Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 30 November 2017 doi:10.20944/preprints201711.0194.v1 Peer-reviewed version available at Remote Sens. 2018, 10, 386; doi:10.3390/rs10030386 Article The Role of NWP Filter for the Satellite Based Detection of Cumulonimbus Clouds Richard Müller 1* ID , Stephane Haussler 1 and Matthias Jerg 1, 1 German Weather Service, Frankfurter Str 135, 63067 Offenbach, Germany * Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +49-(0)69-8062-4922 1 Abstract: The study investigates the role of NWP filtering for the remote sensing of Cumulonimbus 2 Clouds (Cbs) by implementation of 14 different experiments, covering Central Europe. These 3 experiments compiles different stability filter settings as well as the use of different channels for 4 the InfraRed (IR) brightness temperatures. As stability filter parameters from Numerical Weather 5 Prediction (NWP) are used. The brightness temperature information results from the IR SEVIRI 6 instrument on-board of Meteosat Second Generation satellite and enables the detection of very cold 7 and high clouds close to the tropopause. The satellite only approaches (no NWP filtering) result 8 in the detection of Cbs with a relative high probability of detection, but unfortunately combined 9 with a large False Alarm Rate (FAR), leading to a Critical Success Index (CSI) below 60 %. The false 10 alarms results from other types of very cold and high clouds. It is shown that the false alarms can be 11 significantly decreased by application of an appropriate NWP stability filter, leading to the increase 12 of CSI to about 70 % . A brief review and reflection of the literature clarifies that the this function 13 of the NWP filter can not be replaced by MSG IR spectroscopy. Thus, NWP filtering is strongly 14 recommended to increase the quality of satellite based Cb detection. Further, it has been shown that 15 the well established convective available potential energy (CAPE) and the convection index (KO) 16 works well as stability filter. 17 Keywords: cumulonimbus; thunderstorms; stability filter; aviation 18 1. Introduction 19 Cumulonimbus clouds (Cb) originate from rapid vertical updraft of humid and warm air enforced 20 by constraint forces caused e.g. by mountains, heating or cold fronts. The fast cooling of the air with 21 rising height leads to optically thick and very cold clouds, referred to as cumulonimbus clouds (Cbs), 22 which are usually accompanied by lightning, heavy precipitation, hail, and turbulence. Early and 23 reliable prediction of Cb clouds is therefore of great importance for weather forecasts and warnings, in 24 particular for aviation, as Cb clouds (thunderstorms) constitute one of the most important natural risks 25 for aircraft accidents. An accurate Cb detection and short term forecast enables cost-efficient planning 26 and use of alternative routes, increasing flight safety. 27 Yet, the reliable simulation of convective cells and Cbs by means of numerical weather prediction 28 is still a very difficult task. Thus, observational data plays a pivotal role for the accurate detection and 29 short term forecast of Cbs. Over ocean and a vast number of countries, which are not well equipped 30 with precipitation RADARs, satellites are in addition to global lightning ground based networks the 31 only observational source for the detection of Cbs, e.g. [1]. As a result of the thermodynamics involved 32 in the generation of Cbs they are optical thick and their tops are located close to the tropopause. 33 Therefore, from a satellite perspective they are characterized by very cold brightness temperatures 34 corresponding to high cloud top heights (CTH). 35 Thus, cloud top height is on option used as a straightforward method to provide information 36 about the risk for cumulonimbus cloud occurrence as operated by e.g. NCAR ([2] and references 37 therein). The cloud top height can be derived from the brightness temperature (BT) in the atmospheric 38 window channel (InfraRed 10.6), which corresponds in good approximation to the temperature of the © 2017 by the author(s). Distributed under a Creative Commons CC BY license. Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 30 November 2017 doi:10.20944/preprints201711.0194.v1 Peer-reviewed version available at Remote Sens. 2018, 10, 386; doi:10.3390/rs10030386 2 of 11 39 cloud top for Cbs. A NWP based profile of the atmosphere can then be used to link the temperature 40 to the height of the cloud top, see figure1 for an example of an atmospheric profile. A more detailed discussion of methods for the estimation of CTH are presented in [3]. 