High Revisit-Rate Tropical Cyclone Observations From the NASA TROPICS Satellite Constellation Mission
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: New satellite constellations to provide high-resolution atmospheric observations from microwave (MW) sounders operating in low-Earth orbit are now coming online and are providing operationally useful data. The first of these missions, the NASA Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS) Earth Venture (EVI-3) mission, was successfully launched into orbit on May 7 and 25, 2023 (Eastern Daylight Time, two CubeSats in each of the two launches). TROPICS is now providing nearly all-weather observations of 3-D temperature and humidity, as well as cloud ice and precipitation horizontal structure, at high temporal resolution to conduct high-value science investigations of tropical cyclones (TCs). TROPICS is providing rapid-refresh MW measurements (median refresh rate of better than 60 min early in the mission with four functional CubeSats, and now approximately 70–90 min with three functional CubeSats) over the tropics that can be used to observe the thermodynamics of the troposphere and precipitation structure for storm systems at the mesoscale and synoptic scale over the entire storm lifecycle. Hundreds of high-resolution images of TCs have been captured thus far by the TROPICS mission, revealing the detailed structure of the eyewall and surrounding rain bands. The new 205-GHz channel in particular (together with a traditional channel near 92 GHz) is providing new information on the inner storm structure, and, coupled with the relatively frequent revisit and low downlink latency, is already informing TC analysis at operational centers. Here, we present an overview of the TROPICS mission after two years of successful science operations with a focus on the suite of geophysical (Level 2) products (atmospheric vertical temperature and moisture profiles, instantaneous surface rain rate, and TC intensity) and the science investigations that have been enabled by these new measurements.
Source: Proceedings of the IEEE
Authors: William J. Blackwell, Scott A. Braun, George R. Alvey, Robert Atlas, Ralf Bennartz, Jessica Braun, Kerri Cahoy, Ruiyao Chen, Galina Chirokova, Brittany Dahl, James Darlow, Mark DeMaria, Michael Diliberto, Jason P. Dunion, Patrick Duran, Thomas J. Greenwald, Sarah Griffin, Zachary Griffith, Derrick Herndon, Jeffrey D. Hawkins, Satya Kalluri, C. Kidd, Min-Jeong Kim, R. Vincent Leslie, Frank Marks, Toshi Matsui, W. McCarty, Adam Milstein, Glenn Perras, Michael L. Pieper, Robert Rogers, Christopher Velden, Yalei You, Nick V. Zorn
Institutions: MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Goddard Space Flight Center, University of Miami, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratories, Vanderbilt University, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Space Science and Engineering Center, Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, Joint Typhoon Warning Center, Marshall Space Flight Center, Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, NOAA National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, University of North Carolina Wilmington
Language: English
Subfield: Atmospheric Science
Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,645
Award: G8680449689
OpenAlex ID: W4412747980