1. Presentation to N.America-Europe Data Exchange
Meeting,Dorval May 2004
Met Office Report
Roger Saunders
Relocation
Model developments
Use of ATOVS
AIRS data
MODIS atmospheric motion winds
SSM/I water vapour
Sea surface temperature
GPS

2. Relocation Bracknell Exeter
Met Office HQ relocated ~200km from Bracknell to Exeter - biggest IT move in Europe!
Operational forecasts started in Exeter Sep 03
New building completed in Dec 03
More than 70% of the staff moved to Exeter
All open plan offices (including Director!)
New director will be Dave Rogers
Bracknell
Exeter

3. New Met Office Hq - Exeter

5. Presentation to N.America-Europe Data Exchange
Meeting,Dorval May 2004
Met Office Report
Roger Saunders
Relocation
Model developments
Use of ATOVS
AIRS data
MODIS atmospheric motion winds
SSM/I water vapour
Sea surface temperature
GPS

6. Met Office NWP Models Data Assimilation: 3DVar, FGAT, 6 hr cycle
1hr 50min cut-off with 7hr update runs for next cycle
Model formulation:
Exact equations of motion in 3D, non-hydrostatic effects included, semi-Langrangian
scheme, hybrid-eta in height.

7. Global Model
No major upgrades over the last year due to relocation ‘freeze’
Successfully migrated to NEC SX-6 from Cray T3E’s on 27 April 04.
Satellite upgrade goes operational this week more later
4DVar planned for late summer 04 implementation, conservative implementation but good impacts.
70L model with top above 0.1hPa planned for 2005 along with increased horizontal resolution.
16 member ensembles out to T+72 at half operational resolution planned for 2005.

8. European model Domain 548 320 New Euro Model 20km resolution
Current UK mesoscale
320
New Euro Model 20km resolution

9. European Model (EUROLAM)
20km grid model became operational on 23 Mar 04
Run 4 times per day out to T+48hr
Data assimilation 3DVar
Observation usage similar to global model
Products planned to be available in late 2004
Move to 12km grid in 2005

10. EUROLAM Forecast

11. Observations
used in
Global, Euro
and UK
Mesoscale
models
(May 04)

12. Presentation to N.America-Europe Data Exchange
Meeting,Dorval May 2004
Met Office Report
Roger Saunders
Relocation
Model developments
Use of ATOVS
AIRS data
MODIS atmospheric motion winds
SSM/I water vapour
Sea surface temperature
GPS

13. Met Office NOAA Data Acquisition
West Freugh
or Exeter
Washington
EUMETCAST
Local
HRPT
EARS
1a data
Global
1b data
AAPP
AAPP
AAPP
1c data to
European Met
Centres
METO NWP
1a counts + housekeeping
1b counts + navigation + cal info
1c brightness temps
1d brightness temps on HIRS Grid
1d data on HIRS grid

14. Use of ATOVS data Global level 1b data from NESDIS
Converted to level 1d (all IFOVS mapped to HIRS) using AAPP software
Level 1d radiances pre-processed with 1D-Var
Level 1d radiances assimilated in 3D-Var
HIRS/AMSU in Global and AMSU only in Euro and mesoscale models
Main global model run (cut-off 1:50)
Update model run (cut-off ~7:00)

15. Use of EARS ATOVS data Receiving ATOVS 1A data from up to 8 stations
Routinely compare level 1B global (from NESDIS) with EARS level 1B (using AAPP to convert from 1A to 1B)
Comparisons of:
Earth location
Brightness temperatures HIRS, AMSU
AMSU data show good agreement but HIRS shows large differences due to calibration
To reduce the delay in the ATOVS ‘blind’ orbits the EUMETSAT EARS AMSU data are now being assimilated in our global forecast model

16. EARS data coverage STATIONS Black: Current
Red: Proposed future upgrade

17. EARS monitoring for Edmonton

18. EARS monitoring for Gander

19. EARS monitoring: NESDIS-EARS

20. Improved coverage for global NWP

21. Arrival Times of Data North Atlantic Region six-hour window
09/09/ :00-15:00
Main Run
NESDIS 25%
EARS 75%
Update Run both 100%
First Overpass
window

22. Experiment to assess impact of early cut-off on forecasts
Period 12 May – 4 June 2003
NOAA level 1b radiances used:
NOAA-15 AMSU-A/AMSU-B
NOAA-16 HIRS/AMSU-A/AMSU-B
NOAA-17 HIRS/AMSU-A/AMSU-B
Control: All data received before 1:50 (Ops) for main run and all late ATOVS used in update run
Experiment: All data received before 1:50 + all late ATOVS received (up to 50% more data) used in main model run

23. All ATOVS forecast impacts

24. Forecast impacts N. Hem 500hPa
1:50
cut-off
Forecast impacts N. Hem 500hPa
Improved bust?

25. Forecast impacts S. Hem 500hPa
1:50
cut-off
Forecast impacts S. Hem 500hPa
Consistent improvement

26. Example 985 hPa low in control 975 hPa low including late ATOVS
976 hPa low in analysis

27. EARS forecast impacts

28. AMSU ‘precip’ imagery Imagery Application
increasing cloud liquid water
incr. scattering
Imagery Application
Other applications outside of NWP can also exploit the timeliness of EARS data. This plot shows an example of a now-casting product that is disseminated in near real time to forecasters. The areas coloured green, red, yellow denote increasing cloud liquid water, identified using AMSUA radiances. Blue denotes the scattering signal in the AMSUB radiances, produced either by ice particles in the cloud, which can infer precipitation, or sea-ice. The product is overlaid on a coincident Meteosat IR image.

