Dear NWP SAF user,
The SSMIS Pre-processing Package (SSMIS PP) currently supplied and maintained by the NWP SAF processes data from the SSMIS instruments on board the US Defence Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP). There are two aspects to the processing in SSMIS PP:
- Handling the “LAS”, “UAS”, “IMG” and “ENV” BUFR files and detecting instrument anomalies, for DMSP F16 only. This aspect is now obsolete as the Unified Pre-processor (UPP – maintained by the US Naval Research Laboratory) routinely performs this step for all functioning SSMIS instruments.
- Spatial averaging capability, applicable to UPP BUFR files, in order to reduce instrument noise.
The second point is now fully supported by the Microwave Imager Pre-processor (MWIPP) which supersedes that of the SSMIS PP. As such the NWP SAF SSMIS PP package will be retired, and support will no longer be offered upon the release of MWIPP v2 in April 2025.
For all additional information, please refer to SSMIS PP web pages https://nwp-saf.eumetsat.int/site/software/ssmis-pp/ and MWIPP web pages https://nwp-saf.eumetsat.int/site/software/mwipp/ or contact the team via the NWP SAF Helpdesk https://nwp-saf.eumetsat.int/site/help-desk/.
Kind regards,
The NWP SAF team.