On the impact of radiometric sounding data upon operational numerical weather prediction at NMC

"Atmospheric temperature soundings derived from the radiance measurements obtained by satellite first entered the operational data base at the National Meteorological Center (NMC) in 1972. Despite high expectations of both data producers and users, however, the promise of global, reasonably high quality data leading to increased accuracy of forecasts has not yet been realized. To date, there simply has been no convincing demonstration that satellite soundings produce a significant, beneficial effect upon operational numerical weather prediction in the Northern Hemisphere. The purpose of this paper is to review and explore reasons for NMC's disappointing experience with radiance derived sounding data. The next section summarizes results of the principal tests conducted at NMC to assess the impact of satellite soundings, while the third section offers a set of five possible explanations for those results. Finally, the main conclusions are summarized in section four"--Introduction. M. Steven Tracton, Ronald D. McPherson. "January 1977." System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. 1977 NWS (National Weather Service) Library Public Domain 1931