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The National Hurricane Center and Geostationary Sounders: Needs and Issues

NATIONAL CENTERS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL PREDICTION. The National Hurricane Center and Geostationary Sounders: Needs and Issues. November 4, 2009. Jack Beven. NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER. WHERE AMERICA’S CLIMATE AND WEATHER SERVICES BEGIN. NHC Sounder Issues. NHC Area of Responsibility.

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The National Hurricane Center and Geostationary Sounders: Needs and Issues

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  1. NATIONAL CENTERS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL PREDICTION The National Hurricane Center and Geostationary Sounders: Needs and Issues November 4, 2009 Jack Beven NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER WHERE AMERICA’S CLIMATE AND WEATHER SERVICES BEGIN

  2. NHC Sounder Issues NHC Area of Responsibility • The NHC does not directly use satellite sounding data as part of the operational data stream. • Microwave sounding data is used for tropical cyclone intensity estimates. • Satellite sounder data primarily contributes to NHC operations through improvement in numerical weather prediction models.

  3. Temporal Resolution Issues • Low-earth-orbiting sounders at best provide data over an area of interest once every few hours. • Moving meteorological features such as TC can slip through the swath gaps in LEO sounder coverage. • GEO sounder would produce higher temporal resolution data and cover the swath gaps.

  4. 929hPa Tropical Cyclone Intensity Estimates • DeMaria (GUC4) showed that IR soundings could be used to enhance AMSU-based TC intensity estimates. • IR eye soundings could be used for intensity estimates at times when microwave soundings are not available. • Cloud issues would likely limit these estimates to TCs with well-developed eyes. Hurricane Inez (1964) AMSU depiction of TC warm core

  5. Total Precipitable Water Products GOES-R sounder data could temporally enhance the microwave-based TPW product over the oceans, making it easier for the NHC to detect and track important moist and dry features.

  6. Potential Geostationary Sounder Input • High quality GEO sounder data could have major impacts on numerical weather prediction models and resulting TC forecasts, resulting in significant socio-economic benefits. Almost $2 B of economic benefits over the lifetime of a satellite series could be realized beyond the current GOES system due to high spectral resolution enhanced sounder data (Bard et al., GUC5).

  7. Best case scenario: A hyperspectral IR sounder with a partner MW sounder! • GEOSTAR – proposed microwave imager/ sounder in geostationary orbit (PATH mission in the Decadal Study) • Geostationary microwave sounder could allow high-frequency, high spatial area coverage for NHC’s microwave data needs

  8. Summary • The NHC could significantly benefit from a sounder on the GOES-R satellite series • The greatest benefit of input from an IR sounder data might be from assimilation into NWP models that forecast TC track and intensity • Sounder data could also be used in TC-specific products such as sounder-based intensity estimates, and in other derived products such as TPW

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