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Image of IR sat with Blue Marble Linear IR Satellite - realtime (5 mb)

Real-time Infrared Satellite over Land

Description:

Geostationary infrared satellite images are used by meteorologists to determine where clouds are, but more importantly, how the clouds are moving. The infrared, IR, satellites work by measuring the infrared radiation that is emitted. Because the emitted radiation is proportional to temperature, the data are converted to temperature values, which can be useful for meteorologists. In comparison to clouds, the Earth's surface, even on very cold nights, is warm. When there are clouds, they absorb the radiation emitted by the Earth below and emit their own radiation at a much cooler temperature. Any area that has clouds shows up cooler than the ground, allowing meteorologists to detect the locations of the clouds. The height of clouds is inversely proportional to temperature, meaning that the tallest clouds are the coldest. It is often the tallest clouds that bring the most severe weather.

The satellites that collect these data are geostationary, meaning that they rotate at the same rate as the Earth so that the satellites are over the same spot on Earth all the time. This allows them to collect a continuous stream of data for one location so that "movies" of the data can be made. Over the United States there are two such satellites, the GOES (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites) - East and GOES-West. There are many such satellites worldwide. This dataset is a composite of GOES, Meteosat, and GMS satellite data. Meteosat and GMS are similar to GOES, but operated by other countries. This real-time dataset is shaded on a gray scale, meaning that the lowest clouds are a very light gray and the highest clouds are bright white. The "Blue Marble" is the background image for this dataset. Data for this visualization is available for the past thirty days.

Also available is a collection of biweekly IR satellite interpretations by NOAA scientists that can be used with this dataset. The interpretations are plain-language descriptions of notable climate and weather events visible in the cloud patterns of the two-week period indicated. Interpretations are posted every other Tuesday, and are available for the past six months. The interpretations are made available by the American Museum of Natural History, NOAA Climate Prediction Center, and NOAA National Climatic Data Center. To request access to this Google Docs collection please write Laura Allen at laura@amnh.org.

Notable Features:

  • Lowest clouds light gray and highest clouds bright white
  • Available in real-time

Data Category

Major: Atmosphere

Keywords:

Atmosphere, IR satellite, real-time, gray scale, satellite

Data Set NameLinear IR Satellite - realtime
Data Set Directory Namesat/linear
Data Set Source MTSAT
Data Set DeveloperFred Mosher, AWC
Steve Albers, NOAA/GSD
Visualization DeveloperSteve Albers, NOAA/GSD
AudioNo
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