70 years of Atmospheric research flying timeline ... - Met Office

The MetOp series of satellites fly the IASI instrument which measures thermal emissionfrom the Earth at 8461 channels, the follow on instrument in the next series of Europeanpolar orbiters will double this number of channels. The wealth of data from satellites isset to increase dramatically over the coming decades and the ability to use this dataeffectively has been a focus of study with the research aircraft since the mid-1990’s.The MEVEX (Middle East Validation Experiment) is a continuation of this work using arange of instruments to measure the impact of dust on the energy balance of theplanet. In the mid 1990’s the Airborne Research Interferometer Evaluation SystemARIES was fitted to the MRF C130 “Snoopy” and was transferred to the FAAM BAe146in 2003. This instrument has been used to study the atmosphere and to develop newtechniques to utilise satellite data and to test innovative new techniques to model thetransfer of thermal energy through the atmosphere (termed radiative transfer). Thetransfer of energy through the atmosphere is paramount in driving the atmosphere andalso in how the Met Office utilises satellite data. Radiative transfer underpins the use ofsatellite data in NWP but is computationally expensive meaning that historically there ismore satellite data available than can be used. Radiative transfer also allows theprediction of the impact of the atmosphere on military systems through Tactical DecisionAid's (TDAs). The computational expense increases with the number of differentwavelengths (or instrument channels) that are required. In order to improve this theHavemann-Taylor Fast Radiative Transfer Code (HTFRTC) was developed whichallows calculation of the radiances of thousands of channels orders of magnitude fasterthan before.Exploitation of this capability is now nearing maturity with the promise of greatlyimproved Tactical Decision Aids (TDAs), and satellite data assimilation in the nearfuture. This will allow more data from hyper spectral satellite instruments to beassimilated into numerical weather prediction (NWP) models, with the increasednumber of observations providing an improvement in forecast skill. TDAs using thiscapability have helped save lives of UK and allied armed forces personnel by givingexpert predictive advice on how the weather will impact their operations.© Crown copyright 201236