Are the Cloud-Top Heights Retrieved From GOES-16/ABI and GOES-17/ABI Consistent?

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Abstract
The United States geostationary operational environmental satellites GOES-16 and GOES-17 provide cloud-top height (CTH) data. A fusion model combining their CTH is vital for global high-resolution weather forecasting and climate analysis. However, ensuring a high degree of consistency between CTH from GOES-16 and GOES-17 is essential for building an effective CTH fusion model. In this paper, a consistency analysis was conducted on the CTH in regions where GOES-16/ABI and GOES-17/ABI observations overlap. Results show that the CTH of GOES-16 and GOES-17 exhibits a small mean error (ME) and high correlation, but between 9:30 and 15:00 (UTC), the ME, standard deviation (Std), and root mean square error (RMSE) are significantly larger than those during other periods, with the maximum values occurring between approximately 12:00 and 14:00. The difference in Satellite viewing zenith angle (ΔVZA) at the same observation pixel had an impact on the CTH consistency. The larger ΔVZA is, the larger ME, Std, and RMSE are; The increase in ME of between the two CTH from 9:30 to 15:00 was related to the difference in radiance of the 12.3μm and 13.3μm channel, while the increase in Std was related to the difference in radiance of the 13.3μm. It is due to anomalies in the channel radiance observations caused by the degradation of the imager's performance by solar radiation exposure during this period. The fusion of GOES-16 and GOES-17 CTH data needs to take into consideration the differences in VZA and the data quality control between 9:30 and 15:00.
Funding Information
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China (41575020)

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