5.12 Geostationary Meteorological Satellites

5.12 Geostationary Meteorological Satellites

Geostationary meteorological satellites are launched under the WWW (World Weather Watch) project organized by the WMO (World Meteorological Organization), which will cover all the earth with five satellites as shown in Figure 5.12.1.

The five geostationary meteorological satellites are METEOSAT (ESA), INSAT (India), GMS (Japan), GOES-E (USA) and GOES-W (USA). The schedules for these satellites are shown in Appendix 1.

As of 1991, METEOSAT-5, INSAT-1D, GMS-4 and GOES-7 are in operation.

GMS-4 has a sensor called VISSR (Visible and Infrared Spin Scan Radiometer) with two bands of visible and thermal infrared. The VISSR scans four lines for the visible band and a line for the thermal band simultaneously from the north to the south, which takes 25 minutes to cover the semi-sphere as shown in Figure 5.12.2.

The total scan lines are 10,000 lines for the visible band and 2,500 lines for the thermal band.

GMS has a data collection platform (DCP) system to collect various information, not only from the ground station, but also from the stations on the sea as shown in Figure 5.12.3.

The image data are transmitted to the ground station in a high resolution mode of S-VISSR signals, and also in a low resolution mode of WEFAX, which can be received by cheaper and simpler receiving facilities. Some statistical data such as histograms, cloud volumes, sea surface temperatures, wind distribution and so on, are recorded in the archives including the ISCCP (International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project) data set.