GEOS System News

The GMAO is pleased to announce that we will be upgrading our GEOS-FP assimilation and forecast system to GEOS-5.43.0 on February 26, 2026 starting with the 06:00 GMT forecast cycle.   This replaces GEOS-5.29.5, which has been the GEOS-FP version for more than two years.   The upgrade includes a new aerosol model (GOCART-2G) as well as enhancements to the atmospheric analysis.  Users who access the aerosol collections via direct HTTPS download or OpenDAP should be aware that there are changes to file specification with this upgrade that may impact your use of these products.  There are no changes to non-aerosol collections and there will not be any changes for users who access GEOS-FP via the FLUID visualization portal (https://fluid.nccs.nasa.gov/weather/).

The aerosol model update introduces brown carbon as a new aerosol family, explicitly provides the PM2.5 fields, and revises the treatment of anthropogenic emissions of aerosols and their precursors.   The changes in the observing system enhance consistency between the assimilation of radiance and radio occultation observations in the stratopause region (above 2 hPa), leading to an overall reduction in stratospheric temperature biases.  The updates amount to noticeable positive impact in the GEOS analysis and short-term forecast as evaluated through traditional skill-scores and observation residual statistics.  One minor deterioration in product quality is seen in the skin and lower atmospheric temperatures of the high Northern latitudes, especially over Greenland.

Please read the attached PDF file for more details about this upgrade. 
>> LINK TO PDF FILE <<

Users of the aerosols should also read the separate aerosol document at this link