The Case for Improved Spatial Resolutions on the Next Geostationary Imager

The spatial resolution improvements moving from the legacy GOES imagers to those of the GOES-R era Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) have been critical to improved environmental monitoring, especially for severe weather and other hazards. These phenomena include cloud-top properties, overshooting tops, fires, fog, tropical cyclones, mesoscale vortices, turbulence, atmospheric motion, volcanic eruptions and more. For the infrared bands, the spatial resolution improved from approximately 4 to 2 km. There were other improvements to the imager, such as signal-to-noise ratio, bit-depth, calibration accuracy, more spectral bands, and higher temporal resolution. As fine as 2 km is, there is a need to improve to 1 km for at least some infrared bands. EUMETSAT's new imager, planned for launch circa 2021, will provide operational 1 km for both 3.8 and 10.5 micrometer bands. Given that many spectral bands are used together, a case could be made to improve the spatial resolution of other infrared bands. For example, to improve the detection of the sources of aircraft turbulence, improving the spatial resolution of several of the water vapor bands would be needed. Improvements on a future imager will require a balance of the attributes of improved spatial, spectral, and temporal resolutions with signal-to-noise, bandwidth, and other considerations. The goal for an improved future imager is to improve NOAA’s ability to save lives and property, and an improved imager with higher spatial resolution on certain spectral bands will help do just that.