3D global ozone proxy fields and the NPOESS OMPS assimilation experiment, for improved numerical weather predictions for military operations

Important classes of military operations would benefit from improved long term weather forecasts. Because the radiative effects of ozone influence jet streams, the use of daily measurements of stratospheric ozone should improve long term forecasting. Ozone data will be provided operationally by the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) instrument. An assimilation experiment (OMPS-AE) will use data from an OMPS on the NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) spacecraft for testing ozone assimilation and forecasting algorithms. The development of those algorithms is being aided by using proxy 3D global fields which are calculated by combining sparse measurements of ozone with operational meteorological analyzed fields. We describe this data fusion method, and the validation and properties of the resulting ozone proxy.