Convection Initiation (PGE18 V1.0) v2016

Goal of the CI product
CI Algorithm

Areas of Interest
Movement field
Object analysis
Pixel analysis
Interest fields
CI diagnosis

The output products

The configuration file

The Documentation

Goal of the CI product

The CI (Convection Initiation) product has been developed by Meteo-France in the framework of the EUMETSAT SAF in support to Nowcasting. Using mainly geostationnary satellite data, it provides the probability for a cloudy pixel to become a thunderstorm in a given following period range. The product aims to catch the first steps of initiation of convection, when the first convective signs occur after the formation of clouds, or when those signs appear revealing a modification of environmental conditions.

Probability of the formation of a thunderstorm depends on evolution of local condition and on advection of clouds. For this second point, CI is unfortunately too scarce for a full object-approach that allows a good following of meteorological systems. CI is a pixel product

CI Algorithm

The process follows :

The detection of cloud systems
The tracking of cloud systems
The discrimination of convective cloud objects
The advection of convective cloud objetcs

Note: relevant parameters, thresholds and some part of the algorithm are inspired from « Best Practice Document, 2013, for EUMETSAT Convection Working Group, Eds J.Mecikalski, K. Bedka and M. König », especially SATCAST methodology for the definition of pre-CI pixels.

Areas of interest

This preliminary step requires in optimum configuration

A first filter is based on 10.8µm BT, to ignore cold cloudy pixels and focus on early warm stages of cloudy pixels
Then, NWP data are used for a guidance when available, to eliminate stable areas and focus on more unstable pixels

Convective indexes are computed or read from NWP to produce a convective / non convective mask to identify non convective areas
Only cloud cells out of non convective areas are taken into account

NWP mask : 0 = non convective areas = union of 3 non convective indexes

NWCSAF cloud type product is used to eliminate non cloudy areas and focus on cloudy pixels

Cloud Type as optional input, is used to ignore cloud-free areas in the identification of cloud cells. It allows CI to focus on cloudy areas only.
CI takes into account the deformation of pixels when on the edge of the spaceview domain. A mask of stretched pixels (pixels more than 5 * nominal_area) is automatically elaborated and backuped, and masked zones are ignored.
Both approaches are merged to focus on areas of interest

CT product	Non cloudy pixels identification
mask for stretched pixels (backup file)	stretched pixels + non cloudy pixels
IR10.8 image	Working image for both object and pixel approach for CI

Thus, large areas are ignored in the following processes, which may focus on a restricted set of pixels to be analyzed.

2D Movement field

A 2D movement field is estimated in optimum configuration with blending NWP wind field in the low level (850hPa) and last available HRW wind observations, remapped on grid-field and selected versus the corresponding pixel’s brightness temperature. Priority in the blending is given to HRW wind observations, affected to a 9-pixels-box centred on the corresponding pixel.

This blended field is at first used as guess movement for initialization in the tracking process of object analysis (“cold start” cases, or orphan cells).
Then this field is updated with objects movement vectors, to finally be considered as a pixel tracker for trends calculations.

Object image analysis: warm cloud cell detection&tracking

An object analysis process is undertaken like in RDT-CW software, but has been adapted to focus on warm cloud cells from lowest layers. The objectives of this step are

To take benefit from techniques allowing to catch cloud cells movement
To access cloud cells’ parameters variations along its trajectory

More details about tracking can be found in RDT-CW algorithm description.

CI-specificities rely on

Specific Cold limit for adaptative thresholding : the limit has been set to -25°C (instead of -75°C for RDT-CW) in order to limit the analysis to lowest levels
Minimum vertical extension of objects, which has been set to 3° (instead of 6° for RDT-CW) to focus on lower extended cloud systems

This step takes benefit from movement guess field as input to increase cell’s speed reliability, and on the other hand delivers as output an updated movement field with the analyzed objects’ speeds. All pixels belonging to a tracked cloud system are affected the corresponding movement speed instead of previous pixel’s movement values.

This final blended movement field is a key point for further relevant trends calculations

Pixel image analysis

Brightness Temperature Differences are processed for each eligible-CI pixel from various available channels, for current data and data from previous slot.

