An overview of the TROPICS NASA Earth Venture Mission

Blackwell, William J.; Braun, Scott A.; Bennartz, Ralf; Velden, Chris; DeMaria, Mark; Atlas, Robert; Dunion, Jason; Marks, Frank D.; Rogers, Robert F.; Annane, Bachir; Leslie, R. Vincent

doi:10.1002/qj.3290

Cited by 113 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Radiometer instrument technology has made rapid strides in the past several years to miniaturize and lower the cost of the sensors envisioned for this constellation, coupled with equal advancements in lowcost CubeSat and small satellites. The US Air Force plans to demonstrate a low-cost conical microwave imager (Brown et al, 2017) and NASA has two missions to demonstrate CubeSat microwave imager/sounders (Reising et al, 2016;Blackwell et al, 2018). In addition, launch costs have decreased through rideshare opportunities.…”

Section: Typementioning

confidence: 99%

Air-Sea Fluxes With a Focus on Heat and Momentum

et al. 2019

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Turbulent and radiative exchanges of heat between the ocean and atmosphere (hereafter heat fluxes), ocean surface wind stress, and state variables used to estimate them, are Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) and Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) influencing weather and climate. This paper describes an observational strategy for producing 3-hourly, 25-km (and an aspirational goal of hourly at 10-km) heat flux and wind stress fields over the global, ice-free ocean with breakthrough 1-day random uncertainty of 15 W m −2 and a bias of less than 5 W m −2. At present this accuracy target is met only for OceanSITES reference station moorings and research vessels (RVs) that follow best practices. To meet these targets globally, in the next decade, satellite-based observations must be optimized for boundary layer measurements of air temperature, humidity, sea surface temperature, and ocean wind stress. In order to tune and validate these satellite measurements, a complementary global in situ flux array, built around an expanded OceanSITES network of time series reference station moorings, is also needed. The array would include 500-1000 measurement platforms, including autonomous surface vehicles, moored and drifting buoys, RVs, the existing OceanSITES network of 22 flux sites, and new OceanSITES expanded in 19 key regions. This array would be globally distributed, with 1-3 measurement platforms in each nominal 10 • by 10 • box. These improved moisture and temperature profiles and surface data, if assimilated into Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models, would lead to better representation of cloud formation processes, improving state variables and surface radiative and turbulent fluxes from these models. The in situ flux array provides globally distributed measurements and metrics for satellite algorithm development,

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Section: Typementioning

confidence: 99%

Air-Sea Fluxes With a Focus on Heat and Momentum

et al. 2019

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“…CRTM has been widely used in simulating synthetic observations (Boukabara et al 2018). The CRTM team (Tong Zhu and Sid Boukabara, personal communication, 2017) have developed and delivered the optical depth in pressure space coefficients required to use CRTM for both CIRAS and MicroMAS-2 based on the spectral response function (SRF) provided by JPL (Pagano et al 2017) and MIT/LL (Blackwell et al 2018). CRTM does not include nonlocal thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE) effects in radiance simulation around the 4.3 μm CO 2 absorption band, which may contribute brightness temperature (T b ) error of about 1-1.5 K for those CIRAS channels.…”

Section: Synthetic Observation Simulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The alternative of CubeSat-based advanced infrared and microwave sounders for high impact weather forecasting

Schmit

et al. 2019

Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters

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The advanced infrared (IR) and microwave (MW) sounding systems have been providing atmospheric sounding information critical for nowcasting and improving weather forecasts through data assimilation in numerical weather prediction. In recent years, advanced IR and MW sounder systems are being proposed to be onboard CubeSats that are much more cost efficient than traditional satellite systems. An impact study using a regional Observing System Simulation Experiment on a local severe storm (LSS) was carried out to evaluate the alternative of using advanced MW and IR sounders for high-impact weather forecasting in mitigating the potential data gap of the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) and the Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) on the Suomi-NPP (SNPP) or Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). It was found that either MicroMAS-2 or the CubeSat Infrared Atmospheric Sounder (CIRAS) on a single CubeSat was able to provide a positive impact on the LSS forecast, and more CubeSats with increased data coverage yielded larger positive impacts. MicroMAS-2 has the potential to mitigate the loss of ATMS, and CIRAS the loss of CrIS, on SNPP or JPSS, especially when multiple CubeSats are launched. There are several approximations and limitations to the present study, but these represent efficiencies appropriate to the principal goal of the studygauging the relative values of these sensors.

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“…The Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS, [133]) mission was recently selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), as part of the Earth Venture-Instrument (EVI-3) program. All-weather observations of 3D temperature and humidity, as well as cloud ice and precipitation at high temporal resolution (median refresh time better than 60 min) for investigating tropical cyclones, are the goals of the mission.…”

Section: Smallsat Sensor Constellationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Satellite Remote Sensing of Precipitation and the Terrestrial Water Cycle in a Changing Climate

2019

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The water cycle is the most essential supporting physical mechanism ensuring the existence of life on Earth. Its components encompass the atmosphere, land, and oceans. The cycle is composed of evaporation, evapotranspiration, sublimation, water vapor transport, condensation, precipitation, runoff, infiltration and percolation, groundwater flow, and plant uptake. For a correct closure of the global water cycle, observations are needed of all these processes with a global perspective. In particular, precipitation requires continuous monitoring, as it is the most important component of the cycle, especially under changing climatic conditions. Passive and active sensors on board meteorological and environmental satellites now make reasonably complete data available that allow better measurements of precipitation to be made from space, in order to improve our understanding of the cycle’s acceleration/deceleration under current and projected climate conditions. The article aims to draw an up-to-date picture of the current status of observations of precipitation from space, with an outlook to the near future of the satellite constellation, modeling applications, and water resource management.

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An overview of the TROPICS NASA Earth Venture Mission

Cited by 113 publications

References 44 publications

Air-Sea Fluxes With a Focus on Heat and Momentum

Air-Sea Fluxes With a Focus on Heat and Momentum

The alternative of CubeSat-based advanced infrared and microwave sounders for high impact weather forecasting

Satellite Remote Sensing of Precipitation and the Terrestrial Water Cycle in a Changing Climate

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