The European Space Agency (ESA) began a geosynchronous satellite program (EurMetSat) in 1977 with Meteosat-1. All told, they have placed six Meteosats in orbit. These satellites sense in three spectral bands: 0.4 - 1.1 µm, 5.7 - 7.1 µm, and 10.5 - 12.5 µm. The left view, below, is a Meteosat-6 visible image over western Europe, made on April 28, 1997. Russia started a new geosynchronous weather satellite program (GOMS) in 1995. The bottom image is a GOMS-1 thermal band image over the Indian Ocean, made on February 28, 1995.
14-19: From an airplane, should you be able to see across the Strait of Gibralter on that February day? ANSWER
India and Japan have been active in designing, building, and launching metsats since the late 1970s. India's efforts began with the launch of Bhaskara 1 on June 7, 1979. There has since been two series (four each) of Insats (Insat-1A on April 10, 1988; Insat-2D in 1995), each with a visible and a thermal IR band. These are multi-purpose satellites also dedicated to communications and broadcasting. We show a representative Insat image (very few are available over the Internet) covering eastern Africa and southern Asia in the top image.
Japan commenced its Geostationary Meteorological Satellite (GMS) program (Himawari series) on July 14, 1977, sponsored by its National Space Development Agency (NASDA). Their two goals were to create an operational system and to contribute to the worldwide Global Atmospheric Research Program (GARP) effort. Positioned at 140° E, the current unit, GMS-5, with a VISSR in the visible, thermal IR, and water vapor band (6 mm), produces black and white, individual, full-Earth views and color composites, such as that shown on the right over the western Pacific.
14-20: Two large land areas, both of which we think of as commonly with minimal cloud cover are in the upper image above heavily overcast. What areas? ANSWER
By combining images from GOES, Meteosat, and GMS, we can construct almost real-time, distributed, cloud coverage of most of the Earth's surface (exclusive of the poles), as reproduced here in the visible for April 28, 1997:
14-21: For global synoptic coverage, what is the distinct advantage that the geostationary image composite has over a comparable effort using polar orbiting metsats? ANSWER
Primary Author: Nicholas M. Short, Sr. email: nmshort@epix.net
Collaborators: Code 935 NASA GSFC, GST, USAF Academy
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