2. Operational Aspects of GSICS
Fuzhong Weng/ Bog Iacovazzi (NOAA)
For GSICS Coordination Centre

3. GSICS Coordination and Operation
Dr. Fuzhong Weng, Director
Dr. Robert Iacovazzi, Jr., Deputy Director
WMO GSICS Coordination
Center of Satellite Applications and Research
National Environmental, Satellites, Data and Information Service
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
GSICS User 2009 EUMETSAT Satellite Conference
Bath, UK, September 22, 2009

4. GCC Overview Roles and Responsibility Instrument Monitoring
Demonstration Projects
Annual Operating Plan
Product Acceptance Procedure
WebSite, Quarterly, and Meetings

5. Roles and Responsibility
Develop and maintain GSICS Website for community accessible calibration information
Publish GSICS quarterly news on new calval methodology
Respond to requests from WMO, CGMS, GSICS partner agencies etc on calibration information
Track the GSICS annual operating plan
CSS
GPRC
GSICS Executive Panel
GRWG
GDWG
GCC
Develop and operate LEO2LEO baseline cross-calibration algorithms
Assess GEO2LEO calibration algorithms developed by GSICS partners and establish a baseline algorithm for GSICS operations
Demonstrate the impacts of improved calval satellite data on climate and weather applications
Develop and maintain a standard software used for cross-instrument calibration (e.g. forward models, LBL datasets, orbital prediction models, SNO/SCO)

6. GCC Overview Roles and Responsibility Instrument Monitoring
Demonstration Projects
Annual Operating Plan
Product Acceptance Procedure
WebSite, Quarterly, and Meetings

7. Instrument Performance and Anomaly Reporting
CGMS Recommendation 35-18:
All CGMS members were encouraged to “… develop standardized instrument performance monitoring systems and share the results with the members through GSICS.”
In Response:
Coordinated development of community accessible instrument performance monitoring at NOAA for GOES and POES instruments, and NOAA instruments on Metop-A and will provide the “blue print” to other GSICS partner agencies

8. Instrument Monitoring
Feedback About Instrument Monitoring and Anomaly Reporting at Joint GRWG-IV/GDWG-III Workshop
ACTION GDWG03_06
All GSICS partners shall propose contents of the performance monitoring pages which they intend to display on their own web sites.
Members appreciated the need for instrument monitoring and reporting
Most members reported that the data processing branches of their organizations handle this activity.
Members agreed to provide a link to a Satellite Operation Control Center web site

9. NOAA Integrated Cal/Val System
AMSU-A
NOAA-19 Ch3 NEΔT anomaly
MetOP-A Ch7 NEΔT Drop
MHS
NOAA-19 H3 NEΔT is out of specification (1K)
NOAA-19 H4 Cold Calibration Count jump
HIRS
NOAA-19 Ch4 Data Gaps
NOAA-18 Ch5 NEΔN Anomaly
The integrated cal/val system is useful for instrument monitoring and diagnoses.
URL:

10. NOAA-19 On-orbit Verification and Long-term Monitoring
STAR Satellite Integrated Calibration and Validation System (ICVS) has been developed for NOAA-19 OV and long-term monitoring
The system has detected instrument anomalies, provided an important tool for diagnoses, data quality assurance, and decision making
To better support the operations, we have developed comprehensive on-orbit verification for newly launched satellites and an integrated cal/val system.
Courtesy of F.Weng

11. GCC Overview GCC Roles and Responsibility Instrument Monitoring
Demonstration Projects
Annual Operating Plan
Product Acceptance Procedure
WebSite, Quarterly, and Meetings

12. Demonstration Project I: SSM/I SDR and EDR Reprocessing
SSM/I TDR/SDR Data
STAR: 20 years ( ) of SSM/I data in binary format, and
NCDC has some SSM/I data converted to NETCDF ( )
CM-SAF: 20 years ( ) SSM/I data in netcdf. Two series from RSS/NOAA and RSSv6.
STAR/NCDC/CSU joint efforts rescued 20
years of SSM/I and converted the data to a
standard format. The year shown in pink
Includes months with missing data

13. Improved SSM/I Calibration Resulted in Consistent Trend

14. Monthly TPW Bias from SSM/I Before Intercalibration
Monthly total precipitable water path (TPW) bias between any overlapped SSM/I sensors for F10, F11, F13, F14, and F15. Large biases between F10-F11 and F10-F13 are obvious. Since
TPW = *TV *TV37-( *TV22)*TV22, (Alishouse et al., 1991), any radiance biases in lower SSM/I frequencies will be directly translated into TPW biases

15. After Intercalibration
Monthly TPW Bias from SSM/I
After Intercalibration
The inter-sensor TPW biases become much smaller and consistent between different sensors. The averaged absolute bias after calibration is reduced by 75% and 21% over global ocean and over tropical ocean, respectively .

