Distributed real-time operational products from AIRS

Since October, 2002, NESDIS has provided specially tailored radiance and retrieval products derived from Aqua AIRS and AMSU-A observations operationally (24 hours x 7 days) to a number of Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) centers, including NCEP, ECMWF and the UK Met. Office. Two types of products are available -- thinned radiance data and full resolution retrieval products consisting of atmospheric temperature, moisture and ozone as well as surface parameters of temperature and emissivity. The radiances are thinned because of current limitations in communication bandwidth and computational resources at NWP centers. There are two types of thinning: a) spatial and spectral thinning, and b) data compression using principal component analysis (PCA). PCA is used for a) reconstructing radiances with the properties of reduced noise, b) independent instrument noise estimation, c) quality control, and d) deriving the retrieval first guess used in the AIRS processing software. The radiance products also include cloud cleared radiances. The cloud clearing procedure remove the effect of cloud contamination in partial overcast conditions and have been demonstrated to increase the amount of data that can be treated as clear from 5% to 50%. The AIRS temperature and moisture retrieval are significantly more accurate than AMSU-only retrievals in clear, cloud contaminated and cloud-cleared conditions. Most NWP centers are currently assimilating clear radiances, which we believe severely limits the impact of AIRS data. Fortunately, results presented in this paper have stimulated new upcoming experiments to test the impact of cloud-cleared radiances.