Performance Assessment and Requirement Verification of COSMIC-2 Neutral Atmospheric Radio Occultation Data
Presenter:
Bill Schreiner
UCAR
(1) University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, (2) NOAA/NESDIS/STAR
Talk
The success of the COSMIC/FORMOSAT-3 Global Positioning System (GPS) radio occultation (RO) mission, along with the high data demand for operational uses and the increasing need for securing continuous, long time atmospheric records, has prompted U.S. agencies (led by NOAA) and Taiwan’s National Space Organization to execute a COSMIC follow-on operational mission called COSMIC-2/FORMOSAT-7 (hereafter referred to as COSMIC-2). COSMIC-2 consists of six small satellites with Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) RO payloads that will eventually deploy into operational low Earth orbits (LEO) of 520 km altitude and 24 degree inclination. COSMIC-2 will make use of an advanced RO receiver with a high-gain beam-forming antenna design developed at JPL, and is expected to produce at least 5,000 high-quality neutral atmospheric soundings per day with signal-to-noise ratios at or above 2000 volts/volt from both GPS and GLONASS signals. The NOAA COSMIC-2 Program has developed a Calibration and Validation (Cal/Val) campaign plan to evaluate the quantity and quality of the profile data. This presentation will provide a performance assessment of the current COSMIC-2 neutral atmospheric RO data for each satellite, rising and setting geometries, and GPS and GLONASS tracking. Level-1 threshold requirements, including profile count, and bending angle, refractivity, and temperature uncertainties for different altitude ranges, will be verified through various instrument-level diagnostics and comparison of COSMIC-2 profiles to other closely located RO profiles (measured by different COSMIC-2 satellites and other RO missions), to nearby radiosondes, and to numerical weather models. A level-1 objective requirement for tropospheric duct height detection will also be evaluated.
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