16. Demonstration Project II: AMSU Level 1B Reprocessing
Pre-launch calibration
SNO calibration
AMSU-Ch5
The advantage of this recalibration is that the warm target contamination and intersatellite biases have been largely removed at the radiance level. So we expect that if they are used in reanalysis, the reanalysis trend and variability will be close to the what we obtained from retrievals. So we recommend the community to try the new one. Currently,

17. Demonstration Project II: AMSU Level 1B Reprocessing
AMSU-Ch7
Pre-launch calibration
SNO calibration
The advantage of this recalibration is that the warm target contamination and intersatellite biases have been largely removed at the radiance level. So we expect that if they are used in reanalysis, the reanalysis trend and variability will be close to the what we obtained from retrievals. So we recommend the community to try the new one. Currently,

18. GCC Overview Roles and Responsibility Instrument Monitoring
Demonstration Projects
Annual Operating Plan
Product Acceptance Procedure
WebSite, Quarterly, and Meetings

19. GSICS Operations Plan
The GSICS Operations Plan assists the Executive Panel in tracking of GSICS milestones related to the following program areas:
Project meeting milestones
Outreach and user interaction
Data management and other cross-cutting tasks
LEO-LEO UV, Visible, IR and MW inter-comparison
GEO-LEO algorithm development/ implementation
The Plan is reviewed on a semi-annual basis, and updated on an annual basis

20. GSICS Operations Plan

21. GCC Overview Roles and Responsibility Instrument Monitoring
Demonstration Projects
Annual Operating Plan
Product Acceptance Procedure
WebSite, Quarterly, and Meetings

22. GSICS Procedure for Product Acceptance
GSICS Procedure for Product Acceptance (GPPA) is the …
GSICS product developers pathway to obtain a “Stamp of Approval” for the product
GSICS data users window to GSICS product quality and “fitness for purpose”
GSICS governing body reference for judging GSICS product fitness

23. GSICS Procedure for Product Acceptance
Inspired by the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) Working Group on Cal/Val (WGCV) Quality Assurance Framework for Earth Observations (QA4EO)
Guided by the principle that “All data products must have associated with them a Quality Indicator based on a documented quantitative assessment of its traceability to an agreed reference standard (ideally tied to SI)”
Ten Key Guidelines provide a common structure from which program sponsors, data providers and data users can communicate about data product quality assurance
Tailored to meet the needs of GSICS
Focuses on post-launch inter-calibration of space-based measurements, which currently is only traceable to community intrinsic reference standards.
Data protocols suit GSICS data processing needs.
GPPA oversight based on international panel composed of GSICS Processing and Research Center (GPRC) representatives

24. GSICS Procedure for Product Acceptance
Fundamental Capabilities of GPPA
For a potential GSICS product, the GPPA defines and documents:
Scope of product within the GSICS product portfolio
Theoretical basis and implementation strategy of product
Product Quality (uncertainty, quality indicators, etc)
GPPA allows implementation of favorable potential products on an experimental basis within GSICS without Executive Panel approval
GPPA gives final acceptance power to the GSICS Executive Panel, whom need enough information to make a decision about a product in a short order of time.

25. GSICS Procedure for Product Acceptance
Current GPPA Activities
Define documentary and data format standards
Hierarchical algorithm theoretical basis document (ATBD) design and implementation effort spearheaded by Tim Hewison (EUMETSAT) and other GRWG members, with help from Aleksander Jelenak (NOAA)
File and parameter naming convention definitions being moved forward by Aleksander Jelenak (NOAA).
Test GPPA with LEO-LEO GSICS Correction Products
Submit for archive control using “Subversion” software
Document and tag software comments in a manner recognized by “Doxygen”
Generate software documentation using “Doxygen”
Add new GSICS compliant netCDF output
Convert code to work in radiance units for IR
Establish GSICS LEO-LEO SNO Correction analysis
Establish product uncertainty analysis and archive/distribution plan
Integrate FY-3 satellite instruments

26. GCC Overview Roles and Responsibility Instrument Monitoring
Demonstration Projects
Annual Operating Plan
Product Acceptance Procedure
WebSite, Quarterly, and Meetings

27. The WMO GSICS Web Site and its Content
The new GSICS web site (gsics.wmo.int) is now up-and-running. This web site is now considered the GSICS Central Web Site.
Central web site includes:
GSICS introduction and organizational structure information
Links to GSICS member web sites that include instrument information, research results, newsletters, and meeting agendas and presentations
GSICS Members Point-of-Contact list

28. GSICS Quarterly
Mainly contains news and articles relevant to operational satellite instrument calibration and its impacts on weather and climate products from operational agencies
Currently in the third year of publication
Special Issue recently released that contains two articles from NIST regarding uncertainty estimation
Back issues found at

29. GSICS Face-to-face Meetings
GSICS Web Meetings
GRWG – EUMETSAT (Centra - 26 Mar 2009)
GRWG – NOAA (WebEx - 12 May 2009)
GDWG – EUMETSAT (Centra - 13 May 2009)
GRWG – EUMETSAT (Centra – 2 Jun 2009)
GSICS Face-to-face Meetings
GSICS Executive Panel VI – ESSIC, College Park, MD, USA (Jun 2009)
Joint GRWG IV/GDWG III – JMA HQ, Tokyo, Japan (Jan 2009)
GSICS at Meetings
GPM X-Cal Meeting - Ann Arbor, MI, USA (May 2009)
CEOS WGCV 30th Plenary Meeting - Ilhabela, Sao Paulo, Brazil (May 2009)

30. Summary
GCC operation is running successfully as a result of strong participations and partner supports
With the supports of partner agencies (e.g. NOAA-SDS, SCOPE-CM), GCC is able to perform an end-to-end demonstration of impacts of improved satellite calibration on weather and climate studies