Evaluation and Assimilation of the Microwave Sounder MWHS-2 Onboard FY-3C in the ECMWF Numerical Weather Prediction System

Lawrence, Heather; Bormann, Niels; Geer, Alan; Lu, Qifeng; English, Stephen

doi:10.1109/tgrs.2018.2798292

Cited by 48 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…In addition to the main experiments, polar OSEs were run for the following observational subsets in order to further analyse the impacts of microwave and conventional observations: microwave temperature sounding data including the 50–60 GHz sounding channels of AMSU‐A (all channels) and ATMS (channels 6–15) as well as the 118 GHz channels of MWHS‐2 (channels 2–6); note that the latter channels at 118 GHz have only a small impact compared to the channels at 50–60 GHz (Lawrence et al . ); microwave humidity sounding data at 183 GHz including MHS (all channels), ATMS (channels 18–22), SSMIS (channels 9–11), GMI (channels 12 and 13), MWHS‐2 (channels 11–15) and MWHS (all channels); radiosonde observations only (land‐ and ship‐based); aircraft data only; near‐surface observations from synoptic stations ( rh 2 m, ps , u 10 m, v 10 m, z ), including both land‐ and ship‐based data; buoy observations ( ps , u 10 m, v 10 m). …”

Section: Observing System Experiments (Oses)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Use and impact of Arctic observations in the ECMWF Numerical Weather Prediction system

Lawrence

Bormann

Sandu

et al. 2019

Quart J Royal Meteoro Soc

Self Cite

111

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This paper presents an assessment of the usage of Arctic atmospheric observations in the Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) system of the European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts, and of their impact on the quality of short‐ to medium‐range forecasts. The Arctic has low coverage of conventional data north of 70°N but one of the highest levels of coverage of satellite sounding data on Earth. The impact of Arctic observations on forecast skill was assessed by performing Observing System Experiments, in which different observation types were removed from the full observing system. This assessment was complemented by an analysis of Forecast Sensitivity to Observation Impact diagnostics. To our knowledge it is the first time that comprehensive numerical experimentation has been carried out to explore the role of different Arctic observations in a state‐of‐the‐art global operational NWP system. All Arctic observations were found to have a positive impact on forecast skill in the Arctic region, with the greatest tropospheric impacts on both short‐ and medium‐range forecasts due to microwave, conventional and infrared sounding observations. Results indicate the great importance of microwave sounding data and conventional data, which are found to be the key observing systems in the summer and winter seasons, respectively. These observations were found to have positive and statistically significant impacts on forecasts not only in the Arctic but also in the midlatitude regions at longer lead times. Differences between the seasons are most likely due to problems assimilating microwave sounding observations over snow and sea ice, leading to a reduced impact in winter. There is also the suggestion of increased importance of conventional data in winter, and other factors may also play a role.

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Section: Observing System Experiments (Oses)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Use and impact of Arctic observations in the ECMWF Numerical Weather Prediction system

Lawrence

Bormann

Sandu

et al. 2019

Quart J Royal Meteoro Soc

Self Cite

111

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“…It was quickly seen that all‐sky assimilation of the moisture‐sounding channels at 183 GHz on SSMIS, MHS and MWHS‐2 provided significant benefits to medium‐range forecasts (Geer, ; Geer et al , ; Lawrence et al , ). It is the full exploitation of these observations that has led to all‐sky assimilation becoming such a major part of the operational observing system.…”

Section: Development Of All‐sky Assimilationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is no use of these channels over land, snow or sea‐ice where the surface has high emissivity and is difficult to model accurately, making it far harder to extract any useful atmospheric information. The novel 118 GHz channels on MWHS‐2. These channels are centred on an oxygen line and technically are temperature‐sounding channels, but they have high instrument noise relative to the size of FG temperature errors, so much of their benefit comes through sensitivity to water vapour, cloud and precipitation (Lawrence et al , ).…”

Section: Current Status and Observation Impactmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A more detailed description of data usage for the instruments used in all‐sky conditions can be found in Geer et al (), Kazumori et al (), Lawrence et al () and Lean et al (); note that SSMIS has temperature‐sounding channels but these are not used. For the moment we keep all‐sky imager‐channel usage to three instruments because the benefits from additional imaging data can be outweighed by the effect of the additional biases (e.g.…”

