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GOES: Geostationary Orbiting Environmental Satellite
Satellite (~36,000 km altitude)
period ( 24 hours for each orbit)
Always above same location.
Must orbit at 36,000 km near the equator so it is hard to get a detailed image of
Earth’s surface.
Good for big picture and helps forecasters assess the general state of the weather.
POES: Polar orbiting satellites.
(~840 km altitude)
Period (~100 minutes for each orbit)
Much more detail in images. As the earth spins satellite covers a different area each
orbit. Takes about 12 hours to get a full image of Earth from space.
Infrared (IR) measurements work at all hours (day or night) and can give
in indication of cloud top temperature. High clouds are cold and appear
white on an IR image. Low clouds are warmer and appear gray.
GOES Visible
Middle latitude cyclone
(low pressure system)
White: thick clouds
Gray: thin clouds
GOES IR
Middle latitude cyclone (low
pressure system)
White: high clouds
Gray:: lower clouds
Color enhance IR image to capture highest clouds.
IR image inferring water vapor amounts.
Much of this detailed surface temperature data is based on IR
measurements acquired by POES
TRMM data comes from a POES mounted instrument
http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/overview_dir/background.html