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Lessons from 18 Years of Hyperspectral Infrared Sounder DataBy the end of 2013 NASA and EUMETSAT will have accumulated more than 11 years of AIRS, 6 years of IASI and one year of CrIS data. All three instruments were nominally specified to support the NWC for short term weather forecasting with a five year lifetime, but continue to exceed the accuracy requirement needed for weather forecasting alone. This allows use of their data for a much broader range of applications, including the calibration of broad-band instruments in space and climate research. We illustrate calibration aspects with examples from AIRS, IASI and CrIS using spatially uniform clear conditions, simultaneous nadir overpasses and random nadir samples. The differences between AIRS, IASI and CrIS for the purpose of weather forecasting are small and we expect that the excellent forecast impact demonstrated by the combination of AIRS and IASI will be continued by the combination of CrIS and IASI. Clear data are useful for calibration, but contain no climate signal. The analysis of random nadir samples from AIRS and CrIS identifies larger biases for observation of extreme conditions, represented by 1% and 99%tile data than for non-extreme observations. This is relevant for climate analysis. Resolution of these differences require further work, since they can complicate the continuation of trends established by AIRS with CrIS data, at least for extrema. The unequaled stability of the AIRS data allows us to evaluate trends using random nadir sampled data. We see an increasing frequency in severe storms over land, a decreasing frequency over ocean. The 11 years of AIRS data are too short to tell if these trends are significant from a climate change viewpoint, or if they are parts of multi-decadal oscillations.
Document ID
20150007818
Acquisition Source
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Document Type
Conference Paper
External Source(s)
Authors
Aumann, H. H.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Manning, E. M.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Strow, L. L.
(Maryland Univ. Baltimore County Baltimore, MD, United States)
Date Acquired
May 8, 2015
Publication Date
August 25, 2013
Subject Category
Earth Resources And Remote Sensing
Meteorology And Climatology
Meeting Information
Meeting: 2013 Optics + Photonics
Location: San Diego, CA
Country: United States
Start Date: August 25, 2013
End Date: August 29, 2013
Sponsors: International Society for Optical Engineering
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
CRIS
climate change
deep convection
IASI
sampling bias
quality control
AIRS

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