New and Updated Environmental Satellite Education Resources from COMET

The COMET^® Program (www.comet.ucar.edu), a part of the UCAR Community Programs, receives funding from NOAA NESDIS as well as EUMETSAT and the Meteorological Service of Canada to support education and training in satellite meteorology. These partnerships enable COMET to create educational materials of global interest on polar-orbiting and geostationary remote sensing platforms.

Over the last several years, COMET's satellite education programs have focused on the capabilities and applications of current and next-generation operational polar-orbiting and geostationary satellites and their relevance to operational forecasters and other user communities. By partnering with experts from the Naval Research Laboratory, NOAA-NESDIS and its Cooperative Institutes, Meteorological Service of Canada, EUMETSAT, and other user communities, COMET stimulates greater use of current and future satellite observations and products.

This presentation provides an overview of COMET's recent satellite training and education efforts, including our international collaborations. New lessons are available on the Suomi NPP VIIRS imager and its applications; the GOES-R ABI imager and the improvements it will bring to forecasting, numerical weather prediction, and environmental monitoring; advances in nighttime visible observation with the Suomi NPP VIIRS Day Night Band; and inferring three dimensions from water vapor imagery. A new regional study guide for aeronautical forecasters in Africa has lessons that focus on the use of satellite images and products. Other recently published lessons present conceptual and operational information on tropical mesoscale convective systems, cyclogenesis, atmospheric composition, atmospheric dust, atmospheric rivers, and other phenomena.

Several earlier lessons have been updated. These include Monitoring the Wildland Fire Cycle and RGB Products Explained in the Multispectral Satellite Applications series, two basic lessons on remote sensing (one for forecasters and university students, the other for high school and undergraduate students and the general public), and a lesson on Advanced Satellite Sounding: The Benefits of Hyperspectral Observation.

COMET also continues to co-produce lessons on weather forecasting in Africa. The latest set focuses on aviation forecasting and covers fog, clear air turbulence, and convection.

Over 60 satellite-focused, self-paced, online materials are freely available via the Satellite Topic area of the MetEd Web site (www.meted.ucar.edu/topics/modules/satellite) and COMET's Environmental Satellite Resource Center (ESRC) Web site (www.meted.ucar.edu/esrc). The ESRC is a searchable, database-driven Web site that provides access to nearly 600 education, training, and informational resources on Earth-observing satellites. The ESRC is available outside COMET's registration system for easy access.