‘SEVIRI Physical Retrieval’ products of NWC SAF

• Chapter II: List of products and their definition with examples
•  
• List of SPhR products
•  
• Definitions of the meteorological parameters
•  
• Examples of the output – (18 August 2011)

List of SPhR products

Main products

Water vapor content:

• Total Precipitable Water (TPW):
  Water vapor content in the whole vertical column, from surface to tropopause
• Layer Precipitable Water vapor content in three layers:
  
  • Precipitable Water in the Boundary Layer (BL): from the surface to 850 hPa,
  • Precipitable Water in the Middle Layer (ML): from 850 to 500hPa
  • Precipitable Water in the High Layer (HL): from 500 hPa to the tropopause

Instability indices:

• Lifted Index (LI)
• Showalter Index (SHW)
• K-Index (KI)

Additional outputs:

Difference images between the satellite-retrieved parameters and their values if they are calculated from the background NWP fields.

Quality flags

Optional outputs:

Background, first guess and satellite-retrieved humidity and temperature profiles. (Note that the algorithm retrieves the temperature and humidity profiles first and then calculates the precipitable water and instability parameters from them.)