Update #4: The detailed information regarding the NOAA-21 data maturity status and “readme for data users” is available at https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/jpss/AlgorithmMaturity.php

Update #3: It has been declared that the NOAA-21 ATMS RDR/TDR/SDR, ATMS SDR GEO and ATMS BUFR products have reached the provisional maturity. The PDA user access level is set as Provisional on December 15, 2022. The “Readme for Data Users” is appended in the notice.

Update #2: The NOAA-21 ATMS RDR/TDR/SDR and ATMS SDR GEO products have started distribution on PDA OPS with the user access level Beta on December 14, 2022. The NOAA-21 ATMS BUFR products will plan to be available on PDA OPS with the user access level Beta on December 15, 2022

Update #1: Reminder : On December 15, 2022, the NOAA-21 ATMS BUFR products will be available on PDA OPS with the user access level Beta. Users are advised to subscribe to these products by adding the new subscriptions.

Topic: Planning Operational Release of NOAA-21 ATMS RDR/TDR/SDR Products  

Date/Time Issued: December 15, 2022 2147 UTC

Product(s) or Data Impacted:  None

Date/Time of Initial Impact: December 15, 2022 1600 UTC

Date/Time of Expected End: December 15, 2022 1700 UTC

Length of Outage: 1 hour

Details/Specifics of Change:

The NOAA-21 ATMS RDR/TDR/SDR products with Beta Maturity will be available on PDA I&T on December 1, 2022. Please pay attention to the information provided in the table below for the product filenames and PDA short names. Users can start subscribing to the data from PDA I&T and the test data product short names will be appended with “_TEST”. The tentatively planned products with provisional maturity will be available on December 15, 2022 on PDA OPS without filename changes.

A reminder for Beta Maturity level: any posting of images/plots must contain the caveat: “NOAA-21 Preliminary, Non-Operational Data” and there should be no public sharing of the underlying data files.

New products included in this release are:

NOAA-21 ATMS RDR/TDR/SDR Products:

Impact on users: Yes

List of Scientific Changes: NONE

Please note: This upgrade will not be performed during Critical Weather Day (CWD).

Also, the contents of this release are subject to change based on user readiness, customer feedback, and management approval.

Additional ESPC notifications will provide further details and updates concerning this release.  User feedback and questions should be directed to Changyi Tan (Changyi.Tan@noaa.gov).

Contact Information: For information on the status of this work, please contact Changyi Tan (Changyi.Tan@noaa.gov) or ESPC Operations at ESPCOperations@noaa.gov or 301-817-3880

Web Site(s) for applicable information: NOAA-21 ATMS Provisional Readme for Data Users

This message was sent to ESPCOperations@noaa.gov. You have been sent this and other notifications because you have opted in to receive it. If you wish to unsubscribe please contact the ESPC Help Desk at ESPCOperations@noaa.gov or (301) 817-3880. Please note: it may take up to two business days to process your unsubscribe request.

Appendix: NOAA-21 ATMS Provisional Readme for Data Users 

MEMORANDUM FOR:       The JPSS Program Record

SUBMITTED BY:                  JPSS ATMS Team, Mark Liu, Ninghai Sun, 

                                                   Edward Kim, Vincent Leslie, Hu Yang, Matthew Sammons

CONCURRED BY:                 JPSS JSTAR Program Lead Ingrid Guch (Acting)

                                                   JPSS Product Lead Lihang Zhou

APPROVED BY:                    JPSS Program Scientist Satya Kalluri

SUBJECT:                                NOAA-21 ATMS TDR/SDR provisional maturity status and public release

DATE:                                      12/15/2022

Provisional maturity status declaration for ATMS TDR & SDR

Maturity Review Date:    12/15/2022

Effective Date:                     23:49:55 UTC on 12/3/2022 at Orbit # 336

Operational System:         N/A

1. Background: 

The Joint Polar Satellite System-2 (JPSS-2) satellite was successfully launched on November 10, 2022 and renamed NOAA-21 after reaching polar orbit.  On Nov. 21st, the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) was activated eleven days after launch on orbit 160. As its predecessors onboard NOAA-20 and Suomi NPP, the cross-track scanning radiometer ATMS has 22 channels at frequencies ranging from 23 to 183 GHz, permitting the measurements of atmospheric temperature and moisture profiles under most weather conditions. 

The ATMS SDR team consists of experts from NOAA, NASA, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and industry partners Northrop Grumman - Azusa. The team has worked intensively for post-launch instrument performance optimization and ATMS SDR pre- and post-launch calibration and validation.

