The Potential Impact of Assimilating Synthetic Microwave Radiances Onboard a Future Geostationary Satellite on the Prediction of Typhoon Lekima Using the WRF Model

Geostationary meteorological satellites can provide continuous observations of high-impact weather events with a high temporal and spatial resolution. Sounding the atmosphere using a microwave instrument onboard a geostationary satellite has aroused great study interests for years, as it would increase the observational efficiency as well as provide a new perspective in the microwave spectrum to the measuring capability for the current observational system. In this study, the capability of assimilating future geostationary microwave sounder (GEOMS) radiances was developed in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model’s data assimilation (WRFDA) system. To investigate if these frequently updated and widely distributed microwave radiances would be beneficial for typhoon prediction, observational system simulation experiments (OSSEs) using synthetic microwave radiances were conducted using the mesoscale numerical model WRF and the advanced hybrid ensemble–variational data assimilation method for the Lekima typhoon that occurred in early August 2019. The results show that general positive forecast impacts were achieved in the OSSEs due to the assimilation of GEOMS radiances: errors of analyses and forecasts in terms of wind, humidity, and temperature were both reduced after assimilating GEOMS radiances when verified against ERA-5 data. The track and intensity predictions of Lekima were also improved before 68 h compared to the best track data in this study. In addition, rainfall forecast improvements were also found due to the assimilation impact of GEOMS radiances. In general, microwave observations from geostationary satellites provide the possibility of frequently assimilating wide-ranging microwave information into a regional model in a finer resolution, which can potentially help improve numerical weather prediction (NWP).