88th Annual Meeting (20-24 January 2008)

Wednesday, 23 January 2008
Real-time display of simulated GOES-R experimental products
Exhibit Hall B (Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)
Donald W. Hillger, NOAA/NEDSIS/StAR/RAMM Branch, Fort Collins, CO CO
The next generation GOES (beginning with GOES-R) is planned for launch in the 2014 time frame. This new series of satellites will include improved spatial, temporal, spectral, and radiometric resolution. The last two characteristics are manifest by an increased number of spectral bands and increased precision for measurements from those bands. Because of the long lead-time needed to design, build, and test this new and complex satellite system, preparations for GOES-R for applications to analysis and forecasting mesoscale weather events are well underway. The approach for these “Risk Reduction” activities is to use data from existing operational and experimental satellites to create new products or improve on existing products, particularly for atmospheric and surface-related phenomena, using the additional resolution capabilities that will be available.

Initial emphasis has been placed on a daytime fog product and a blowing dust product. Other possible applications include monitoring of volcanic ash clouds and smoke from fires. Image products to detect these events exist, but they can be improved with the additional spectral coverage that will be available through the GOES-R Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI). Development work on new and improved products has been focused on the ABI-equivalent bands from MODIS and MSG data in particular. Testing of these experimental products will be run in real-time mode utilizing current GOES imagery, as well as MODIS and geostationary MSG data in particular to provide the spectral bands and temporal resolution that more closely match those to be available from GOES-R ABI. Experimental products are being sent to a GOES-R ABI Experimental Products web site (http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/products/goes-r/) so that these new products generated from simulated ABI imagery can be viewed by a wide audience and tested as analysis and forecasting tools.

Supplementary URL: