ABSTRACT

• Main Authors: Lydie Lavanant, Loic Harang, Jérôme Lelay, Sonia Péré
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Sea ice
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.564.4979

(AVHRR) that enables the detection and the characterization of the clouds over all areas. The Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility (OSISAF) of EUMETSAT has developed an operational processing chain aiming to produce METOP derived SST fields globally in near real time. The cloud masking step which is a crucial part of the SST production is operationally assured by the MAIA version3 cloud mask developed at Météo-France (MF). This paper will review the successive steps of the OSISAF MAIA cloud mask production chain, show some examples of the products and analyse the preliminary validation results before and after METOP launch. METOP MAIA derived cloud characterizations are validated by comparison with interactively collected AVHRR targets by experienced nephanalysts and with mapped MSG2 operational production. 1. THE MAIA CLOUDMASK The MAIA package has been developed for several applications: • SST production in the OSISAF operational chain • Real-time MF Nowcasting cloud type imagery over sea and land from CMS NOAA HRPT acquisitions and METOP local (HRPT) and global (EUMETCAST) data.