The GOES-R Air Quality Proving Ground: Introducing the Air Quality User Community to the Next Generation of NOAA Geostationary Satellite Products

The air quality community uses NOAA satellite products for a variety of applications, including routine air quality forecasting, event analysis, and justification for Exceptional Events. The Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) on GOES-R will provide new and improved aerosol products compared to what is available from the current GOES imager. In addition, GOES-R will make observations every 5-15 minutes, which will provide an unprecedented volume of data for applications. To prepare the air quality user community for GOES-R, NOAA has established an Air Quality Proving Ground (AQPG). A subset of the overall NOAA GOES-R Proving Ground, the AQPG is providing training and outreach to air quality forecasters, modelers, and analysts on GOES-R ABI capabilities and products. This distinction is important because the air quality community has very different needs than the majority of GOES users (e.g., National Weather Service meteorologists). A key aspect of AQPG activities is the generation of simulated ABI aerosol products using current satellite and model data in conjunction with the ABI aerosol algorithm. Simulated ABI aerosol images for case studies of historical smoke and haze air quality events have been generated for several regions of the continental U.S. This year, the AQPG team streamed near real-time hourly GOES-R ABI proxy images for 12:00 - 23:00 UTC daily during the period July 12-30, 2011 as part of a demonstration Proving Ground testbed. Simulated ABI aerosol products include aerosol optical depth (AOD) and aerosol type, which is a new product from GOES-R that will be useful for distinguishing between smoke and dust aerosols. The simulated datasets are designed to give the user community an idea of the aerosol products that will be available from GOES-R. To that end, the AQPG has formed an Advisory Group of representatives from the user community who are providing feedback to NOAA on product development. User community feedback is critical for improving the quality, usage, formats, and distribution of ABI products. Based on Advisory Group assessment of simulated data, the AQPG team is refining the process of generating GOES-R ABI aerosol products and distributing the products to users in near real-time. An overview of the activities of the AQPG will be presented, along with examples of simulated ABI aerosol products, including the summer 2011 near real-time testbed. The goals of the AQPG program will be highlighted in regard to introducing GOES-R capabilities to the air quality community and preparing users for the new and improved ABI aerosol products. Examples of feedback from the air quality community on how users anticipate utilizing GOES-R ABI products in their forecasting, analysis, and modeling duties will also be presented.