nrsc

Comparison of MetOp-B Geophysical

Parameters from CLASS NOAA-MIRS L2 and
NRSC-MIRS L2

Devesh Maurya and Shivali Verma

Atmospheric and Climate Science Group

June 2014

Objective:
To compare and evaluate MetOp-B data received and processed by NRSC with the CLASS NOAAMIRS level 2 products.

Introduction:
MetOp is a series of three polar orbiting meteorological satellites which form the space segment
component of the overall EUMETSAT Polar System (EPS). MetOp-B (launched on 17 September
2012), in a lower polar orbit, at an altitude of 817 km, is providing more detailed observations of the
global atmosphere, oceans and continents.
ACSG has been assigned the task of evaluating the two products for their agreement. In this regard,
MRS&GDP has provided sample data products generated for 17 March 2014. The corresponding
NOAA MIRS product has been obtained from http://www.nsof.class.noaa.gov.

Data Set:
Level 1b data from AMSU and MHS instruments is provided as an input to the Microwave Integrated
Retrieval System (MIRS) and the output is Level 2 and stored in NetCDF format. The operational
products are listed below

Total precipitable water(TPW) over ocean and land

Channel emissivity
Snow water equivalent(SWE)
Rain water path(RWP)
Rainfall rate(RR)
Rain mass profile
Surface pressure(SurfP)
Graupel water path(GWP)

Two geophysical parameters (TPW and SurfP) were taken to compare the data processed at NRSC
and the globally available CLASS NOAA MIRS level-2 data for 17th March 2014.CLASS NOAA-MIRS
level-2 products are of higher spatial resolution as compared to products generated by NRSC (Fig.
1a-2a and Fig. 1b-2b).

Methodology:
To compare both data sets, they have been gridded to 0.5 degree spatial resolution (Fig. 3a, 3b, 4a
and 4b). Statistical analysis on the difference of the two respective data products has been done for
the selected geophysical parameters i.e., TPW and SurfP.

Observation:
As both data sets have different spatial resolution, there is a difference between both the data sets
as observed with TPW and SurfP. Difference histogram of NRSC and CLASS NOAA datasets is
computed for both parameters (Fig. 5a and 5b). The statistical parameters are shown in the Table 1.

Table 1: Statistics of the difference Image

Total points
Mean
Std dev
Points within 1-sigma
Points between 1 and 2-sigma
Points between 2 and 3-sigma

TPW (mm)
3429
-0.1402
12.2291
2854
403
75

SurfP (mb)
3429
0.3372
14.95
3095
211
46

The analysis shows that the two products are different in spatial resolution, probably leading to the
observed differences in the statistics. This could be due to the possible differences in the options
exercised for product generation or difference in the version of the software used by NRSC and
CLASS NOAA.
This needs to be further investigated.

Acknowledgement:
Authors thankfully acknowledge Dr. AVV Prasad and his group for providing NRSC-MIRS L2 data that
was used in the current study.

Figure 1a: CLASS NOAA-MIRS L2 TPW (mm)

Figure 3a: Gridded CLASS NOAA MIRS L2 TPW (mm)

Figure 2a: NRSC-MIRS L2 TPW (mm)

Figure 4a: Gridded NRSC-MIRS L2 TPW (mm)

Figure 5a: CLASS NOAA and NRSC MIRS L2 difference image and its histogram for TPW (mm)

Figure 1b: CLASS NOAA-MIRS L2 Surface Pressure (mb)

Figure 3b: Gridded CLASS NOAA MIRS L2 Surface Pressure (mb)

Figure 2b: NRSC-MIRS L2 Surface Pressure (mb)

Figure 4b: Gridded NRSC-MIRS L2 Surface Pressure (mb)

Figure 5b: CLASS NOAA and NRSC MIRS L2 difference image and its histogram for SurfP (mb)