An Update On Cira’s GOES-R Proving Ground Activities.

Abstract

The GOES-R Proving Ground represents a real opportunity for operational forecasters to have an impact on the products they will see when the next generation of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (known as GOES-R) is launched, beginning in 2015. GOES-R will not only provide higher resolution imagery at more frequent intervals, but will also have 16 imager bands, versus five in the current GOES. This will allow for many potential new products that can be provided to the forecast community, far more than could possibly be used in operations or supported by the mostly limited bandwidths at the NWS Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs). The GOES-R Proving Ground was created to ensure that the most useful of these products actually gets into operations. The key to accomplishing this task is to emulate potential GOES-R products so that forecasters can provide feedback to developers before the satellite is launched. An additional benefit to the operational community is training on products so that they can be utilized fully as soon as they become operationally available. The Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) is one of three partners that work closely with WFOs within the GOES-R Proving Ground, with the others being the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) and NASA s Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Program. These three organizations engage in developing new products that demonstrate the capabilities of the future GOES-R satellites, and testing prototypes with operational forecasters. CIRA began interacting with its closest WFO neighbors in Cheyenne and Boulder in 2008, and since we have expanded to over 15 WFOs as well as some National Centers. In this talk we will give an update on CIRA s Proving Ground efforts, including a discussion of the latest products being tested and the feedback we have received. Challenges that have been encountered will also be noted, and we will outline CIRA s future Proving Ground plans.