Satellite winds activities at Météo France
Payan, Christophe
Over two last years, new wind observations from polar satellites were introduced in the operational assimilation system of Météo France. Firstly, wind data deduced from water-vapour imagery of MODIS satellites in clear sky, then winds from NOAA platforms produced by the National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NESDIS) and inserted in the Global Transmission System (GTS). Additional data, processed in direct broadcast sites managed by the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) and disseminated onto Eumetcast, the European Meteorological Satellite Organisation (EUMETSAT) transmission system, has allowed to reduce the timeliness and to increase the number of assimilated winds. The impact of these data on forecast scores is presented. The failure, in November 2009, of the Sea-wind scatterometer on board satellite QuikScat and the end of Ers-2 mission in July 2010, left us with only the scatterometer Ascat on board Metop-2. Oscat is a scatterometer instrument, on board the satellite Oceansat-2 launched in September 2009 and operated by the Indian Satellite Research Organization (ISRO). In the frame of an Announcement of Opportunity proposal led by the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), an Oscat Wind Data Processor (OWDP) was developed and used over the Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facilities of EUMETSAT (OSI-SAF). The quality of this new wind data set is compared mainly with Ascat winds and with the background of operational global model. The impact of a revised quality control, first only with Ascat winds, is shown.
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