Status Report from the International (A)TOVS Working Group (ITWG)

1. Status Report from the International (A)TOVS Working Group (ITWG) Allen Huang & Steve English, Co-chairs ITWG Allen Larar, Member ITWG & IRC IRC Annual Business Meeting August, 2012 Berlin, Germany Sharing ideas, plans and techniques to study the Earth’s weather and climate using space-based observations • International Conferences • Working Groups • Technical Sub-groups http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/itwg/

2. ITWG Status Report—Topics • ITWG Objectives/Status/Activities • Mission, membership, structure, heritage • ITSC-18 Summary • Presentations, conclusions, actions & recommendations • Way Forward • Activities since ITSC-18 • Summary

3. ITWG Mission The ITWG serves as a forum for operational and research users of TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS), Advanced TOVS (ATOVS), and other advanced atmospheric sounding data to exchange ideas on methods for extracting information from these data to create atmospheric variables, and on usage / impact of these data and products in numerical weather prediction and in climate studies. ITWG organizes the International TOVS Study Conferences (ITSCs), which have met every 18-24 months since 1983.

4. ITWG Mission - continued The ITWG meetings result in recommendations and actions to guide the directions of future research and to influence relevant programs of the WMO and satellite provider agencies (e.g. NASA, NOAA, EUMETSAT, NSMC, JMA, ISRO, …). An important part of the group's work has been to foster and participate in the generation of software to be shared throughout the community to enable use to be made of these data for operations and research. The group is also developing an important education and training role through the WMO and other collaborative and member actions.

5. ITWG Co-Chairs • ITSC 1-3Bill Smith Univ. Wisconsin Rolando Rizzi Univ. Bologna • ITSC 4-6 Alain Chedin LMD Paul Menzel NOAA • ITSC 7-9 John Eyre UK Met Office Mike Uddstrom NIWA • ITSC 10-12 Guy Rochard Meteo-France John LeMarshall ABoM • ITSC 13-15 Roger Saunders UK Met Office Tom Achtor Univ. Wisconsin • ITSC 16-18 Allen Huang Univ. Wisconsin Steve English UK Met Office • ITSC 19-21 Mitch Goldberg* NOAA Niels Bormann* ECMWF *: Newly Elected Co-Chairs

6. ITWG Members are located worldwide ITSC-18, Toulouse, France: 154 participants from 20 countries WMO, NOAA, NASA, ECMWF EUMETSAT, CMA, JMA, ISRO CPTEC/INPE, ABOM, Meteo France, UK MetOff, LMD, CWB, NIWA, Universities …. ITSC-17, Monterey, CA 146 participants from 18 countries (plus 36 family members)

7. ITWG Working Groups & Technical Sub-Groups • Working Groups: • Advanced Sounders • Data Assimilation and NWP • Climate studies • International Issues and Future Systems • Radiative transfer and surface property modeling • Products and Software • Technical Sub-Groups (consolidated): • ATOVS and AVHRR Processing Package • International ATOVS Processing Package • International MODIS/AIRS Processing Package • Fast Radiative Transfer Model, RTTOV • Community Radiative Transfer Model, CRTM • Frequency Management • Direct Broadcast

8. ITSC 1-18 Locations ITSC-18 ITSC-17 ITSC-16 1st Meeting in Igls, Austria – August 1983 Europe (9), NAM (5), Asia/Oceania (3), SAM (1)

9. ITSC 18 Group Photo ☻ ITSC-15 154 Participants from 20 countries Meteo-France, Toulouse France 21-27 March, 2012 9

10. ITSC-18 Special Focus Working Groups -Reports provided by each group 1. Data Assimilation and Numerical Weather Prediction 2. Products and Software 3. Radiative Transfer and Surface Property Modeling 4. Climate Studies 5. Advanced Sounders 6. International Issues and Future Systems

11. ITSC-18 Key Actions & Recommendations (1/9) • ITSC-18 6 WGs Total Actions & Recommendations • 58 action items and 78 recommendations, The 25 Keys are • 2 to IRC • 10 to CGMS • 6 Satellite Agencies • 3 NOAA • 3 NWP Centers • 1 CMA • 1 Russian Space Agency • 1 Scientists • To IRC, CGMS and Satellite Agencies: Support for line-by-line (LBL) reference model development is of paramount importance and should be continued to ensure that users (in both operational and non-operational institutions) have access to the latest updates in LBL forward modelling. • To IRC:to encourage the development and sharing of BRDF models for snow and ice

12. ITSC-18 Key Actions & Recommendations (2/9) ITSC-18 6 WGs Total Actions & Recommendations 58 action items and 78 recommendations • To CGMS and space agencies: the constellation of at least three orbits (early morning, morning, and afternoon), each with full sounding capabilities (IR and MW), should be maintained. The overpass times of operational satellites with sounding capability (IR and MW) should be coordinated between agencies to maximize coverage. • To CGMS and space agencies: to further investigate optimal orbital separations in multiple plane configurations to take advantage of the different meteorological PO missions. • To CGMS and Space agencies: to better plan the sequence of satellite launches into the polar orbit to minimise the risk of instrument failures and gaps in the time series of observations. Space agencies should consider this for the further planning of the space-based architecture for climate monitoring.

13. ITSC-18 Key Actions & Recommendations (3/9) ITSC-18 6 WGs Total Actions & Recommendations 58 action items and 78 recommendations • To CGMS: to consider the potential implications of various funding schemes and public-private partnership with respect to the global technical coordination of the space-based observing system pursued by CGMS, and with respect to data policy, and to establish an appropriate mechanism to ensure that such initiatives can be globally coordinated by CGMS and open data accessibility is guaranteed • To CGMS and space agencies: Conduct studies to trade off benefits of spectral, radiometric, and spatial resolutions of infra-red sounders and to pursue the development of next generation sounders • To CGMS: the GOS should have at least one satellite with a minimum configuration very similar to AMSR-2 for the microwave imaging mission.

