Coordinated Efforts for using Himawari-8 AHI Data for the Earth's Environmental Monitoring

I like to overview the activities on the data analyses for the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) on board the Himawari-8 third generation geostationary meteorological satellite, through coordination by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) advisory committee for satellite data use with other research institutions and universities. Advanced multi-spectral and high frequency measurements by AHI produce a large volume of data that include ample information contents regarding not only the meteorological system but also the earth's environmental system. Thus, it has opened new applications of monitoring various phenomena of meso-scale cloud system, transboundary atmospheric material transportation, surface solar energy for renewable energy generation, ocean color, vegetation, and others. In order to extract a maximum information from the data, remote sensing algorithms must be elaborated by the maximum use of the research heritage with polar orbiting multi-spectral imagers such as MODIS, ADEOS-II/GLI, its second generation successor GCOM-C/SGLI, and others. Also, the progress on climate and environmental numerical modeling for forecasting and data assimilation for atmospheric constituents provide better constraints for remote sensing of these quantities. I like to show some preliminary results for these applications to discuss how the third generation satellite can improve the monitoring and modeling of the earth's environment.