Community Satellite Processing Package

  CSPP Hyper-Spectral Enterprise Algorithm Package (HEAP) Software Version 3.0 Release

3 December 2025

New release of the CSPP NOAA Hyper-Spectral Enterprise Algorithm Package (HEAP) software for retrieving atmospheric profiles of temperature, moisture, trace gases and cloud-cleared radiances from NOAA-20 and NOAA-21 CrIS+ATMS Sensor Data Records (SDRs) and Metop-B and Metop-C IASI+AMSUA/MHS Level1-b files.

HEAP runs the NUCAPS (NOAA Unique Combined Atmospheric Processing System) algorithm. The NOAA/NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR) led the efforts to develop, test, validate and refine the NUCAPS algorithm to produce operationally cloud-cleared radiances (CCR) and global atmospheric profiles of environmental data records (EDRs). This CSPP release provides NOAA HEAP version 3.2, adapted and tested for operation in a real-time direct broadcast environment. The software contains binary executable files and supporting static data files, as well as test input and benchmark output files for verification of a successful installation. The Community Satellite Processing Package (CSPP) project is funded by the NOAA/NASA Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS).

What's New in CSPP HEAP Version 3.0

  • Added support for NOAA-21.
  • Removed support for S-NPP and Metop-A missions.
  • Algorithm update to NOAA HEAP Version 3.2.Target Operating System (OS) is Rocky Linux 8.10.
  • Target Operating System (OS) is Rocky Linux 8.10.
  • Removed use of the apptainer software container.
  • CSPP aggregate EDR product generation is no longer supported.
System requirements for the CSPP HEAP Version 3.0 software are as follows:
  • Intel or AMD CPU with 64-bit instructions support,
  • 16 GB of RAM,
  • Rocky Linux 8.10; the software has also been tested on Rocky Linux 9.6,
  • 10 GB of disk space (plus space for your own data and CSPP HEAP products),
  • perl version 5.0 or above. Use `perl -v` to identify availability and version locally, and use `dnf install perl` to install if necessary,
  • lftp utility for downloading ancillary data.
Users can choose to produce one or more output products types, including NUCAPS NetCDF files containing:
  • Cloud-cleared Radiances (NUCAPS-CCR-AR_v3r2_*.nc files),
  • Outgoing Longwave Radiation (NUCAPS-OLR_v3r2_*.nc files),
  • and Environmental Data Record (EDR) vertical profiles of temperature, moisture and trace gasses (NUCAPS-EDR_v3r2_*.nc files) which includes the following arrays:

    • Atmospheric temperature at 100 pressure levels
    • Atmospheric moisture at 100 pressure levels
    • Atmospheric ozone at 100 pressure levels
    • Atmospheric liquid water at 100 pressure levels
    • Carbon dioxide dry mixing ratio at 100 pressure levels
    • Trace gas mixing ratios CO, CH4, HNO3, N2O, SO2* at 100 pressure levels
    • Surface skin temperature
    • Microwave surface emissivity
    • Cloud top pressure for up to two cloud layers
    • Cloud top fractional coverage for up to two cloud layers
    • 10 Stability parameters including CAPE, Lifted Index (LI) and Convective Inhibition (CIN)
    • Quality flags

CSPP HEAP Version 3.0 documentation, test data, and software are available at the CSPP Download site.


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