Development of Tools for the pre- and post-Launch Evaluation of VIIRS Atmospheric Products

To facilitate the completion of the product evaluation tasks assigned to the Atmosphere PEATE and associated NPP Science Team, various software tools have been developed. Such tools are intended to provide an accessible path towards visualization of VIIRS swath data (radiometric and atmospheric products), the generation and visualization of globally gridded VIIRS datasets for use in daily and monthly averages, and the analysis of multi-sensor co-located data for cross-validation. In addition to end-user tools, there is also effort made to provide easy-to-use NPP sensor specific software libraries to enable NPP science team members to develop their own tools, without having to learn the minutiae of the NPP data formats. The NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) mission will provide a first look at a new generation of science products from U.S. operational polar orbiting Earth observing satellites. The primary focus will be on the production of Sensor Data Record (SDR) and Environmental Data Record (EDR) science products in the Interface Data Processing Segment (IDPS) of the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) Ground System. The NASA NPP Science Teams have been tasked with evaluation of the anticipated operational products from the IDPS within a facility known as the Science Data Segment (SDS). Within the SDS, NASA has established five Product Evaluation and Algorithm Test Elements (PEATEs). The purpose of each PEATE is to enable its associated NPP Science Team to evaluate the operational SDRs and EDRs (both pre-launch and post-launch) from NPP efficiently. The PEATEs are organized into categories including Atmosphere, Land, Ocean, Ozone and Sounder. The Atmosphere PEATE has been established within the Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.