Community Satellite Processing Package

  Microwave Integrated Retrieval System (MIRS) Software Version 2.2.1 Release

8 February 2019

The University of Wisconsin-Madison SSEC is releasing a patched version of the NOAA/NESDIS/STAR Microwave Integrated Retrieval System (MIRS) Version 2.2 for retrieval of atmospheric profiles, cloud properties and surface parameters from ATMS, AMSU-A, and MHS microwave sensor data. This package is in support of Direct Broadcast users, and is sponsored by the Community Satellite Processing Package (CSPP) project funded by the NOAA/NASA Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS).

The MIRS project is led by Quanhua (Mark) Liu and Chris Grassotti at the NOAA NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR). This release provides MIRS version 11.3 adapted and tested for operation in a real-time direct broadcast environment. For more information on MIRS, please visit https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/mirs/.

The CSPP_MIRS v2.2.1 software package contains binary executable files and supporting static data files, as well as input and output files for verification of a successful installation. Source code for the MIRS package is not included in this release. Source code can be provided upon receipt of a signed NOAA license agreement available from https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/mirs/documents/MIRS_LicenseAgreement2017.pdf.

What is new in CSPP MIRS Version 2.2.1?
  • Fixed bug resulting in malformed output file names for MetOp-A/B and NOAA-19 (incorrect day of month).
  • Fixed bug in the snowfall rate (SFR) retrieval for AMSUA/MHS instruments onboard NOAA-18, NOAA-19, MetOp-A and MetOp-B.
  • Switched to using HTTPS from HTTP protocol in ancillary data downloads.
  • Verified retrievals using the new GFS FV3 forecast model file inputs which will become operational by mid-2019.
Please Note: The NOAA-18 MHS instrument began experiencing problems on 20 October 2018 and is not supported by the CSPP_MIRS software after this event.

What is new in CSPP MIRS Version 2.2?
  • Support added for parallel processing (command line option -p),
  • Fixed a bug that affected Metop-A and Metop-B AMSU-A/MHS footprint matching.
System requirements for the CSPP_MIRS v2.2.1 software are as follows:
  • Intel or AMD CPU with 64-bit instruction support,
  • lftp utility for fetching ancillary data (unless running in quarantine mode or with --noSFR),
  • 8 GB RAM
  • CentOS-6 64-bit Linux (or other compatible 64-bit Linux distribution),
  • 2 GB of disk space (plus space for your own DB data and CSPP_MIRS products).
Supported satellites, sensors, and data include:
  • NOAA-20 and Suomi-NPP ATMS Sensor Data Records (SDR) (from CSPP)
  • NOAA-18 (until 20 October 2018) and NOAA-19 AMSU-A and MHS Level 1B (from AAPP)
  • Metop-A and Metop-B AMSU-A and MHS Level 1B (from AAPP)
Official Validated Products created by MIRS include:
  • Temperature profile over open water ocean
  • Humidity profile over open water ocean
  • Humidity profile over non-coastal Land
  • Total Precipitable Water (TPW) over open water ocean
  • Total Precipitable Water over non-coastal land
  • Land surface temperature
  • Surface Emissivity over land and snow
  • Snow Water Equivalent (SWE)
  • Sea Ice Concentration (SIC)
  • Snow Cover Extent (SCE), based on the SWE
  • Vertically-Integrated Non-precipitating Cloud Liquid Water (CLW) over open water ocean
  • Vertically-Integrated Ice Water Path (IWP)
  • Vertically-Integrated Rain Water Path (RWP)
  • Rainfall Rate (RR) over open water ocean and non-coastal, non-snow-covered land surface types
  • Effective grain size of snow (over snow-covered land surface)*
  • Multi-Year (MY) Type Sea Ice Concentration*
  • First-Year (FY) Type Sea Ice Concentration*
  • Snow Fall Rate (SFR)

    • *Note that FY and MY Sea Ice Concentration, as well as Snow Grain Size are not officially operational, but preliminary products, which is a higher maturity level than experimental status.
    **Note that all retrieval products from NOAA-20 are at provisional validated maturity level, except for SFR, which is at beta maturity.
Experimental Products (not fully validated) created by MIRS: The following products are also produced experimentally for NOAA-18, NOAA-19, Metop-A, Metop-B, Suomi-NPP, and NOAA-20. Note that they lack a thorough validation due to the absence of reliable ground truth measurements. These are made available to users for the purpose of evaluating their usefulness.
  • Cloud Liquid Water Profile (CLWP) over ocean
  • Surface Temperature (skin) extended to snow-covered land surface type
  • Surface Temperature (skin) extended to open ocean water

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