Section: Current Status and Observation Impactmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since then increases have come by applying all‐sky assimilation to microwave humidity sounding channels, for the SSMIS instrument (Geer, ; Baordo and Geer, ) and later MHS (Geer et al , 2014), along with the activation of ATMS (Bormann et al , , in clear skies only to date; the Appendix gives satellite and sensor acronyms). Further benefits have come from the all‐sky assimilation of new microwave imagers AMSR2 and GMI (Kazumori et al , ; Lean et al , ) and the novel sounder MWHS‐2 (Lawrence et al , ). As of 2016, a total of nine instruments are being assimilated through the all‐sky route.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The growing impact of satellite observations sensitive to humidity, cloud and precipitation

Geer

Baordo

Bormann

et al. 2017

Quart J Royal Meteoro Soc

157

174

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Ten years ago, humidity observations were thought to give little benefit to global weather forecasts. Nowadays, at the European Centre for Medium‐range Weather Forecasts, satellite microwave radiances sensitive to humidity, cloud and precipitation provide 20% of short‐range forecast impact, as measured by adjoint‐based forecast sensitivity diagnostics. This makes them one of the most important sources of data and equivalent in impact to microwave temperature sounding observations. Forecasts of dynamical quantities, and precipitation, are improved out to at least day 6. This article reviews the impact of and the science behind these data. It is not straightforward to assimilate cloud and precipitation‐affected observations when the intrinsic predictability of cloud and precipitation features is limited. Assimilation systems must be able to operate in the presence of all‐pervasive cloud and precipitation ‘mislocation’ errors. However, by assimilating these observations using the ‘all‐sky’ approach, and supported by advances in data assimilation and forecast modelling, modern data assimilation systems can infer the dynamical state of the atmosphere, not just from traditional temperature‐related observations, but from observations of humidity, cloud and precipitation.

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Assimilation of data from the MWHS‐II onboard the first early morning satellite FY‐3E into the CMA global 4D‐Var system

Xiao

Han

Zhang

et al. 2023

Meteorological Applications

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Radiance data from satellite microwave radiometers are becoming increasingly important in the assimilation of numerical prediction systems. FengYun-3E (FY-3E), which was launched in July 2021, as the first early morning orbital satellite among FY-3 polar-orbiting meteorological satellite series, can greatly enhance the atmospheric sounding capacity in three orbits compared with the two-orbit system that is distributed in morning or afternoon orbit. Focusing on MicroWave Humidity Sounder-2 (MWHS-II) onboard it, the schemes for thinning, quality control, bias correction and observational error calculation are developed. The scan-position-dependent biases are assessed in each channel and increasing biases near the edges of scanline are found in several temperature-sounding channels. The data quality is compared with four analogous instruments used in Global/Regional Assimilation and Prediction System-Global Forecast System (CMA_GFS), and the performance improvements are confirmed relative to the previous FY-3C/D MWHS-II. Three batch experiments were implemented in CMA_GFS with four-dimensional variational (4D-Var) system-assimilating only the humidity-sounding channels, the temperature-sounding channels and the combined channels-to reveal the impact of assimilation by different channel groupings. Analysis results conclude that FY-3E MWHS-II radiances are beneficial to the humidity and temperature analysis fields. These results emphasize the advantage of simultaneously assimilating the humidity/temperature-sounding channels, in which the former dominates the improvement above 700 hPa while the latter have a positive impact below 700 hPa. The forecast results also show that assimilating both the 183-and 118-GHz channels further improves the forecast skills, especially short-to medium-term forecasts in both hemispheres. FY-3E MWHS-II also improves the short-term prediction of heavy rain, which is always weakly predicted in global forecast systems. This study shows that a three polar orbits system that FY-3E began can produce marked effects in the numerical

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Evaluation and Assimilation of the Microwave Sounder MWHS-2 Onboard FY-3C in the ECMWF Numerical Weather Prediction System

Cited by 48 publications

References 31 publications

Use and impact of Arctic observations in the ECMWF Numerical Weather Prediction system

Use and impact of Arctic observations in the ECMWF Numerical Weather Prediction system

The growing impact of satellite observations sensitive to humidity, cloud and precipitation

Assimilation of data from the MWHS‐II onboard the first early morning satellite FY‐3E into the CMA global 4D‐Var system

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