Future Plans

Future Plans

We welcome suggestions for new or updated capabilities via the NWP SAF Helpdesk. We aim to release new versions of the Radiance Simulator within 6 months of each RTTOV release. At each release, RadSim is updated to work with the latest version of RTTOV and to exploit new capabilities of RTTOV.

The plans outlined below may be subject to change in light of newly identified user requirements.

Nominal release schedule:
RadSim v4.1 (RTTOV v14.1) – March 2026
RadSim v4.2 (RTTOV v14.2) – Feburary 2027
RadSim v5.0 (RTTOV v15.0) – within 6 months of RTTOV v15.0 release

Developments planned or under consideration for future RadSim releases

  • Slant path calculations (to be implemented for v4.x)
  • Extend RadSim to support additional NWP inputs (this requires at least one test data file and ideally contribution from someone knowledgeable about the NWP model to help map the model fields to the RTTOV inputs)
  • Optimise spatial interpolation for DWD ICON model fields