Identification

Title

A preliminary assessment of the impact of assimilating satellite soil moisture data products on NCEP global forecast system

Abstract

It is well documented that soil moisture has a strong impact on precipitation forecasts of numerical weather prediction models. Several microwave satellite soil moisture retrieval data products have also been available for applications. However, these observational data products have not been employed in any operational numerical weather or climate prediction models. In this study, a preliminary test of assimilating satellite soil moisture data products from the NOAA-NESDIS Soil Moisture Operational Product System (SMOPS) into the NOAA-NCEP Global Forecast System (GFS) is conducted. Using the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) introduced in recent year publications and implemented in the GFS, the multiple satellite blended daily global soil moisture data from SMOPS for the month of April 2012 are assimilated into the GFS. The forecasts of surface variables, anomaly correlations of isobar heights, and precipitation forecast skills of the GFS with and without the soil moisture data assimilation are assessed. The surface and deep layer soil moisture estimates of the GFS after the satellite soil moisture assimilation are found to have slightly better agreement with the ground soil moisture measurements at dozens of sites across the continental United States (CONUS). Forecasts of surface humidity and air temperature, 500 hPa height anomaly correlations, and the precipitation forecast skill demonstrated certain level of improvements after the soil moisture assimilation against those without the soil moisture assimilation. However, the methodology for the soil moisture data assimilation into operational GFS runs still requires further development efforts and tests.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d73t9ncj

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2018-06-10T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact