Fused aviation products and GOES-R integration

There has been a lot of discussion about fused aviation products at this year's experiment. Given the plethora of data available for aviation forecasters and the fast pace at which traffic flow managers need to move in order to provide contingencies, there has been a push towards products that can pull together this data and provide an impact-related display. In the case of convection, how can all of this data (radar, satellite, lightning, etc.) translate into something that will show me an impact to traffic flow?

One such product that explores this offshore is called the Offshore Precipitation Capability (OPC) product, developed by MIT/Lincoln Labs. It is essentially a sister product to the Corridor Integrated Weather System (CIWS), adding additional datasets where offshore radar coverage is limited. It was designed to provide the aviation community with better situational awareness of convection offshore, particularly useful in the case of Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico flight routes. An example of the product is shown below in Figure 1.

Offshore Precipitation Capability product at 1615 UTC on August 11th

OPC currently utilizes Earth Networks lightning, all GOES-E satellite bands, various model fields, and it also blends in radar data where available. Additionally it can be displayed as a real time or forecast product. With next generation satellite data right around the corner, there is the potential for further integration of satellite data beyond the generic bands into this aviation tool (and others like CIWS, etc).

There are already plans to do some testing with the proxy GLM data from the LMA networks in preparation for the GLM and with the baseline cloud height data from the ACHA algorithms. Additionally, the sixteen bands available with GOES-R could provide an improvement in the product over the current five, and Himawari data will be utilized to test out this potential. Higher temporal resolutions, such as 5 or 1-minute refresh rates is also expected to have a positive affect on the accuracy.

Other derived data such as Overshooting Top Detection, Convective Initiation, and Cloud Top Cooling have potential in a product like this as well. Being able to use baseline satellite data along with derived datasets like these, that weren't necessary created for an aviation forecasters needs, and putting them into something like the OPC that is geared for use in an aviation setting is extremely valuable for aviation decision support.