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It is a new highly modular software package code providing I/O interfaces for the Numerical Weather Prediction Community. CMEM's physics is based on the parameterizations a range of State-Of-The-Art parametrisations, including those used in the L-Band Microwave Emission of the Biosphere (LMEB, Wigneron et al., 2007) and Land Surface Microwave Emission Model (LSMEM, Drusch et al., 2007). So, CMEM modularity allows considering different parameterizations parametrisations of the soil dielectric constant as well as different soil approaches (either coherent of incoherent) and , different effective temperature, roughness, vegetation and atmospheric contribution opacity models.
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The SMOS satellite, launched on 2 November 2009, is the first instrument to provide global fields of L-band brightness temperature. SMOS brightness temperatures is used at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) to investigate its use to analyse soil moisture through the Surface Data Assimilation System and to monitor ocean salinity. This is expected to improve the accuracy of initial conditions of the Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) model. In turn, NWP products are of great importance for space agencies in order to derive the Level2 soil moisture and ocean salinity products. CMEM is used at ECMWF to monitor and assimilate the SMOS brightness temperature in the Integrated Forecast System (IFS).
2- Implementation
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The Community Microwave Emission Modelling Platform was developed and is maintained at ECMWF in the context of an ESA contract for the SMOS mission.
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For the atmospheric radiative transfer calculations, the RTTOV [Radiative Transfer model for Television Infrared Orbiting Satellite (TIROS) Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS)] software package has been developed as a community model. It is updated and maintained by the UK Met Office under the framework of EUMETSAT's NWP Satellite Application Facility (SAF). Although CMEM has been designed for frequencies below 20 GHz, its modular structure allows upgrades to higher frequencies and it is envisaged to integrate interface CMEM into the RTTOV software package.
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