The NOAA Products Validation System (NPROVS)

Abstract

he following report summarizes the NOAA Products Validation System (NPROVS), operated at the NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR). NPROVS provides centralized collocation and intercomparison of multiple suites of satellite-derived atmospheric sounding products, global operational radiosonde and dropsonde observations, and numerical weather prediction (NWP) data. The report addresses the screening and processing of radiosonde and dropsonde data, the method of collocating to the respective satellite product data, and perceived characteristic differences among the respective satellite products. The analysis of characteristic tendencies among the satellite products underscores the need for absolute consistency when compiling validation datasets of respective satellite, ground target, and NWP observations in order to minimize the varying degrees of inherent differences among these systems.The access and collocation of sonde and satellite observations occur on a daily basis with the routine archiving of all collocated data at STAR. The minimum requirement for retaining a given sonde is that the collective temperature and moisture profiles extend vertically at least 5 km without a gap. Retained reports are further processed including analysis to identify suspicious observations, temperature and moisture profile features, and impacts when applying sampling constraints. The collocation approach is optimized for each satellite system to select a single ?closest? sounding from each satellite that lies within 6 h and 250 km of a given sonde. The NPROVS analytical and graphical interface provides a dual troubleshooting function to assure the integrity of collocations and validation function for intercomparing the satellite products. Results indicate notable differences in the perceived characteristic of the products systems with seasonal tendencies.