JCSDA - 2013 Research in Satellite Data Assimilation for Numerical Environmental Prediction

The NOAA/NASA/DOD Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation (JCSDA) is a distributed center that engages units of NASA: Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Earth-Sun Exploration Division; NOAA: NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR) , National Weather Service (NWS) National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), and Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR); US Navy: Oceanographer of the Navy and the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL); and US Air Force Air Weather Agency. The Joint Center's goal is to accelerate the abilities of NOAA, DoD, and NASA to ingest and effectively use the large volumes of data from current satellite-based instruments and planned satellite missions. The JCSDA supports scientific development work in the following priority areas (1) Radiative transfer, (2) Clouds and precipitation, (3) Advanced instruments data assimilation, (4) Land data assimilation, (5) Ocean data assimilation and (6) Air Composition data assimilation. JCSDA research is performed internally (internal research) as well as externally using grants and/or contracts awarded via a competitive process open to the broader scientific community (external research). The overarching goal of JCSDA research is to accelerate the assimilation of satellite data in US operational numerical environment forecast models. A primary measure of potential impact in this solicitation will be the acceleration of satellite data usage into NOAA, and DoD forecast systems, and the improvement of forecasts from those systems.