One of the components of the GOES-R3 winter weather studies seeks to combine GOES total ozone data with COSMIC retrievals to develop a product which monitors the winds at the tropopause level (essentially the jet streams) over the United States. The jet streams play a major role in the weather on many scales from midlatitude cyclones to severe thunderstorms. Additionally, jet streams can contain areas of turbulence, which can cause disruptions in aircraft travel.
As additional progress is made on the product, more images will be posted on this site. To begin with, however, sample images of the GOES total ozone retrieval and quasi-geostrophic potential vorticity as computed from the COSMIC soundings are presented. The GOES total ozone product is available hourly over the continental United States. The COSMIC soundings are derived from radio occultations. There are about 1700 COSMIC soundings per day over the entire Earth at very fine vertical spacing (100 m), typically down to 700 mb.
GOES total ozone (Dobson Units) for 1200 UTC 20 December 2006.
300-hPa heights (cyan, m) and quasigeostrophic potential vorticity (black, x106 m2 K s-1 kg-1) for 20 December 2006 (left), and vertical cross section (at 36°N) through the quasigeostrophic potential vorticity maximum over the southwest U.S. (right)