--E. Lobl,
elena.lobl@msfc.nasa.gov
Team Coordinator, Earth System Science Laboratory
University of Alabama, Huntsville
EOS PM-1 AMSR-E homepage:wwwghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/AMSR/
The U.S. EOS PM-1 AMSR-E Science Team meeting was held on 10-12 June 1997, at the Global Hydrology and Climate Center (GHCC) in Huntsville, Alabama. A team of three Japanese AMSR scientists attended and participated in all science discussions. Besides the research status, the scientists discussed a joint validation plan and the organization and charter of a joint US-Japan AMSR Science team. The last day and a half, the software support personnel attended a separate session dealing with metadata and the integrated software architecture.
Roy Spencer, Team Leader, opened the meeting by introducing Ron Greenwood, GHCC Director, who welcomed everyone and explained briefly the makeup of the center from scientists to archeologist to engineers to students. Spencer then updated the team on the NASDA-NASA Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU). The NASA responsibilities are: for the hardware (to integrate, launch AMSR-E, check-out the performance post launch) and data (do Level 0 processing, participate in the definition of product generation algorithms, and produce, archive and distribute Level 2 standard products only when "NASDA decides not to produce certain standard data products required by the EOS Senior Project Scientist"). NASDA responsibilities are to provide the hardware, and all ground support before launch, participate in the definition of product generation algorithms, perform Level 1 and higher processing, if the products and the generating algorithms are agreed upon by the EOS Senior Project Scientist and the Joint Science Team, and archive and distribute these standard products worldwide. Spencer concluded this portion with a brief discussion of the responsibilities of a Joint Science Team; these included making decisions on the algorithms to be used for generating the standard products (should they be the same algorithms as for AMSR on ADEOS-II and PM-1), decisions on algorithm upgrades, and planning for cal/val activities.
Akira Shibata, NASDA Senior Scientist and AMSR Science Team Leader, presented his view of a Joint Science Team and joint algorithms to be used by NASDA-EORC for processing the standard products: intercomparison of performance of several invited algorithms will be the major factor in choosing an ADEOS-II algorithm, and then minor modifications for that algorithm to be used for EOS PM-1. The main roles for the Joint Science Team are "promoting exchange of scientific information, and stimulating scientists to develop and improve their algorithms." Dr. Shibata also presented photos of the AMSR engineering model being integrated on ADEOS-II and photos of the Airborne Microwave Radiometer (AMR), an airborne radiometer that has all the AMSR channels, but does not scan.
The two issues that came up repeatably were: who will process the standard products for AMSR-E (following the standards, NASDA will do the processing because AMSR-E is a Japanese manufactured instrument) and what are the responsibilities of the Joint Science Team. The answer to the first issue lies with NASDA management. For the second issue, we drafted a charter and a block diagram showing the connections between NASA and NASDA. The draft charter follows: 1) promote science information exchange; stimulate algorithm development; 2) plan and coordinate validation activities; 3) facilitate development of, and update, the joint science algorithms, and 4) coordinate NASDA/NASA AMSR science related issues: e. g. data formats. The organizational aspects are: 1) co-chair by the two Team leaders; 2) membership (including the Team Leaders): 5 members from NASDA and 8 members from NASA; 3) observers: NASDA/NASA HQ representatives and NASDA/NASA project representatives, and 4) meetings as needed, at least once a year.
Paul Hwang, PM-1 Project, presented the project status: the spacecraft PDR was successfully completed at the end of April, the spacecraft deep-space-view maneuver is continuing, the Interface Control Document (ICD, between the s/c and the ground system) and the Spacecraft Operation Requirement Document are in review, Humidity Sounder from Brazil (HSB) is having a design review, and the ICD between the s/c and AMSR-E is completed. Mr. S. Tanaka will be the new liaison with NASDA and Mr. T. Kurosaki heads the newly formed ADEOS II/EOS PM-1 Project office at NASDA.
For the rest of the afternoon, M. Schwaller and K. Cox of EOSDIS presented AMSR-E network requirements and an overview of ECS metadata content and population. Matt Schwaller showed a rough schedule for AMSR-E network services, with their definition being completed by mid-1999 and installed a year later. Current estimates of requirements are 640 kbps to Japan, and 265 kbps to US; these estimates assume a 2.34x loading factor. Karl Cox reviewed, again, the metadata content and gave some detail of the ïbare bonesÍ vs. the minimum desired vs. mandatory metadata. He also explained how the data providers and consumers, the DAAC, the ECS Science Data Engineering Office, and the ECS developers interact.
At the close of the first day, Robbie Hood, Airborne Microwave Instruments Manager at MSFC, gave a tour of the Atmospheric Research Facility, where Airborne Microwave Precipitation Radiometer (AMPR) and Conically Scanning Two-look Airborne Radiometer (C-STAR) reside.
