Recent Developments in Assimilation of Satellite Data in the MS

In May 2008, several important changes with respect to satellite data assimilation were made to the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC) operational global 4D-Var Data Assimilation and Forecast System (DAFS). At the same time, a new version of the MSC DAFS has been developed which uses a new version of the MSC Global Environmental Multiscale (GEM) model called GEM-Strato. The GEMStrato model incorporates several significant changes to the current version of the model, including a lid raised from 10 hPa (~30 km) to 0.1 hPa (~65 km). The new system, scheduled to replace the current system in 2009, allows for assimilation of additional radiance data from higher-peaking microwave and infrared instrument channels as well as GPS radio-occultation data up to 40 km (~3 hPa). This paper describes the recent changes in satellite data assimilation in the operational DAFS, and presents results of satellite data impact experiments with the new GEM-Strato system. In addition, the performance of the operational DAFS and the new GEM-Strato system are compared. Finally, future plans for satellite data assimilation are presented, which include assimilation of data from the EUMETSAT satellites METOP (AMSU-A, MHS, IASI, GRAS, ASCAT) and METEOSAT.