GRWG/GDWG Web Meeting 2011-06-22

GSICS Web Meeting on Instrument Event Logs

Agenda

1. Bob Iacovazzi (NOAA) - Instrument Log Template v2.0

Attendees

Guest Chair: Bob Iacovazzi (NOAA)

CMA: Sun ling, Chen lin, Guo Maohua, Zhang Tao, Liu Ting, Dai Zhi Ming, Li Yuan and Xuqing Hu

EUMETSAT: Tim Hewison, Marianne Koenig, Sebastien Wagner, Peter Miu

JMA: Yoshihiko Tahara, Hiroaki Tsuchiyama, Ryuichiro Nakayama, Yuki Kosaka and Arata Okiyama

NOAA: Fred Wu, Fangfang Yu, Aleksandar Jelenak

Instrument Performance Monitoring

Instrument Performance Monitoring was initially discussed, at the request of the Executive Panel.

Although it was agreed that information of the type available from NOAA's http://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/smcd/spb/icvs/satMonitoring_n19_amax.php could be useful for those seeking to understand instrument performance, equivalent information is not currently publically available from other satellite operators. Furthermore, considerable effort would be required to produce such web pages - even if there were no restrictions to the publication of this information, and it was felt that this activity is beyond the core area of GSICS' expertise and should be left to the instrument operators. Of course, where such information is already available, it should be linked from the GCC Information Kiosk.

CMA has implemented in a crude way instrument monitors for FY-2 and FY-3. They have had positive results of such a monitoring system for instrument or calibration anomaly resolution. This has been done only for INTERNAL CMA USE. They are not sure if they have the resources to develop a full system for all of their instruments. Even if they can, they are not sure if they can share the information from the system.

JMA - They have a system up-and-running, but cannot share the data due to export control laws.

It was brought up that if this is a CGMS recommendation, that the implementation should be handled at a higher level within the operational agencies.

The idea of publishing instrument information is to let the data users know the characteristics of the satellite orbit, and of any satellite instrument events that may be of interest. We are not in the business of fixing anomalies of each others’ satellites, which is the only reason we would need to share instrument calibration and engineering data.

Bottom Line –

1. This would be a lot of work for most GSICS members to implement.
2. GSICS members have very little leverage on change rules regarding publishing sensitive instrument data that may be export controlled
3. This is not in line with GSICS objectives

Instrument Event Logs

Although a skeleton event log template was presented, the GSICS online members felt there needed to be further definition of “What is an event?”, “What information needs to be presented?”, and “How to present this data”. For example, EUMETSAT felt that non-routine events only needed to be given in the logs, while NOAA said that many events might need to reported, since we cannot discern immediately their impacts on data. It is better to tell the user of an event where the impact is unknown, than to leave it out until you know it has impacts. EUMETSAT also felt it was important to put information such as Satellite Equatorial Crossing Time and Operational Status in the event logs.

NOAA said that a major motivation to create the instrument event logs is to help the user understand the GSICS products, and why there may have breaks or higher uncertainties in the product during some time periods.

All online GSICS members did not see a problem publishing instrument event logs.

ACTION (All GPRCs Due 22/07/2011): Each GSICS Member is to define what events they feel need to be reported in instrument event logs, and to prioritize these events.

GCC will review the supplied lists and propose a list of event types that GPRCs should publish and maintained for current operational satellites, going forward.

Bottom Line –

It was agreed that it would be beneficial for users and satellite operators to have a publically accessible list of satellite instrument events affecting the use of their data.

The effort to create instrument event logs, although of keen interest to users, is not easy to implement. There is a desire to make the format and presentation of the logs homogeneous within the GSICS membership, but difficulty of implementation make this a best effort implementation.

The archive of events for historic datasets is also valuable and should also be populated on a best effort basis.