Presentation to N.America-Europe Data Exchange Meeting,Dorval 26-28 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

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

New Met Office Hq - Exeter

Presentation to N.America-Europe Data Exchange Meeting,Dorval 26-28 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

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.

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.

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

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

EUROLAM Forecast

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

Presentation to N.America-Europe Data Exchange Meeting,Dorval 26-28 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

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

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)

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

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

EARS monitoring for Edmonton

EARS monitoring for Gander

EARS monitoring: NESDIS-EARS

Improved coverage for global NWP

Arrival Times of Data North Atlantic Region six-hour window 09/09/2003 09:00-15:00 Main Run NESDIS 25% EARS 75% Update Run both 100% First Overpass window

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

All ATOVS forecast impacts

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

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

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

EARS forecast impacts

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.

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

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

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)?

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

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.

Presentation to N.America-Europe Data Exchange Meeting,Dorval 26-28 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

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

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

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 850-300hPa and 200-50hPa thicknesses as predictors rather than AMSU channels 5 and 9. Use of ATOVS radiances over all land areas (previously restricted to elevations < 1000m)

Presentation to N.America-Europe Data Exchange Meeting,Dorval 26-28 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

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

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

Presentation to N.America-Europe Data Exchange Meeting,Dorval 26-28 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

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

Presentation to N.America-Europe Data Exchange Meeting,Dorval 26-28 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

AATSR Processing in real time

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

Presentation to N.America-Europe Data Exchange Meeting,Dorval 26-28 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

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

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 email/letter of interest to Met Office would help

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

Advanced sounder data volumes Current plans

That's all!