14. ITSC-18 Key Actions & Recommendations (4/9) ITSC-18 6 WGs Total Actions & Recommendations 58 action items and 78 recommendations • To CGMS: CGMS to consider commissioning the generation of a set of “best practices” that could include implementing Direct Broadcast capability, and provision of ingest and pre-processing software tools, documentation and training. • To CGMS: to support fast delivery initiatives (RARS) with extensions wherever possible (e.g., IASI, METOP-B, NPP). The working group believes that the system should continue to be low cost. Further extension of the RARS network towards global coverage is encouraged until the point is reached where further improvements are no longer cost effective. • To CGMS: to encourage studies to better understand the benefits of sounding the mesosphere with SSMIS and other missions (SABER,etc.), especially to understand climate processes, before proposing this capability on an meteorological operational satellite.

15. ITSC-18 Key Actions & Recommendations (5/9) ITSC-18 6 WGs Total Actions & Recommendations 58 action items and 78 recommendations • To NOAA: to maintain the capability for ozone profiling for climate monitoring by keeping the OMPS limb sounder mission on JPSS to assure the continuity from the SAGE missions. • To NOAA: Down-link full resolution data from the CrIS instrument and distribute it to users. • ToNOAA/NESDIS: to consider establishing a similar capability to the NASA/EUMETSAT Antarctic global downlink station with two complementary stations for current and future polar orbiting satellites.

16. ITSC-18 Key Actions & Recommendations (6/9) ITSC-18 6 WGs Total Actions & Recommendations 58 action items and 78 recommendations • To Satellite Agencies: it is recommended thatfor future instruments to be used as calibration reference such as IASI-NG an onboard SI traceability of the calibration shall be realised. Highly accurate black body calibration as established by the CLARREO program can be employed • To Satellite Agencies: agencies to assess the availability of pre-1979 data records and to make an effort to preserve and provide available data records and associated meta data, in particular spectral response functions, to users. • To space agencies: devise plans to fill the gaps in geostationary coverage with infrared soundings. • To Satellite Agencies: new operational data dissemination infrastructure should be tested at an early stage (well before launch) with simulated data.

17. ITSC-18 Key Actions & Recommendations (7/9) ITSC-18 6 WGs Total Actions & Recommendations 58 action items and 78 recommendations • To Satellite Agencies: new operational data dissemination infrastructure should be tested at an early stage (well before launch) with simulated data. • To Satellite Agencies: if lossless compression does not achieve the required compression ratios, take a conservative approach in order to mitigate information loss (e.g., by retaining as many principal components as possible) to pursue advancement of loss-less compression techniques.

18. ITSC-18 Key Actions & Recommendations (8/9) ITSC-18 6 WGs Total Actions & Recommendations 58 action items and 78 recommendations • To NWP Centers: studies for future channel selections for dissemination purposes should include aspects of cloud parameters, surface emissivities and skin temperature, and other identified deficiencies in the current selection (e.g., lower-level humidity). • To NWP Centers: to investigate the implications of using apodised vs unapodised radiances with particular reference to CrIS and MTG-IRS. This should consider the effect on the development of channel selection and radiative transfer models, balanced against the effect on information content • To NWP Centers: to contemplate the possibility of Garand-type study for cloudy radiance model intercomparison/validation

19. ITSC-18 Key Actions & Recommendations (9/9) ITSC-18 6 WGs Total Actions & Recommendations 58 action items and 78 recommendations • To CMA: to consider the redeployment of LEO mission to an early morning orbit, in accordance with the following priority order (from an ITWG perspective): (1) Early morning, (2) Afternoon, (3) Mid-morning • To Russian Space Agency: the Russian Federation to make the Meteor-M mission a fully contributing component of the Global Observing System (GOS) by providing the global data sets from this mission in a timely manner with all necessary ancillary information • To Pascal Brunel and Paul van Delst: to specify a common convention for instrument characteristics data files to contain: Spectral response function data, Antenna pattern data, FTS instrument line shape and to encourage its adoption by satellite agencies

20. Activities since ITSC-18 • New Co-Chairs Dr. Mitch Goldberg, NOAA & Dr. Niels Bromann, ECMWF were elected on July 2012. More than 100 ITWG eligible members casted their votes • Co-Chairs transition is in place and should be completed on November, 2012 • Next ITWG meeting, ITSC-19 is planned to take place in fall or winter of 2013. Location is TBD but the preferred site will be somewhere in Asia/Oceania • Initiating discussions for a formal relationship between ITWG and CGMS and a LOU between CGMS and IRC about ITWG Sub-Group

21. Summary of ITWG report to IRC • The ITWG is convened as a sub group of the Radiation Commission of the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences (IAMAS) & is planning to strengthen the relationship with CGMS (Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellite) • ITWG is actively carrying out it’s mission goal by • Organizing working group conferences. Since 1983 seventeen (18) International TOVS Study Conferences (ITSCs) have been held in ten (10) countries. • Two elected co-chairs and more than 250 participants from 26 countries are actively participating in organized study activities and making recommendations and actions to relevant international agencies to promote and advocate optimization of utilities for and usage of satellite assets. • A dedicated working group working together with passion to advance space technology, remote sensing theory, climate monitoring, weather prediction, and environmental applications through coordinated efforts. 21