Insights
  • Success Stories
  • Satellite Science & Environmental Intelligence

Atmospheric Processing System Support

map of globe with swirls of orange around the center and blue around the poles

The NOAA Unique Combined Atmospheric Processing System (NUCAPS) is an operational retrieval algorithm that NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Services has been using since 2002. This system generates near real-time atmospheric profiles of temperature, water vapour, and trace gases, as well as Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR) needed for weather forecasting. CSS Remote Sensing Scientist supporting the STC Atmospheric Science and Technology Applications team provides science, programming, and algorithm development support for this system.

Major tasks for this effort include

  • Outgoing Longwave Radiation – the longwave radiation emitted to space from the top of Earth’s atmosphere.
  • AWS cloud-based mission-long reprocessing – one-stop place to access all NUCAPS products
  • AEROSE field campaigns – collect and analyze atmospheric temperature, water vapour and ozone profiles, as well as aerosol optical depth and its origins.

For each of these tasks, the CSS remote sensing scientist’s contributions further develop and maintain these critical operations necessary for accurately forecasting and characterization of potentially dangerous weather events.

satellite image of earth on top. Arrow points to a hurricane. Heat map on bottom. Arrow points to a blue blob on bottom indicating the same hurricane as above.
Above is major hurricane Erin, category 4 at the time, shown on the VIIRS true-color image as a typical cloud cover and its correlative NUCAPS top-of-the-atmosphere outgoing longwave radiation or OLR observations from NOAA-21 CrIS sensor on August 19, 2025.

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  • Success Stories
  • Environmental Resource Assessment & Management

New Data and Reports on the U.S. Marine Economy

Each year CSS economists on contract with NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management work with other federal agencies to process the most recent economic and labor data, and extract the portions related to marine-dependent sectors.

  • Success Stories
  • Safety, Health, & Environmental Compliance

Overcoming COVID-19 Challenges

Great job to our team supporting our contract with the U.S. General Services Administration on assisting the client with conducting a year’s worth of environmental, health, and safety surveys in just six months! Due to limitations with COVID-19, the team was unable to conduct their surveys on their usual timeline and instead had to work…

View over a valley with a fog settled between the mountains
  • Success Stories, Uncategorized
  • Environmental Resource Assessment & Management

Monitoring Air Quality in California’s San Joaquin Valley

CSS employee owners supported the deployment and operation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) air quality monitoring trailer (WEAVE COM – Western Enhanced Air quality VEhicle for COmmunity Monitoring) in California’s San Joaquin Valley in during late fall and early winter of 2024.  Elevated particulate matter (PM2.5) is frequently found throughout the valley during…