The launch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)/ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) and its follow-on NOAA Joint Polar Satellite Systems (JPSS) satellites marks the beginning of a new era of operational satellite observations of the Earth and atmosphere for environmental applications with high spatial resolution and sampling rate. The S-NPP and JPSS are equipped with five instruments, each with advanced design in Earth sampling, including the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS), the Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS), the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS), the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), and the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES). Among them, the ATMS is the new generation of microwave sounder measuring temperature profiles from the surface to the upper stratosphere and moisture profiles from the surface to the upper troposphere, while CrIS is the first of a series of advanced operational hyperspectral sounders providing more accurate atmospheric and moisture sounding observations with higher vertical resolution for weather and climate applications. The OMPS instrument measures solar backscattered ultraviolet to provide information on the concentrations of ozone in the Earth’s atmosphere, and VIIRS provides global observations of a variety of essential environmental variables over the land, atmosphere, cryosphere, and ocean with visible and infrared imagery. The CERES instrument measures the solar energy reflected by the Earth, the longwave radiative emission from the Earth, and the role of cloud processes in the Earth’s energy balance. Presently, observations from several instruments on S-NPP and JPSS-1 (re-named NOAA-20 after launch) provide near real-time monitoring of the environmental changes and improve weather forecasting by assimilation into numerical weather prediction models. Envisioning the need for consistencies in satellite retrievals, improving climate reanalyses, development of climate data records, and improving numerical weather forecasting, the NOAA/Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR) has been reprocessing the S-NPP observations for ATMS, CrIS, OMPS, and VIIRS through their life cycle. This article provides a summary of the instrument observing principles, data characteristics, reprocessing approaches, calibration algorithms, and validation results of the reprocessed sensor data records. The reprocessing generated consistent Level-1 sensor data records using unified and consistent calibration algorithms for each instrument that removed artificial jumps in data owing to operational changes, instrument anomalies, contaminations by anomaly views of the environment or spacecraft, and other causes. The reprocessed sensor data records were compared with and validated against other observations for a consistency check whenever such data were available. The reprocessed data will be archived in the NOAA data center with the same format as the operational data and technical support for data requests. Such a reprocessing is expected to improve the efficiency of the use of the S-NPP and JPSS satellite data and the accuracy of the observed essential environmental variables through either consistent satellite retrievals or use of the reprocessed data in numerical data assimilations.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) operational Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) and Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A (AMSU-A) data used in numerical weather prediction and climate analysis are essential to protect life and property and maintain safe and efficient commerce. Routine data quality monitoring and anomaly assessment is important to sustain data effectiveness. One valuable parameter used to monitor microwave sounder data quality is the antenna temperature (Ta) difference (O-B) computed between direct instrument Ta measurements and forward radiative transfer model (RTM) brightness temperature (Tb) simulations. This requires microwave radiometer data to be collocated with atmospheric temperature and moisture sounding profiles, so that representative boundary conditions are used to produce the RTM-simulated Tb values. In this study, Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate/Formosa Satellite Mission 3 (COSMIC) Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Radio Occultation (RO) soundings over the ocean and equatorward of 60° latitude are used as input to the Community RTM (CRTM) to generate simulated NOAA-18, NOAA-19, Metop-A, and Metop-B AMSU-A and S-NPP and NOAA-20 ATMS Tb values. These simulated Tb values, together with observed Ta values that are nearly simultaneous in space and time, are used to compute Ta O-B statistics on monthly time scales for each instrument. In addition, the CRTM-simulated Tb values based on the COSMIC GNSS RO soundings can be used as a transfer standard to inter-compare Ta values from different microwave radiometer makes and models that have the same bands. For example, monthly Ta O-B statistics for NOAA-18 AMSU-A Channels 4–12 and NOAA-20 ATMS Channels 5–13 can be differenced to estimate the “double-difference” Ta biases between these two instruments for the corresponding frequency bands. This study reveals that the GNSS RO soundings are critical to monitoring and trending individual instrument O-B Ta biases and inter-instrument “double-difference” Ta biases and also to estimate impacts of some sensor anomalies on instrument Ta values.

The Nadir Mapper (NM) and Nadir Profiler (NP) within the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suites (OMPS) are ultraviolet spectrometers to measure Earth radiance and Solar irradiance spectra from 300–380 nm and 250–310 nm, respectively. The OMPS NM and NP instruments flying on the Suomi-NPP (SNPP) satellite have provided over ten years of operational Sensor Data Records (SDRs) data sets to support a variety of OMPS Environmental Data Record (EDR) applications. However, the discrepancies of quality remain in the operational OMPS SDR data prior to 28 June 2021 due to changes in calibration algorithms associated with the calibration coefficient look-up tables (LUTs) during this period. In this study, we present results for the newly ($v_2$) reprocessed SNPP OMPS NM and NP SDR data prior to 30 June 2021, which uses consistent calibration tables with improved accuracy. Compared with a previous ($v_1$) reprocessing, this new reprocessing includes the improvements associated with the following updated tables or error correction: an updated stray light correction table for the NM, an off-nadir geolocation error correction for the NM, an artificial offset error correction in the NM dark processing code, and biweekly solar wavelength LUTs for the NP. This study further analyzes the impact of each improvement on the quality of the OMPS SDR data by taking advantage of the existing OMPS SDR calibration/validation studies. Finally, this study compares the $v_2$ reprocessed OMPS data sets with the operational and the $v_1$ reprocessed data sets. The results demonstrate that the new reprocessing significantly improves the accuracy and consistency of the life-time SNPP OMPS NM and NP SDR data sets. It also advances the uniformity of the data over the dichroic range from 300 to 310 nm between the NM and NP. The normalized radiance differences at the same wavelength between the NM and NP observations are reduced from 0.001 order ($v_1$ reprocessing) or 0.01 order (operational processing) to 0.001 order or smaller. The $v_2$ reprocessed data are archived in the NOAA CLASS data center with the same format as the operational data.

