The ABI on GOES-R

The next generation geostationary satellite series will offer a continuation of current products and services and enable improved and new capabilities. The Advanced Baseline Imager on the GOES-R series has been designed to meet user requirements covering a wide range of phenomena. As with the current GOES Imager, the ABI will be used for a wide range of weather, oceanographic, climate, and environmental applications. The ABI will improve upon the current GOES Imager with more spectral bands, faster imaging, higher spatial resolution, better navigation, and more accurate calibration. The ABI expands from five spectral bands on the current GOES imagers to a total of 16 spectral bands in the visible, near-infrared and infrared spectral regions. There will be an increase of the coverage rate leading to full disk scans at least every 15 minutes. ABI spatial resolution will be 2 km for the infrared bands and 0.5 km for the 0.64 µm visible band. ABI will improve every product from the current GOES Imager and will introduce a host of new products. Current products include: retrieved Atmospheric Motion Vectors (AMVs), Quantitative Precipitation Estimates (QPEs), cloud parameters, clear-sky radiances, and surface (skin) temperature; and detection and characterization of fires, volcanic ash, fog and cloud-top information. ABI will also provide cloud-top phase/particle size information and improved snow detection, aerosol and smoke detection for air quality monitoring and forecasts. Other new products include vegetation monitoring and upper-level SO2 detection. SEVIRI (Spinning Environmental Visible and InfraRed Instrument) data from EUMETSAT (EUropean organization for the exploitation of METeorological SATellites), along with high-quality simulated data, are being used in a number of ways to prepare for the ABI data.