1. Presented by Timothy J. Schmit
Mission support
Presented by
Timothy J. Schmit

2. Requirement, Science, and Benefit
Mission Goals
Protect, Restore, and Manage the Use of Coastal and Ocean Resources through an Ecosystem Approach to Management
• Understand Climate Variability and Change to Enhance Society’s Ability to Plan and Respond
Serve Society’s Needs for Weather and Water Information
Support the Nation’s Commerce with Information for Safe, Efficient, and Environmentally Sound Transportation
Science
STAR works with many (internal, external and international) to further the mission goals
Benefits
National Weather Service and their customers (Emergency planners, General public, Numerical Weather Prediction, etc.)
Aviation
Air Quality
Department of Defense
International users (Central America, South America, Pacific, etc.)
Broadcasters, Etc.
Specific NOAA requirement(s) being addressed
Associated Science Question(s) being worked (objective(s) of the specific research effort)
(Traceability)
Who cares (recipients/beneficiaries of the work; societal benefit)?

3. Outline Goals: Continuity and Improved Services
STAR supports NESDIS and NOAA in their mission to assess current conditions and predict future changes on the Earth, and to understand long-term changes in the environment.
The STAR mission is to transfer satellite observations of the land, atmosphere, ocean, and climate from scientific research and development into routine operations, and to offer state-of-the-art data, products and services to decision-makers.
STAR develops a diverse spectrum of complex, often interrelated, environmental algorithms and software systems. These systems are developed through extensive research programs, and transitioned from research to operations when a sufficient level of maturity and end-user acceptance is achieved.
NOAA interactions (examples via oral presentations, etc.)
NASA interactions (examples via posters)
Other/International interactions (examples via posters)
Items to be covered during science discussion in the order best suited for the material, focusing on science quality. (Embed information about partnerships, collaborations, linkages to broader science community) Science slides should highlight colorful graphics and tend toward fewer words
Research description
Brief theory
What is innovative or novel in a research or operational context?
Why taking a particular approach?
Recent science accomplishments (~FY08 to present)
Details of science
Relevance/context (link science accomplishments back to big picture; how does it represent a step forward)

4. Ecosystem Mission Goal Research Areas
Advancing understanding of ecosystems to improve resource management
Exploring our oceans
Forecasting ecosystems events
Developing scenarios and building capacity to support regional management
Harmful Algal Blooms in Chesapeake Bay

5. Climate Mission Goal Research Areas
Develop an integrated global observation and data management system for routine delivery of information on the current state of the climate
Document and understand changes in climate forcings and feedbacks, thereby reducing uncertainty in climate projections
Improve skill of climate predictions and projections and increase range of applicability for management and policy decision
Understand impacts of climate variability and change on marine ecosystems to improve their management
Enhance NOAA’s operational decision support tools to provide climate services for nationalsocio-economic benefits.
The interannual variability in high cloud averaged over the month of July for 1983, 1988, 1993 and Areas with large amounts of high cloud are red; areas with less high cloud are blue.

6. Weather & Water Mission Goal Research Areas
Improve weather forecast and warning accuracy and amount of lead time
Improve water resources forecasting capabilities
Provide information to air-quality decision makers and improve NOAA’s national air quality forecast capability
Improve NOAA’s understanding and forecast capability in coasts, estuaries and oceans
Smoke
Smoke
MODIS Color Composite

7. Commerce & Transportation Mission Goal Research Areas
Explore, develop and transition emerging technologies and techniques to enhance marine navigational safety and efficiency
Provide accurate, timely and integrated weather information to meet air and surface transportation needs
Improve accuracy of positioning capabilities to realize national economic, safety and environmental benefits
Develop the information and tools to make reliable decisions in preparedness, response, damage assessment and restoration
Ash Cloud
Ash Height (km)
Mass Loading (ton/km2)