Clear-sky mask (CSM) is a crucial influence on the calculating accuracy of the sensor radiometric biases for spectral bands of visible, infrared, and microwave regions. In this study, a fully connected deep neural network (FCDN) was proposed to generate CSM for the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) onboard Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) and NOAA-20 satellites. The model, well-trained by S-NPP data, was used to generate both S-NPP and NOAA-20 CSMs for the independent data, and the results were validated against the biases between the sensor observations and Community Radiative Transfer Model (CRTM) calculations (O-M). The preliminary result shows that the FCDN-CSM model works well for identifying clear-sky pixels. Both O-M mean biases and standard deviations were comparable with the Advance Clear-Sky Processor over Ocean (ACSPO) and were significantly better than a prototype cloud mask (PCM) and the case without a clear-sky check. In addition, by replacing CRTM brightness temperatures (BTs) with the atmosphere air temperature and water vapor contents as input features, the FCDN-CSM exhibits its potential to generate fast and accurate VIIRS CSM onboard follow-up Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) satellites for sensor calibration and validation before the physics-based CSM is available.

Two existing double-difference (DD) methods, using either a 3rdSensor or Radiative Transfer Modeling (RTM) as a transfer, are applicable primarily for limited regions and channels, and, thus critical in capturing inter-sensor calibration radiometric bias features. A supplementary method is also desirable for estimating inter-sensor calibration biases at the window and lower sounding channels where the DD methods have non-negligible errors. In this study, using the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP) and Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS)-1 (alias NOAA-20) as an example, we present a new inter-sensor bias statistical method by calculating 32-day averaged differences (32D-AD) of radiometric measurements between the same instrument onboard two satellites. In the new method, a quality control (QC) scheme using one-sigma (for radiance difference), or two-sigma (for radiance) thresholds are established to remove outliers that are significantly affected by diurnal biases within the 32-day temporal coverage. The performance of the method is assessed by applying it to estimate inter-sensor calibration radiometric biases for four instruments onboard SNPP and NOAA-20, i.e., Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS), Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS), Nadir Profiler (NP) within the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS), and Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). Our analyses indicate that the globally-averaged inter-sensor differences using the 32D-AD method agree with those using the existing DD methods for available channels, with margins partially due to remaining diurnal errors. In addition, the new method shows its capability in assessing zonal mean features of inter-sensor calibration biases at upper sounding channels. It also detects the solar intrusion anomaly occurring on NOAA-20 OMPS NP at wavelengths below 300 nm over the Northern Hemisphere. Currently, the new method is being operationally adopted to monitor the long-term trends of (globally-averaged) inter-sensor calibration radiometric biases at all channels for the above sensors in the Integrated Calibration/Validation System (ICVS). It is valuable in demonstrating the quality consistencies of the SDR data at the four instruments between SNPP and NOAA-20 in long-term statistics. The methodology is also applicable for other POES cross-sensor calibration bias assessments with minor changes.

Since early 2012, the cross-track infrared sounder (CrIS) on board the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) satellite has continually provided the hyperspectral infrared observations for profiling atmospheric temperature, moisture, and greenhouse gases. In this study, the CrIS sensor data record (SDR) data are improved for climate applications with its fine-tuning of calibration coefficients in an NOAA reprocessing project. A specific software system was developed to reprocess the CrIS SDR. This software system was updated with a new calibration algorithm, nonlinearity, and geolocation to improve the SDR data quality and long-term consistency. The calibration coefficients are refined with the latest updates, which were used to calibrate the latest operational SDR products and replace those in the engineering packet (EP) in the raw data record (RDR) data stream. The resampling wavelength was updated based on the metrology laser wavelength and resulted in zero sampling error in the spectral calibration. All the historical SDRs (from February 2012 to March 2017) were generated with the same calibration coefficients and same version of the processing software system, resulting in improved accuracy and stability in terms of spectral and radiometric calibration during the CrIS lifetime mission. The quality of the reprocessed CrIS SDR data at nominal spectral resolution (NSR) is assessed in terms of its radiometric and spectral calibration. Comparisons against the operational SDR data are carried out to demonstrate the improved long-term stability of the reprocessed CrIS SDR data. Overall radiometric biases are found to be small and highly stable over the instrument mission, the FOV-to-FOV differences are less than ~10 mK, and much better than that from the operational SDR data. It is shown that the CrIS metrology laser wavelength varies within 4 ppm as measured by the neon calibration system. The reprocessed SDR data have spectral errors less than 0.5 ppm, which is much better than the operational SDR data with about 4 ppm. This baseline version of the reprocessed SNPP CrIS SDR data is suitable for long-term climate monitoring and model assessments and can provide an infrared reference observation to assess other narrow- or broadband infrared instruments' calibration accuracy.