29. Summary of recent OSEs at the Met Office
Remove AMSU, HIRS, AMSU+HIRS radiances
Remove radiosonde temperature and humidity
Remove 1, 2, 3 x ATOVS
CHAMP Radio Occultation

30. Percentage change in RMS fit of radiosonde Z & RH, and ship/buoy/synop pmsl to T+6

31. Schematic AMSU and HIRS No HIRS AMSU only ~4% ~6% ~6%
~ 0%
No HIRS AMSU only
~4%
~6%
~6%
No AMSU so HIRS only
~2%
No AMSU and no HIRS
So HIRS >> nothing. So assimilating only in cloud-free areas does improve forecasts. So AIRS should give a benefit in data sparse areas? Worth using HIRS if AMSU-A fails (as on NOAA-17)?

32. Percentage change in RMS fit of radiosonde Z & RH, and ship/buoy/synop pmsl to background

33. Conclusions Late ATOVS missing main f/c run degrades forecasts.
EUMETSAT EARS can help alleviate this.
First and second AMSU are very important to NWP.
Third AMSU still positive overall, but main role is robustness.
HIRS impact much less than AMSU but still an impact on low level moisture (NB SSM/I low level moisture not used). In absence of AMSU, HIRS impact is still very significant so important for robustness.
AIRS initial impacts much larger than HIRS, smaller than sonde temperatures and much smaller than AMSU.

34. Presentation to N.America-Europe Data Exchange
Meeting,Dorval May 2004
Met Office Report
Roger Saunders
Relocation
Model developments
Use of ATOVS
AIRS data
MODIS atmospheric motion winds
SSM/I water vapour
Sea surface temperature
GPS

35. Monitoring web page Available via password protected page
on Met Office site.
Userid:airspage
Passwd: &Graces

36. Change in Forecast Errors: 500hPa Height at 24 hours
-0.2%
-0.6%
-1.8%
Red/green reduced errors due to AIRS

37. Satellite Spring Upgrade Andrew Collard, Nigel Atkinson, Brett Candy, Fiona Hilton, James Cameron, Roger Saunders and Stephen English
AIRS radiances: cloud-free, ocean fovs only (~5% of fovs, ~3% of channels)
Aqua AMSU-A radiances
EUMETSAT ATOVS Retransmission Service Radiances for Tromso, Maspalomas and Edmonton (3 out of 8 stations).
RTTOV-7 radiative transfer model replaces RTTOV-5
New bias correction scheme using hPa and hPa thicknesses as predictors rather than AMSU channels 5 and 9.
Use of ATOVS radiances over all land areas (previously restricted to elevations < 1000m)

40. Presentation to N.America-Europe Data Exchange
Meeting,Dorval May 2004
Met Office Report
Roger Saunders
Relocation
Model developments
Use of ATOVS
AIRS data
MODIS atmospheric motion winds
SSM/I water vapour
Sea surface temperature
GPS

41. MODIS polar winds
MODIS imagery from Terra and Aqua used to generate winds.
IR(11mm) and WV (6.7mm) channels
100 min between overlapping images.
Time delay of 5-6 hours after valid time before winds are available.
Still experimental. Met Office obtains them via ECMWF. Now using winds from Washington.
Picture courtesy of CIMSS

42. MODIS winds impact New results using NESDIS-NCEP MODIS winds
Better results than earlier winds from CIMSS

43. Presentation to N.America-Europe Data Exchange
Meeting,Dorval May 2004
Met Office Report
Roger Saunders
Relocation
Model developments
Use of ATOVS
AIRS data
MODIS atmospheric motion winds
SSM/I water vapour
Sea surface temperature
GPS

44. II. SSMI TPW used to validate model performance
O - B 22GHz
model
‘wet’
model
‘dry’
‘normal’
regime

45. Presentation to N.America-Europe Data Exchange
Meeting,Dorval May 2004
Met Office Report
Roger Saunders
Relocation
Model developments
Use of ATOVS
AIRS data
MODIS atmospheric motion winds
SSM/I water vapour
Sea surface temperature
GPS

46. AATSR Processing in real time

47. (A)ATSR SST anomalies Climate Model SST anomalies ATSR-2 ATSR AATSR
ERS-2 gyro
failure
AATSR
Climate Model
SST anomalies

48. Presentation to N.America-Europe Data Exchange
Meeting,Dorval May 2004
Met Office Report
Roger Saunders
Relocation
Model developments
Use of ATOVS
AIRS data
MODIS atmospheric motion winds
SSM/I water vapour
Sea surface temperature
GPS

49. GPS Stations for TCWV Current GPS network shown over Europe
TCWV data put on GTS in real time
Plans to assimilate in Euro model

50. Ozonesondes from Lerwick
The Met Office started launching weekly ozonesonde ascents from Lerwick in Feb 04
Normally ~11Z on a Wednesday
Ascents put on GTS in real time in WMO BUFR format
Data also sent to NILU
To ensure continuity an /letter of interest to Met Office would help

51. Future Plans Short term Longer term: Assimilation of MODIS winds
More ATOVS in Mesoscale/EARS in EUROLAM
Day-2 AIRS assimilation (Cloud cleared, recon rads…)
GPS-RO trials using CHAMP (initial results encouraging)
Longer term:
Assimilation of more data over land
Assimilation of cloudy radiances
Assimilation of precip inferred from microwave radiances
Use of METOP data

52. Advanced sounder data volumes
Current plans

53. That's all!