Nigel Atkinson

Nigel joined the Met Office in 1982, following a physics degree at Oxford University. For the first 6 years he was involved in the development of aircraft and balloon instrumentation for cloud physics and atmospheric chemistry research. From 1988-1990 he worked with the then newly-developed Arrival Time Difference (ATD) lightning location system, and more recently has been involved with updating the hardware and software of this system. In 1990 Nigel joined the remote sensing group that was responsible for the procurement, pre-launch calibration and post-launch support of the AMSU-B series of microwave radiometers. Since 2003 Nigel has been manager of the ATOVS and AVHRR Pre-processing Package (AAPP) which is a software package maintained by the NWP SAF on behalf of EUMETSAT. The package has several hundred users world-wide. The package transforms raw "direct readout" data from the NOAA and MetOp satellites into calibrated, geolocated radiances. He is also responsible for the operational pre-processing of sounder data in the Met Office for instruments such as ATOVS, IASI, ATMS and CrIS. Pre-processing can include calibration, format conversion, re-mapping, monitoring, etc. Nigel is actively involved in the International TOVS Working Group (ITWG) and the Direct Readout Acquisition and Relay System (DRARS) project. He has also contributed to studies on the requirements for future instruments on post-EPS and post-MSG.