INTERPRETATION
DISCUSSION
|
Regional and Mesoscale Meteorology Team Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado |
November 30, 2000
|
|
The Pacific Land falling Jets Experiment (PACJET) will
take place in the early months of 2001. One instrument which will
be utilized is the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) which flies
aboard the NOAA-15 and NOAA-16 polar orbiting satellites. As the
name states, the AMSU instrument provides vertical profiles of temperature
and moisture, and because it is a microwave instrument, the ability exists
to sound through some clouds.
|
xx | Figure 1 a and b, 18 UTC 21 Nov 2000 300 hPa winds and
isotachs and 500 hPa heights and absolute vorticity, are examples of products
derived from AMSU temperature profiles off the West Coast of the United
States. Using the 100
hPa AVN analysis as a boundary condition, the vertical temperature fields derived from AMSU data are used with the hydrostatic relation to create the height fields at the mandatory pressure levels. From there, wind fields are created using either a linear or nonlinear balance equation. |
xx | 
Figure 1b |
Click on images to enlarge
| Figure 2 is a GOES-10 water vapor image show for comparison. A web page linked to the RAMM Team site, which will display the current images derived from AMSU retrievals, is currently under development. | 
|