Aerosol Data Assimilation with the Next Generation Meteorological Satellite (Himawari-8)

Abstract:

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) launched a new generation geostationary meteorological satellite, Himawari-8, on 7 October 2014. The Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) aboard Himawari-8 is a 16 channel multispectral imager including three observational bands (i.e. RGB) in visible lights with 1km horizontal and 10-minite temporal resolutions covering the East Asia and Western Pacific regions. The visible imaging sensor allows us to obtain aerosol optical observations with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolutions and horizontal coverage.

Meteorological Research Institute (MRI)/JMA have been developing an aerosol data assimilation system with a global aerosol transport model (MASINGAR mk-2) and the Local Ensemble Transform Kalman Filter (LETKF) for the operational aerosol (Asian dust) forecasting system (Yumimoto et al., under review). In this study, we have the first attempt to assimilate aerosol retrievals derived from the next generation meteorological satellite in the assimilation system. Our preliminary experiment results show that assimilation of full disk aerosol optical thickness (AOT) from Himawari-8 successfully reduces overestimates of anthropogenic pollution outflow from the Asian Continent, and compensates underestimates of dust outflow from the Australian continent.