Preparing to Exploit GOES-R and JPSS: A Guide to Using Education and Training Resources from COMET

The COMET® Program (www.comet.ucar.edu), a part of the UCAR Community Programs (UCP) at UCAR, receives funding from NOAA NESDIS as well as EUMETSAT and the Meteorological Service of Canada to support education and training in satellite meteorology. For nearly two decades, COMET's satellite training activities have focused on developing web-based materials that highlight the capabilities and applications of current and next-generation geostationary and polar-orbiting satellites. These lessons are developed to assist users to prepare for satellite advancements and new products, and demonstrate their relevance to operational forecasters and other user communities. Most recently we have been creating materials to help users prepare to exploit advancements associated with both S-NPP/JPSS and GOES-R. Right now more than 80 satellite-focused, self-paced, online materials and resources are freely available on the MetEd Web site via the direct topic link http://www.meted.ucar.edu/topics/satellite. This wealth of material is available as both individual lessons and multi-lesson courses. Due to global interest and thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, many lessons and courses are available in English, Spanish and French.

Per the conference themes, existing training materials related to remote sensing applications for ocean monitoring and climate science as well as how satellite data contribute to numerical weather prediction will be demonstrated. We will also highlight the most recently published interactive multimedia satellite offerings that are directly applicable to preparing users for the arrival of new satellite data and products including lessons developed in support of the National Weather Service's Satellite Foundation Course for GOES-R. These materials, like all others, are available to all members of the weather enterprise via the MetEd website (http://meted.ucar.edu). Additionally, longer lessons that are available in both English and Spanish that introduce the revolutionary ABI imager and Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) will also be shown. All users of satellite data and products can use these training materials to gain exposure to the improvements that these and other instruments on board GOES-R will bring to decision support, short-term forecasting, numerical weather prediction, and environmental monitoring.

Likewise our presentation will include an overview of the training opportunities readily available for those that need to learn more about polar-orbiting platforms such as Suomi-NPP and the advancements associated with the impending JPSS missions. Highlights will demonstrate training opportunities for forecasters to learn about the new Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) imager and the exciting related advances in visible observation at night! We will conclude by sharing our plans regarding future satellite training activities.