Early images from NASA's Aqua satellite, released today, provide a unique 3-D view of a tropical cyclone and show the orbiting craft's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) is working as expected.
The AIRS experiment, with its visible, infrared and microwave detectors, provides the ability to obtain complete 3-D observations of severe weather, from the surface, through clouds and up to the top of the atmosphere with unprecedented accuracy, according to NASA.
Meteorologists and climate specialists expect this accuracy to improve understanding of general climate patterns and improve short-term weather predictions as Aqua begins full operations this fall.
Today, NASA released the first images from the AIRS spectrometer and its two companion instruments, the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit and the Humidity Sounder for Brazil.
The combined instruments "will comprehensively capture a continuous, detailed picture of Earth's atmosphere for use in global weather prediction and climate studies," said Moustafa Chahine, experiment science-team leader at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The instruments are in excellent health."
With more than 2,000 channels sensing different regions of the atmosphere, the system creates a global, 3-D map of atmospheric temperature and humidity and provides information on clouds, greenhouse gases and many other atmospheric phenomena.
Chahine said the key to increasing the useful range of weather forecasts from the current two-to-three days to five days is to observe today's weather with much higher accuracy.
"Our experiment will effectively multiply by 100 our existing global armada of 4,000 weather balloons, giving us global coverage over land and sea from space with the same data quality as ground-launched balloons," Chahine said. "This additional data will dramatically reduce errors that have traditionally limited the range of current weather forecast models."
Claire Parkinson, Aqua project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., said Aqua's impact should ripple through impact on world commerce.
"From the data measured by these three instruments, we can better understand the global water cycle and its implications for managing fresh water resources," Parkinson said. "Improved temperature predictions will help commerce move merchandise and fuel where needed to meet cold- or warm-weather demands. Other industries that are strongly dependent on weather will also benefit, including aviation, transportation and agriculture."
Aqua engineers recently completed calibration of the instruments and the spacecraft is now transmitting continuous, uninterrupted data to the project science team and to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the parent organization of the National Weather Service. Instrument validation will continue through next June, as NOAA evaluates the new data set, learns how to integrate it and gains confidence in its accuracy.
Following instrument validation, the data will be integrated into existing weather prediction models by NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Prediction and six of the world's leading weather-prediction centers. The data will also be distributed to the World Meteorological Organization in Switzerland, where it will be made available to 105 countries.
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