Advanced Performance of Himawari-8 Onboard Imager AHI (Invited Presentation)

The Himawari-8 geostationary meteorological satellite managed by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) began operation at 02 UTC on 7 July 2015, replacing the previous MTSAT-2 operational satellite. Himawari-8 was launched on 7 October 2014, and JMA subsequently conducted testing and checking of the satellite and related systems. During the commissioning phase, Himawari-8's capacity for superior earth monitoring with multi-band, high-resolution and high-frequency observation was verified. Himawari-8 features a new imager onboard named the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) with 16 spectral bands (3 bands in the visible spectrum, 3 in near-infrared, and 10 in infrared respectively). Full-disk imagery will be obtained every 10 minutes, and “regional scanning” at 2.5-minute intervals will be conducted over several regions. The AHI's horizontal resolution will also be double that of the MTSAT series. These significant improvements will bring unprecedented levels of performance in the monitoring of tropical cyclones, rapidly developing cumulonimbus clouds and volcanic ash clouds for the enhancement of prevention and mitigation of weather-related disasters, and also weather prediction in the East Asia and Western Pacific regions as past JMA's Himawari series satellites have done over 35 years.