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Current Usage and Future Prospects of Multispectral (RGB) Satellite Imagery in Support of NWS Forecast Offices and National Centers

Current and future satellite sensors provide remotely sensed quantities from a variety of wavelengths ranging from the visible to the passive microwave, from both geostationary and low-Earth orbits. The NASA Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center has a long history of providing multispectral imagery from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA s Terra and Aqua satellites in support of NWS forecast office activities. Products from MODIS have recently been extended to include a broader suite of multispectral imagery similar to those developed by EUMETSAT, based upon the spectral channel s available from the Spinning Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Imager (SEVIRI) aboard METEOSAT-9. This broader suite includes products that discriminate between air mass types associated with synoptic-scale features, assists in the identification of dust, and improves upon paired channel difference detection of fog and low cloud events. Similarly, researchers at NOAA/NESDIS and CIRA have developed air mass discrimination capabilities using channels available from the current GOES Sounders. Other applications of multispectral composites include combinations of high and low frequency, horizontal and vertically polarized passive microwave brightness temperatures to discriminate tropical cyclone structures and other synoptic-scale features. Many of these capabilities have been transitioned for evaluation and operational use at NWS Weather Forecast Offices and National Centers through collaborations with SPoRT and CIRA. Future instruments will continue the availability of these products and also expand upon current capabilities. The Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) on GOES-R will improve the spectral, spatial, and temporal resolution of our current geostationary capabilities, and the recent launch of the Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) carries instruments such as the Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), the Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS), and the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS), which have unrivaled spectral and spatial resolution, as precursors to the JPSS era (i.e., the next generation of polar orbiting satellites). At the same time, new image manipulation and display capabilities are available within AWIPS II, the next generation of the NWS forecaster decision support system. This presentation will present a review of SPoRT, CIRA, and NRL collaborations regarding multispectral satellite imagery and articulate an integrated and collaborative path forward with Raytheon AWIPS II development staff for integrating current and future capabilities that support new satellite instrumentation and the AWIPS II decision support system.

Molthan, Andrew L.↗

Cool, Evolved Stars: Results, Challenges, and Promises for the Next Decade

Cool, evolved stars are the main source of chemical enrichment of the interstellar medium (ISM), and understanding their mass loss and structure offers a unique opportunity to study the cycle of matter in the Universe. Pulsation, convection, and other dynamic processes in cool evolved stars create an atmosphere where molecules and dust can form, including those necessary to the formation of life (e.g. Carbon-bearing molecules). Understanding the structure and composition of these stars is thus vital to several aspects of stellar astrophysics, ranging from ISM studies to modeling young galaxies and to exoplanet research. Recent modeling efforts and increasingly precise observations now reveal that our understanding of cool stars photospheric, chromospheric, and atmospheric structures is limited by inadequate knowledge of the dynamic and chemical processes at work. Here we outline promising scientific opportunities for the next decade that can provide essential constraints on stellar photospheres, chromospheres, and circumstellar envelopes (CSE), and tie together analyses of the spectra and interferometric and imaging observations of evolved stars. We identify and discuss the following main opportunities: (1) identify and model the physical processes that must be included in current 1D and 3D atmosphere models of cool, evolved stars; (2) refine our understanding of photospheric, chromospheric, and outer atmospheric regions of cool evolved stars, their properties and parameters, through high-resolution spectroscopic observations, and interferometric observations at high angular resolution; (3) include the neglected role of chromospheric activity in the mass loss process of red giant branch (RGB) and red super giant (RSG) stars and understand the role played by their magnetic fields; (4) identify the important shaping mechanisms for planetary nebulae (PNe) and their relation with the parent Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars.

Gioia Rau↗

Surface Emissivity Impacts on GOES-R Series Multi-Spectral Imagery Applications

Value-added imagery products from the GOES-R series Advanced Baseline Imager are used to identify features of interest for operational forecasters, including: blowing dust, smoke, volcanic ash, cloud cover, atmospheric moisture, biomass fires and snow cover. These features each have a specific spectral signal that algorithms are designed to detect, but those signals are not always unique to just a single feature. Sometimes, the surface can mimic the spectral signal associated with an atmospheric feature of interest, creating a false alarm in a value-added product which negatively impacts interpretation of that product. This case study focuses on one such situation where areas of desert in the southwestern United States mimic the positive value associated with low clouds in the Brightness Temperature Difference (BTD) between the 10.35 μm and 3.9 μm channels, producing a false alarm. In order to characterize these “false alarm” areas, this study uses the cloud-cleared background product from the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) to create a dataset of the cloud-free surface. Previous results have shown that cloud-cleared backgrounds of the 10.35 μm-3.9 μm BTD have successfully identified areas of positive BTDs in the cloud-free environment, proving that it is a property of the surface emissivity and a true “false alarm”. This study builds on that previous research to further characterize the seasonality of the “false-alarm” regions and to catalogue how they impact interpretation of multi-spectral imagery products from the GOES-R series ABI, especially the Nighttime Microphysics RGB created by NASA Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center.

Burke, Angela↗