BTDs taken into account are

WV6.2-WV7.3,
WV6.2-IR10.8
IR10.8-IR8.7
IR12.0-IR10.8,
IR13.4-IR10.8

Then, BT (IR10.8) and BTD trends are calculated for each eligible-CI pixel using the speed and direction of updated 2D movement field as guidance for identifying pairs of current and corresponding pixels in previous image.

When tracking of aggregated pixels (belonging to a tracked cloud system as object) is available, corresponding trends are used for some parameters instead of single pixel-trends, and should be able to provide trends over longer depth.

Interest fields

Each eligible-CI has then a list of BT and BTD values and trends. According to previous studies about convection initiation, parameters are grouped as:

Representative for Cloud-top Glaciation

IR10.8 Brightness temperature, Time spent below freezing level, IR10.8-IR8.7 BTD

Representative for Cloud depth / vertical extension

WV6.2-IR10.8 BTD , IR13.4-IR10.8 BTD , IR12.0-IR10.8 BTD

Representative for Cloud growth (updraft)

All BTDs trends , IR10.8 BT trends

Pre-CI pixels have at least one significant relevant value (see table below).

Parameter name

Relevant value

Meaning

BT IR10.8

> -25°
> -20°C

Brightness temperature (glaciation)

BTZG

Within 30min

Time since crossing 0°C (glaciation)

BTD4

]-10° , 0°C[

IR10.8-IR8.7 (glaciation)

BTD

]-35° , -10°C[

WV6.2-IR10.8 (height)

BTD6

]-25° , -5°C[

IR13.4-IR10.8 (height)

BTD5

]-3° , 0°C[

IR12.0-IR10.8 (height)

TxBT 15’

] -4°/15’ , -50°/15’[

Temperature change rate (growth)

TxBT 30’

] -4°/15’ , -50°/15’[

Temperature change rate (growth)

TxBTD 15’

> 3°/15’

BTD 15 Trend (growth)

TxBTD 30’

BTD 30 Trend (growth)

TxBTD4 15’

]0°/15’ , 10°/15’[

BTD 15 Trend (growth)

TxBTD5 15’

]0°/15’ , 10°/15’[

BTD 15 Trend (growth)

TxBTD6 15’

> 3°/15’

BTD 15 Trend (growth)

CI-diagnosis parameters are a subset of Pre-CI parameters : In the last step, only some parameters will be analyzed for a CI-diagnosis.

CI diagnosis

CI-diagnosis should be derived from statistical models using Interest fields’ values of pre-CI pixels. Those models will rely on a specific ground truth (high reflectivity from radar data, convective cells from RDT-CW, lightning data). In logistic regression a pixel that belongs to a convective path during a given period will be considered as ground truth. Such a tuning has been postponed to the next release.

Current CI output is estimated with empirical rules defined by count of relevant criteria. The v2016 version proposes this possibility only. The principle is to sum up the number of relevant parameters (i.e. above relevant threshold given in the table above) by group, giving greater importance to growth family parameters, then glaciation parameters, and finally vertical extension (height) group.

Nb of Growth relevant parameters (over 3)	Nb of Glaciation relevant parameters (over 3)	Nb of Height relevant parameters (over 4)	Result
>or= 2	>or= 3	>or= 4	HIGHPROB
		>or= 3	MODPROB
		< 3	LOWPROB
	>or= 2	>or= 4	MODPROB
		>or= 3	LOWPROB
		<3	VLOWPROB
>or= 1	>or= 3	>or= 4	MODPROB
		< 4	LOWPROB
	>or= 2	>or= 4	LOWPROB
		>or= 3	VLOWPROB
0	>or= 3	>or= 3	LOWPROB
		<3	VLOWPROB
Other cases			0

Empirical rules for CI-diagnosis. HIGHPROB means between 75 and 100%, MODPROB between 50 and 75%, LOWPROB between 25 and 50%, VLOWPROB between 0 and 25%