For the remainder of the meeting, the scientists and the software engineers supporting them had parallel sessions.
Science
The science session consisted of a review of the research status of all
US and Japanese scientists, with a short review of the before launch
validation plans.
Peter Ashcroft, Remote Sensing Systems, presented the status of his work
on the data simulator. Two versions of the Level 0 data have been
produced: an entire orbit of data using a coarse integration, and a
subset of the channels and a fraction of the orbit, using fine
integration. All of these data are based on uniform Tbs, or SSM/I derived
meteorology.
Frank Wentz, Remote Sensing Systems, showed how his algorithm calculates the four ocean parameters (wind speed, water vapor, cloud water, and sea surface temperature) with much better accuracy when using the AMSR channels vs. the SSM/I simulations or the SSM/I real data.
Chris Kummerow, GSFC, showed some sensitivity studies of his algorithm to different input data bases (hydrometeor profiles), the performance of the convective/stratiform rain index, and lastly, error estimates due to these input, a-priori data bases.
Dan Redmond, Texas A&M University, Tom WilheitÍs student, presented a dual-channel estimation of monthly rainfall using minimum chi-squared estimation parameters.
Don Cavalieri and Joey Comiso presented their studies of sea ice standard products: sea ice concentration, sea ice temperature and snow depth on sea ice. Cavalieri discussed the sea ice concentration and the snow depth on sea ice, and showed the flow diagrams of the algorithms to arrive at the results. He also presented some field data that will be used to verify the performance of the algorithm. Comiso showed the flow diagram for the temperature corrected Bootstrap algorithm and physical sea ice temperature. He then described validation issues (gridding, ocean/land contamination, ocean and land masking, emissivity/polarization effects, etc...) and the desired validation data sets: high resolution satellite images, aircraft field data, and laboratory studies.
Al Chang, GSFC, presented details of his snow water equivalent (SWE) algorithm, and the ancillary data bases needed. He also had details on the snow screening and weather filter needed to compute the SWE.
Eni Njoku (JPL) is responsible for the standard land products: surface soil moisture, vegetation water content and land-surface temperature, and he is planning to calculate five research products (Level 3) 3-day averages of soil moisture, vegetation water content, surface temperature, gridded brightness and surface classification. For validation, Njoku plans to use data from different ecosystems from around the world.
The Japanese scientists, Akira Shibata, F. Nishio and T. Koike, presented the status of their research. Akira Shibata started by giving their definitions of all the standard products: Level 1 to Level 3 and browse products. Shibata also presented the NASDA strategy of selection of PIs for developing the precipitation algorithms for use with the AMSR data. The cases used in the intercomparison project were four instantaneous cases and a monthly-mean case. An algorithm's success will be measured by the correlation coefficients and rms., with G. PettyÍs skill scores to be also considered.
Fumihiko Nishio discussed the principles and criteria for AMSR algorithm intercomparison for sea ice. The intercomparison will focus on comparing retrieved sea ice extent and concentration (the two NASDA standard products) over the Okhotsk Sea and the Antarctic, the method of tuning the algorithms, and the performance when compared with AVHRR images.
Toshio Koike is responsible for both the land (standard product is soil moisture) and snow products (standard product is the snow water equivalent). Koike introduced the GEWEX (Global Energy and Water Cycle EXperiment) Asian Monsoon Experiment (GAME), a program to understand the role of Asian monsoon in the global energy and water cycle. This program is a comprehensive program including satellites and automatic weather stations, intensive field based regional experiments, modeling studies and data archive and dissemination network.
Software
The primary topics of discussion for the software meeting were the EOSDIS
metadata requirements, the software responsibilities of the team members,
and the schedule for team member software delivery to the team leader
science computing facility. Dawn Conway opened the software meeting with
a discussion of the goals for the meeting. The morning session of the
June 11 software meeting continued as Karl Cox presented an in-depth look
at the EOSDIS metadata components and led a discussion of metadata
specifics as applied to the AMSR-E. In conjunction with the discussion,
Richard Ullman demonstrated the use of the EOSDIS Web-based tool
METADATA_WORKS in defining and developing metadata. The afternoon session
was an open question and answer period on metadata, led by Karl Cox.
During this session, a preliminary list of AMSR product short and long
names was developed.
Dawn Conway led the half-day session on June 12th. Ms. Conway reviewed the proposed software responsibilities document and the team member software delivery schedule. Each attendee received a copy of the document and the schedule. Ms. Conway requested that each software contact review these with her. The document will be made available on the AMSR home page (http://wwwghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/AMSR) when it is finalized.
The next AMSR_E meeting will be a Joint AMSR Science Team meeting, probably taking place the day before the ADEOS II workshop, in Tokyo, Japan, at the end of October.