2. Provisional maturity stage definition:

1. Product performance has been demonstrated through analysis of a large, but still limited (i.e. not necessarily globally or seasonally representative) number of independent measurements obtained from selected locations, time periods, or field campaign efforts.

2. Product analyses are sufficient for qualitative, and limited quantitative, determination of product fitness-for-purpose.

3. Documentation of product performance, testing involving product fixes, identified product performance anomalies, including recommended remediation strategies, exists.

4. Product is recommended for potential operational use (user decision) and in scientific publications after consulting product status documents.

3. Justifications for Declaring ATMS TDR/SDR Products Provisional Maturity:

After NOAA-21 ATMS beta maturity review on November 30, 2022, ATMS SDR team members continued the assessment and analysis of both ATMS on-orbit normal scanning data, including ATMS science RDR, telemetry RDR, diagnostic RDR, TDR, SDR, and GEO data products, and special post-launch tests (PLT) data. Based on the nearly twenty-three days of continuous study and monitoring of ATMS data, the following assessments of the ATMS instrument and data products are given:

1. Optimal space view profile selection Post Launch Test (PLT) was completed. Space view profile #1 was chosen as the optimal space view profile from 23:13:13 UTC December 3, 2022;

2. NOAA-21 ATMS on-orbit NE∆T is well-characterized. All channel NE∆T meet the requirement. NOAA-21 K/Ka-, V- and W-band channel NE∆T are comparable to NOAA-20 while G band channels are better than NOAA-20; 

3. Temperature stabilization has been checked and demonstrates the expected low gain drift;

4. Both pre-launch and on-orbit channel correlation assessment results indicate that NOAA-21 ATMS has the best performance;

5. Roll maneuver, Noise Characterization, and single orbit pitch maneuver data from OMPS stray light maneuver data sets are being analyzed;

6. Instrument health status limits in PCT are adjusted to avoid false QC flag (To be operation);

7. On-orbit channel-to-channel noise correlation is analyzed and agreed with TVAC analysis; 

8. All data products are sufficient for qualitative or limited quantitative assessments and for potential operational use;

9. NOAA MIRS team has generated and analyzed offline NOAA-21 total precipitable water EDR and temperature profile EDR as well as water vapor profile EDR products; The NOAA-21 and NOAA-20 MiRS products are comparable. NOAA-21 ATMS MiRS retrieved water vapor profile is noticeable better, which is consistent with the smaller noise in NOAA-21 ATMS water vapor channels.

The detailed justifications for declaring ATMS SDR provisional maturity are attached. The following table contains a summary of ATMS NE∆T specifications and on-orbit NE∆T estimates are in parenthesis. For comparison purpose, NOAA-20 and S-NPP ATMS NE∆T are also listed. 

4. ATMS Provisional Maturity SDR Product Caveats

The following caveats are offered to the provisional product users:

1. More asymmetric and less flat scan-biases, esp. for temperature-sounding channels due to unoptimized antenna pattern correction

2. Slightly higher obs-sim (o-b) standard deviation before bias correction for the temperature-sounding channels due to unoptimized antenna pattern correction

3. SDR quality flag (QF-1; particularly RCV_P12V_RF_VMONs) is triggered due to hardcoded telemetry conversion coefficients. There is no impact on TDR/SDR data quality. A PCT fix has been prepared for operation.  

4. Geolocation error assessment is on going since NOAA-21 orbit phasing is still changing.

5. Operational science data quality may be affected during PLT maneuvers and orbit raising activities after December 3, 2022, as list in the table below for the reference based on the latest updated record on December 14, 2022,

5. Path Forward/Future Plan

The team will move forward to perform the following work to promote ATMS SDR data to validated maturity:

1. Continue to monitor ATMS instrument stability and performance, as well as TDR/SDR data quality;

2. Characterize the instrument performance following the NOAA-21 ATMS Calibration/Validation Plan;

3. Analyze roll/pitch maneuver, environmental characterization, and noise characterization PLT data;

4. Improve the geolocation assessment accuracy;

5. Analyze lunar intrusion data to determine the optimal lunar intrusion mitigation plan;

6. Update reflector emissivity, antenna pattern correction, cold/warm bias correction coefficients to improve the science data quality;

7. Assess ATMS data products after the operational implementation of PCT

8. Update ATMS instrument heath status telemetry calculation coefficients and program in IDPS to reflect the changes from NOAA-21

Additional information is available in the ATMS algorithm theoretical basis document (ATBD) and validation maturity review briefing, which can be accessed at:

http://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/jpss/Docs.php

Point of Contact: 

Name:  Quanhua (Mark) Liu, Ninghai Sun

Email: Ninghai.Sun@noaa.gov

Phone: 301-683-3549