.
- Develop algorithms for deriving mixing ratios for carbon monoxide
(CO), carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) from AIRS.
- Explore techniques for extracting information content of IASI's
8600 channels.
- Evaluate expected accuracy and yield of IASI cloud cleared radiances
and carbon-cycle products.
- Explore the utility of imager data and/or forecast models to
provide cloud clearing for the GOES-R infrared instrument. In this
case of GOES-R, a microwave instrument is unlikely and the techniques
that are explored for AIRS, IASI, and CrIS will be of fundamental
value.
Significance
- Exploitation of advanced IR and microwave sounders will extend the
useful range of weather predictions and provide critical information
on greenhouse gases associated with global climate change
11. Satellite Data Assimilation (JCSDA)
Objectives
- Reduce from 2 to 1 year the time from launch to use of satellite data;
- Increase the fraction of research and operational satellite data used in NWP;
- Extend satellite data assimilation systems to other Environmental Prediction
Models in the GEOSS era
Significance
- The JCSDA's activities will lead to a 20 % increase in useful satellite
lifetime and earlier implementation of new observing capabilities in
numerical weather prediction
12. Snow Cover
Objectives
- Improve snow cover boundary condition products for NWP
- Validate and make operational 4-km GOES snow fraction product.
- Validate and put into routine production snow depth product.
- Develop MODIS climatology of maximum snow albedo for NWP models
- Construct 39 year snow climatology (and NDVI) for the climate community.
- Develop and describe method of removing the offset in the snow cover
climate record introduced by the IMS system.
- Derive snow water equivalent (from AMSU) and blend into the IMS.
Significance
- Improved snow products will allow specification of more
accurate boundary conditions in NWP and construction of a
long-term CDR for snow
13. Vegetation
Objectives
- Update the operational vegetation fraction algorithm after
testing is completed by NWS/NCEP/EMC and CPC, and accommodate
new sensors (e.g., MODIS, VIIRS) within the vegetation processing
stream and associated reprocessing.
- Improve NDVI and products derived from it (Global Vegetation
Fraction - GVF, drought indices, etc)
Significance
- Improved vegetation products will provide more accurate surface
conditions for NWP models and drought monitoring
14. Winds
Objectives
- Develop and maintain a robust, repeatable technology transition
process that results in the timely and successful transition of new
and/or updated product algorithms from the research and development
environment to the operational production environment
- Support transition of MODIS winds capability into NESDIS
operational environment at OSDPD.
- Perform quality assessment and error characterization of geo
and leo satellite wind products
- Improve and validate existing satellite derived wind product
algorithms
- Develop algorithms for future satellite systems, including GOES-R.
Significance
- Winds are a critical part of the initial conditions for forecast models
- MODIS winds represent a breakthrough in observing winds in polar regions
15. Earth Radiation Budget
Objective
- Develop OLR retrieval algorithms from sounder channels (HIRS, AIRS, CRIS)
to provide a time series of OLR compatible with the ERBS instrument on
NPOESS. The new OLR estimates will be improved over what is now available
from AVHRR.
Significance
- The OLR is a major component of the Earth's Radiation Budget, which
drives the atmospheric circulation.
- This project will improve and continue the NOAA time series of OLR
measurements going back to the 1970s, providing climatologists with a
record of the Earth's heat balance in the age of global warming
16. GOES Sounder Products
Objectives
- Develop an improved integrated GOES sounder product system that
will provide the National Weather Service (NWS) with full resolution
(approximately 10km x 10km) GOES sounder products for use in NWP and
the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS).
- Develop and maintain a robust, repeatable technology transition
process that results in the timely and successful transition of new
and/or updated product algorithms from the research and development
environment to the operational production environment.
- Prepare GOES sounder product system(s) for GOES-N and perform
validation studies of GOES-N sounder radiance and derived products
during the GOES-N science test.
Significance
- High temporal GOES products are needed to monitor severe events such
as tornadoes, thunderstorms, and hurricanes.
- Resolving the diurnal cycle also contributes to climate studies.
17. POES Sounder Products
Objectives
- Develop and maintain a robust, repeatable technology transition
process that results in the timely and successful transition of new
and/or updated product algorithms from the research and development
environment to the operational production environment.
- Support the transition of METOP, NOAA-NPP, and NPOESS sounding
systems to operations.
- Develop integrated validation systems for monitoring and assessing
quality of sounder products from multiple sensors such as ATOVS, AIRS,
IASI, CrIS, and GPS Radio Occultation.
- Provide validation datasets to NOAA and external researchers.
Significance
- Hyperspectral soundings from upcoming polar satellites will
significantly improve medium range forecasts, as shown by the AIRS
impact on NWP
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