[nws-changes] 20120517: Sea ice concentration- Fwd: ADMIN NOTICE NOUS41 KWBC

• To: nws-changes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• Subject: [nws-changes] 20120517: Sea ice concentration- Fwd: ADMIN NOTICE NOUS41 KWBC
• From: Linda Miller <lmiller@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Thu, 17 May 2012 12:35:13 -0600

-------- Original Message --------

313
NOUS41 KWBC 171700
PNSWSH

Technical Implementation Notice 12-27
National Weather Service Headquarters Washington DC
100 PM EDT Thu May 17 2012

To:        Subscribers:
           -Family of Services
           -NOAA Weather Wire Service
           -Emergency Managers Weather Information Network
           -NOAAPORT
           Other NWS Partners, Users and Employees

From:      Tim McClung
           Chief, Science Plans Branch
           Office of Science and Technology

Subject:   Upgrade to Automated Sea Ice Concentration Analysis
           Effective June 19, 2012

On or about Tuesday June 19, 2012, the National Centers for
Environmental Prediction will make the following changes to the
Automated Sea Ice Concentration Analysis to improve performance:

1. Use a weather filter not dependent on the 22 GHz channel of
   the F-15 satellite. That channel is known to be contaminated
   by instrumental cross-talk. This change will reduce the
   misdiagnosis of points as being weather-contaminated, and
   hence unusable, or to falsely use points as sea ice that are
   actually weather.

2. Include passive microwave observations from DMSP F-17 SSMI-S
   in sea ice concentration analysis to do the following:

  - Use a new sensor type (SSMI-S rather than SSMI)
  - Use a much younger instrument (5 years versus the 13 of F-15)
  - Prepare for use of continuing satellite series (F-18 launched
    2009, F-19 and F-20 scheduled for launch) with the same
    instrument.

Data format, volume, and delivery will not be affected by this
implementation.

The Ice Concentration analysis products are available on the NCEP
Server at
http://www.ftp.ncep.noaa.gov/data/nccf/com/omb/prod/sice.YYYYMMDD
or
ftp://ftp.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/omb/prod/sice.YYYYMMDD

where YYYYMMDD corresponds to the four digit year, two digit
month and two digit day.

The data are also available on NOAAPORT with the WMO headers
EEWA88 KWBN, OEXA88 KWBN, OENA88 KWBN, OESA88 KWBN.

For more information on ice concentration analysis, see The
Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) Website:

    http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/seaice/

For questions regarding the scientific content of the Sea Ice
Concentration Analysis please contact:

Robert Grumbine
NCEP/EMC
Camp Springs, MD 20746
301-763-8000 x7214
Robert.Grumbine@xxxxxxxx

NWS National Technical Implementation Notices are online at:

    http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/notif.htm

$$