60 60 US standard atmosphere US standard atmosphere mid-latitude standard atmosphere mid-latitude standard atmosphere tropopause tropopause 50 50 ] ] m m 40 40 k k [ [ l l e e v v e e l l a a e e s s e e 30 30 v v o o b b a a t t h h g g i i e e 20 20 H H 10 10 0 0 150 200 250 300 350 400 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 Temperature [K] Pressure [mbar] Figure 1. Left hand: The image shows the relation of the height above sea level and the temperature in the atmosphere for the US standard atmosphere and a standard atmosphere for mid-latitude summer. Diagrammed is also the height of the tropopause, which "separates" the troposphere from the stratosphere. Right hand: Relation between pressure and height for the same profile. 41 42 Another simple, but widely used method is that applied in the Global Convective Diagnostics 43 approach [4] and [2]. The method uses the brightness temperature difference between the 6.7 mm the 44 11.6 mm infrared satellite channel, the former is also referred to as water vapour channel, cause of 45 the large water vapour absorption bands. If the difference exceeds 1 degree it is assumed that the 46 observed cloud is a cumulonimbus cloud. The physical background of this approach has been already 47 discussed in 1997 by Schmetz et al. [5]. They investigated the potential of satellite observation for the 48 monitoring of deep convection and overshooting tops. They found that the brightness temperature 49 of the water vapor channel (5.7-7.1 mm) can be larger (warmer) than that of the IR window channel 50 (10.5-12.5 mm). They demonstrated by radiative transfer modeling (RTM) that the larger brightness 51 temperatures (BT) in the WV channel are due to stratospheric (tropopause) water vapor, which absorbs 52 radiation from the cold cloud and subsequently emits radiation at higher temperature (warmer), as 53 the temperature increases in the stratosphere, see figure1. The effect is largest when the cloud top 54 is at the tropopause temperature inversion. Optical thick high clouds cover the tropospheric water 55 vapor and only the emission from the stratospheric water vapor contributes to the radiance observed 56 by the satellite instrument. In contrast, for lower clouds the tropospheric water vapor above the clouds 57 absorbs the radiation and the emitted radiation is colder than the absorbed. It is therefore obvious that 58 the temperature difference increases with increasing cloud height. 59 The effect discussed by [5] occurs also if the difference of the two water vapor channels are used. 60 The use of this combination is possible since the launch of Meteosat Second Generation satellites, which 61 has the Spinning Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Image (SEVIRI) instrument on-board. This instrument 62 is equipped with additional channels in the Infrared (IR). The normalized weighting function of the 63 SEVIRI IR channels is diagrammed in Figure2 for clear sky. 64 Note, that the water vapor channel at 6.2 mm receives significant contributions from the 65 stratosphere, which are larger than the equivalent contributions of the WV channel at 7.3mm. Thus, 66 the mechanism discussed by Schmetz et al [5] works also well for the difference of the water vapor 67 channels. 68 A slightly different approach is used by the Nowcasting Satellite Application Facility NWC-SAF. 69 This method is based upon an adaptive brightness temperature thresholds of infrared images [6]. 70 Further, cloud classification methods have been developed which use texture information of the visible 71 channels in addition to the brightness temperature thresholds to detect Cbs and other cloud types. The Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 30 November 2017 doi:10.20944/preprints201711.0194.v1 Peer-reviewed version available at Remote Sens. 2018, 10, 386; doi:10.3390/rs10030386 3 of 11 Figure 2. The image shows the normalized weighting function of MSG for clear sky , source Eumetrain 72 NRL Cloud Classification (CC) algorithm [7] is one example. It is used by the Oceanic Weather Product 73 Development Team to assist in the accurate detection of deep convective clouds. Another example 74 is the Berendes cloud mask [8]. However, in both methods visible channels are utilized and they are 75 therefore not applicable during night. Thus, these approaches are not sufficient to provide a day and 76 night service needed by aviation. Finally, there exists a commercially offered software package, which 77 has been developed and validated by Zinner et. al [9] and references therein. 78 All these approaches use information from the IR region for the satellite based detection of Cbs. 79 However, not only Cbs are optically thick and cold, but also other clouds, which can lead to serious 80 false alarms. As briefly discussed in [2] these false alarms might be reduced by the implementation of 81 an stability filer from NWP. 82 To the knowledge of the authors the above mentioned methods do either not apply an NWP filter 83 (e.g.