Enhancing Evapotranspiration and Evaporative Stress Index Data Products from GOES-16/17 Advance Baseline Imagers for NOAA NWP, NWM and Drought Monitoring Operations

(NOAA Collaborators:Xiwu Zhan)

Evapotranspiration (ET) is a major component of the global and regional water cycle. Accurate estimation of ET is needed for numerical weather and water prediction models. Negative anomalies in ET are an indicator of drought occurrence. An operational GOES ET and Drought (GET-D) product system has been developed by NESDIS of NOAA for numerical weather prediction (NWP) and water model validation, data assimilation and for drought monitoring. The GET-D system was generating ET and Evaporative Stress Index (ESI) maps at 4-8km spatial resolution using thermal infrared (TIR) observations from the Imagers on GOES-13 and GOES-15 satellites before the primary operational GOES satellites transitioned to GOES-16 and GOES-17 with the Advanced Baseline Imagers (ABI). Preliminary tests have proved that the GET-D system can be upgraded and made operational with the new ABI observations.

This project will upgrade the GET-D software package with the recent improvements to the ALEXI model and the ABI observations. With the upgraded GET-D we will seamlessly generate ET products using observations from GOES-16 and GOES-17 ABI at high special resolution of up to 2 km. We will comprehensively validate the ET retrievals using ground ET measurements, build a long-term time series for an ET climatology data set, and generate an ABI-based ESI data product for drought monitoring with the ET climatology. Application potentials of the ABI-based ET and ESI in NOAA-NCEP NWP models, National Water Model of National Water Center, and the US Drought Monitor of the National Integrated Drought Information System will be evaluated. Operational pathway of the upgraded GET-D at NESDIS STAR, OSPO, or the Cloud will be identified.