Assimilation of Hyperspectral Infrared Atmospheric Sounder Data of FengYun-3E Satellite and Assessment of Its Impact on Analyses and Forecasts

HIRAS-II is the hyperspectral detector carried on FengYun-3E which is the world’s first meteorological satellite in dawn–dusk orbit. It fills the observation gaps during the dawn and dusk periods of polar orbit meteorological satellites, enabling a 100% global data coverage and assimilation of polar orbit satellite data within each 6 h window for numerical weather forecasting models. With 3053 vertical detection channels, it provides high-resolution vertical temperature and humidity information, thus playing an important role in improving the forecast skills of the global medium-range weather prediction models. This study assimilated data from 56 CO2 channels of FY-3E HIRAS into the CMA-GFS 4DVAR system. Two sets of experiments, FY3EHIRAS and CTRL, were designed, conducting a one-month cycle assimilation test to evaluate the impact of assimilating FY-3E HIRAS data on CMA-GFS analysis and forecasting. Using the ECMWF reanalysis data ERA5 as a reference, the study demonstrated that after assimilating data from FY-3E HIRAS’s 56 CO2 channels, there was a certain extent of improvement in the temperature field at almost all model levels. The RMSE notably reduced in the southern hemisphere’s temperature analysis field near the surface and at 500 hPa by 3.5% and 2%, respectively. The most significant improvement in the entire temperature analysis field was observed in the tropical region, followed by the southern and then the northern hemisphere. Additionally, there was a reduction in RMSE for the height and wind fields, showing considerable improvement compared to the CTRL experiment. Overall, assimilating the FY-3E HIRAS data led to positive improvements in the forecasting skills for temperature, wind fields, and height fields in both the southern and northern hemispheres. The forecasting effectiveness was slightly lower in the tropical region but displayed an overall neutral-to-positive effect.