New Satellites, New Sensors, New Products: COMET's MetEd Training Resources to Assist with User Readiness

The COMET® Program (www.comet.ucar.edu), a part of the UCAR Community Programs (UCP) at UCAR, leverages funding from NOAA NESDIS, EUMETSAT and the Meteorological Service of Canada to develop and deliver 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 created 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 S-NPP/JPSS, GOES-R, and COSMIC-2. Right now more than 80 satellite-focused, self-paced, online materials and resources are freely available via the MetEd Web site by accessing 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 languages other than English.

This presentation will highlight the most relevant interactive multimedia satellite offerings that are directly applicable to preparing users for new satellite capabilities, data and products. New mini lessons developed in support of the National Weather Service’s Satellite Foundational Course for GOES-R will be shown. 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 English, Spanish, and Portuguese 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 wish 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 and new emergent training in support of the Community Satellite Processing Package (CSPP).

We will also introduce new training options for users needing to learn more about radio occultation and the COSMIC missions. The presentation will conclude with an overview of forthcoming satellite training activities.