The output product

Data are provided in a NetCDF format.
The final product concerning CI includes probability of Convective Initiation for 30min, 60min and 90min ranges (resp ci_prob30, ci_prob60 and ci_prob90 Netcdf container). But for this v2016 release, only the first range (ci_prob30) is initialized, other ranges present undefined data.
Data are encoded regarding the correspondance table below.

code	ci_prob30 container
0	no probability to become thunderstorm
1	0-25% probability to become thunderstorm in the next 30minutes
2	25-50% probability to become thunderstorm in the next 30minutes
3	50-75% probability to become thunderstorm in the next 30minutes
4	75-100% probability to become thunderstorm in the next 30minutes

Example of CI probability for next 30min. Here a value of 3 stands for a probability of 75%

The Current CI-Netcdf format is described in detail in the Document Output Format (DOF) of SAFNWC.

The configuration file

Input Data

        SEV_BANDS         channel bands to be used by PGE WV62 WV73 IR87 IR108 IR120 IR134

        CT                        0(default) or 1 if using CT product for additional attributes Cloud Type and Cloud Phase
        CMa                     0(default) or 1 if using CT product for masking non cloud pixels
    HRW                    0(default) or 1 if using HRW product as guess data for movement estimation

NWP data parameters

        NWP_PARAM NWP_SP             Surface pressure : resolution(1) and interpolation method(BLI)
        NWP_PARAM NWP_2T             2m temperature
        NWP_PARAM NWP_2D             2m dew point temperature
        NWP_PARAM NWP_2RH          2m relative humidity (when available)
        NWP_PARAM NWP_SGEOP      Surface geopotential height
        NWP_PARAM NWP_ALTM        altitude of ground (when available)
        NWP_PARAM NWP_T       temperature at pressure levels specified in nwp_conf_file
        NWP_PARAM NWP_RH            relative humidity at pressure levels specified in nwp_conf_file
        NWP_PARAM NWP_GEOP        geopotential height at pressure levels specified in mwp_conf_file
        NWP_PARAM NWP_UW           U component of wind at pressure levels specified in nwp_conf_file
        NWP_PARAM NWP_VW           V component of wind at pressure levels specified in nwp_conf_file
        NWP_PARAM NWP_LI             Lifted index (when available)
        NWP_PARAM NWP_KI    K index (when available)
        NWP_PARAM NWP_SHW   Showalter index (when available)

        NWPMVTLVL        Pressure level of U/V NWP data as guess data for movement estimation (recommanded 850hPa)

Detection parameters

        TCOLD           cold temperature threshold when multiple thresholding, deg Celsius. Recommended temperature is -25 degC
        TWARM         warm temperature threshold when multiple thresholding, deg Celsius. Recommended temperature is 10degC
        DELTATEMPE temperature step between Tcold and Twarm, deg, default 1
        SMIN             min detection area , km2, default 1. Recommended value is 1
        SMAX            max detection area , km2, default no limit. Recommended value is 10 000

Additional options

DBG More precise Informations on program running, default 0 (no information)

The Documentation

SAFNWC user documentation for PGE18:

Product User Manual
Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document
Validation Report

Parameter name	Relevant value	Meaning
BT IR10.8	> -25° > -20°C	Brightness temperature (glaciation)
BTZG	Within 30min	Time since crossing 0°C (glaciation)
BTD4	]-10° , 0°C[	IR10.8-IR8.7 (glaciation)
BTD	]-35° , -10°C[	WV6.2-IR10.8 (height)
BTD6	]-25° , -5°C[	IR13.4-IR10.8 (height)
BTD5	]-3° , 0°C[	IR12.0-IR10.8 (height)
TxBT 15’	] -4°/15’ , -50°/15’[	Temperature change rate (growth)
TxBT 30’	] -4°/15’ , -50°/15’[	Temperature change rate (growth)
TxBTD 15’	> 3°/15’	BTD 15 Trend (growth)
TxBTD 30’		BTD 30 Trend (growth)
TxBTD4 15’	]0°/15’ , 10°/15’[	BTD 15 Trend (growth)
TxBTD5 15’	]0°/15’ , 10°/15’[	BTD 15 Trend (growth)
TxBTD6 15’	> 3°/15’	BTD 15 Trend (growth)