Impact of advanced technology microwave sounder data in the NCMRWF 4D-VAR data assimilation system

This study demonstrates the added benefits of assimilating the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) radiances from the Suomi-NPP satellite in the NCMRWF Unified Model (NCUM). ATMS is a cross-track scanning microwave radiometer inherited the legacy of two very successful instrument namely, Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A (AMSU-A) and Microwave Humidity Sounder (MHS). ATMS has 22 channels: 11 temperature sounding channels around 50-60 GHz oxygen band and 6 moisture sounding channels around the 183GHz water vapour band in addition to 5 channels sensitive to the surface in clear conditions, or to water vapour, rain, and cloud when conditions are not clear (at 23, 31, 50, 51 and 89 GHz). Before operational assimilation of any new observation by NWP centres it is standard practice to assess data quality with respect to NWP model background (short-forecast) fields. Quality of all channels is estimated against the model background and the biases are computed and compared against that from the similar observations. The impact of the ATMS data on global analyses and forecasts is tested by adding the ATMS data in the NCUM Observation Processing system (OPS) and 4D-Var variational assimilation (VAR) system. This paper also discusses the pre-operational numerical experiments conducted to assess the impact of ATMS radiances in the NCUM assimilation system. It is noted that the performance of ATMS is stable and it contributes to the performance of the model, complimenting observations from other instruments.