ABI Imagery: From Beta to Full Maturity

America’s next generation geostationary imager, the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI), on the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-R series represents a major technological leap in capability for the GOES mission. GOES-R was launched, became GOES-16 in late 2016, and it became operational in late 2017. The ABI is a state-of-the-art 16-band radiometer, with spectral bands covering the visible, near-infrared and infrared portions of the electro-magnetic spectrum. Many attributes are improved on the ABI from the legacy GOES imagers, such as those relating to: spectral, spatial, temporal, radiometric, and image navigation/registration. This presentation highlights the improvements of the ABI over prior GOES imagers. Additionally, it will cover the process getting the GOES-16 ABI Cloud and Moisture Imagery Product (CMIP) from beta status, to operational, and to full maturity status. Finally, the current state of GOES-17 ABI imagery will be covered as the GOES-R Algorithm Working Group (AWG) Imagery Team continues to support the GOES-R Program on those efforts.