Impacts of assimilating all or GOES-like AHI infrared channels radiances on QPFs over Eastern China

Abstract The launch of the Japanese Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) on 7 October 2014 represents a new era of geostationary operational environmental satellite (GOES) imagers, providing many more channels than any previously launched GOES imagers for the first time. In this study, we compare the impacts of assimilating all AHI versus GOES-like infrared channels radiances on regional forecasts over Eastern China. The National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Gridpoint Statistical Interpolation (GSI) analysis system and Advanced Research Weather Research and Forecast model are employed. Positive impacts are obtained on quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPFs) associated with a typical summer precipitation case over eastern China in both set-ups, i.e. one assimilating all 10 AHI infrared channels (AHIA) and the other assimilating only four GOES-like AHI channels (AHIG). It is found that a southwest to northeast oriented band of the atmosphere with high water vapor content that was formed and moved inland with time under the influence of a subtropical high and an eastward-propagating middle-latitude trough was responsible for the persistent precipitation in the eastern China of the selected case. The AHIA experiment generated the largest improvement on QPFs due to it generating a wetter atmosphere in the middle and low troposphere over the ocean off the southeast coast of China than the AHIG experiment and a control experiment without assimilating any AHI channel.

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