8. NOAA’s Steering Group on Precipitation Measurement from Space
Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission – Example of NOAA-NASA Collaboration
NOAA will greatly benefit by advanced precipitation products generated by GPM
Weather and Water, Climate goals
NOAA’s participation in GPM is guided by a SG as per NRC (2007) recommendation
Cross LO involvement (NESDIS, NWS, OAR)
NOAA engaging with NASA for past 6 years:
Precipitation Measurement Missions (PMM) Science Team
Cutting edge R&D
Joint ground validation
Exchanging satellite assets
Ad-Hoc meetings
NOAA involvement in NASA White papers, review panels, steering groups, international planning workshops, etc.
STAR and OSD leads NOAA GPM programmatic activities
R2O plans being developed
Working PPBES/Budgets
NOAA’s Steering Group on Precipitation Measurement from Space

9. NASA/NOAA GOES-14 Post-launch Testing
The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES)-14 post-launch check-outs are examples of NASA and NOAA and others (Cooperative Institutes) working together.
For all GOES check-outs, the goals of the Science Test include the following:
To assess the quality of the GOES radiance data.
To generate products from the GOES data stream and compare to those produced from other satellites.
Rapid-scan imagery of interesting weather cases are collected with temporal resolutions as fine as every 30 seconds.
GOES-14 (previously GOES-0) was launched on June 27, 2009.
The issue with the band 6 of the imager, was the detector order was initially flipped in the data stream. This was fixed on August 24, 2009 (not shown).
More information can be found at:
Don Hillger and Tim Schmit are co-leading the GOES-14 NOAA science test.
The above images were ingested by the SSEC data center in Madison, WI. Image generated by T. Schmit of NOAA NESDIS STAR ASPB.
###
The 13.3 um band 6 of the GOES-12 (left panel) has an 8 km IGFOV (Instantaneous Geometric Field of View); while the same band on the GOES-14 (right panel) has a 4 km IGFOV. Note the finer resolution of the cloud edges and the ‘cleaner’ image.

10. Private sector GOES-R Benefit analysis Beyond Current GOES Series
1 Discounted at 7%
ABI-related
incremental benefit of
$4.6 B
Other Potential Benefits ???
Improved Sounder
Updated CBA (HES)
$2.3B
TC Forecast (HRSS)
ABI-Related
$1.9B
$4.2B
Updated CBA (ABI)
$2.2B
$2.4B
TC Forecast (ABI)
$4.6B
Many applications and users were not included in this limited study.

11. Two of the 3 Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) Atmospheric Composition Constellation (ACC) Demonstration Projects1 supporting the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) are either lead by or have significant contributions from NESDIS/STAR:
“Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) Air Quality Forecasts” (Shobha Kondragunta, SMCD/SPB, Lead)
This study aims at understanding how satellite data from multiple platforms can be beneficial to improving air quality model forecasts.
“Fire / Smoke Aerosol Forecasts” (R. Bradley Pierce, CoRP/ASPB, technical lead)
This study demonstrates the use satellite observations of fire and aerosol distributions to produce trajectory based air quality guidance related to large-scale aerosol events.
As the space component of GEOSS, CEOS coordinates civil space-borne observations of the Earth.  Under GEOSS, CEOS has developed the concept of virtual, space-based Constellations. The Atmospheric Composition Constellation (ACC) focuses on observations needed to understand and improve predictive capabilities for changes in the ozone layer, climate forcing, and air quality (AQ).
1 CEOS Website: . Select the “Atmospheric Composition” link under the “Constellations Menu” on the main page. The resulting “ACC Menu” included links “Projects”.

12. GSICS is an international example
Global Space-based Inter-Calibration System (GSICS)
Goal - Enhance calibration and validation of satellite observations and to intercalibrate critical components global observing system
Part of WMO Space Programme
GSICS Implementation Plan and Program formally endorsed at CGMS 34 (11/06)

13. Summary
STAR works with many (internal, external and international) to further the mission goals
Within agency
NWS, NOS, etc.
With other agencies
NASA, FAA, EPA, DoD, etc.
With other governmental entities
State, tribal, etc.
With other countries
EUMETSAT, Japan, Canada, China, India, Russia, Brazil, etc.
international groups (WMO, GEOSS, CEOS, etc.)
Significant remaining scientific challenges for the specific science topic
Next step(s)
Instruments (current/future), techniques, testbed, transition, …
Path into applications/operations
Who will use it and how
How will it get out to the real world