![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() One well-known example, the 1900 Galveston Hurricane, struck residents in Galveston, Texas, without warning. Without it, prediction of powerful storms over the oceans was difficult, sometimes leading to disastrous outcomes. We refer to this capability as “imaging.” While imaging provides valuable information for all types of storms, this ability was extremely notable early in the development of environmental satellites for use in forecasting and monitoring hurricanes. Below is a discussion of the types of data collected by environmental satellites, followed by an overview of the two principal orbits flown by environmental satellites and the capabilities provided by flying each.Īn obvious and unique capability of environmental satellites is their perspective – from space, satellites can see the Earth from afar, allowing meteorologists to watch storms and their development through the movement of clouds and water vapour. Weather forecasting with environmental satellitesĮnvironmental satellites provide various types of data to meteorologists and are flown in different orbits in space. Finally, we will conclude with a discussion of the next generation of US environmental satellites, and what these improvements will mean to meteorologists and the public they serve. Next, we will discuss the evolution of environmental satellites in the United States, from essentially a camera in space to today’s extremely capable sampling and imaging devices. In this article, we will first discuss the use of environmental satellites by meteorologists for weather forecasting, from both polar-orbiting and geostationary environmental satellites. The five decades since 1963 have seen great advancements in the capabilities of environmental satellites, as well as in the abilities of the scientists to use them, and today we are on the cusp of an exciting new generation of environmental satellites. When the World Weather Watch (Few observations existed across large expanses of the Earth’s oceans and sparsely populated regions, leaving meteorologists with little of the information they needed to make accurate forecasts. For all of these reasons, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has long recognized that environmental satellites are essential to meeting its mission to protect life and property, and why it will continue to maintain and improve this critical capability. They make atmospheric observations that are ingested into numerical weather prediction (NWP) computer models and provide meteorologists with images of weather phenomena that allow them to monitor storms around the globe, identify volcanic ash and smoke from wildfires, and track hurricane development. These “eyes in the sky” constantly orbit above us. While today’s environmental satellites serve many important functions, one of the most critical is to provide meteorologists with data that are crucial to making accurate, life-saving weather predictions. By Derek Hanson 1, James Peronto 2 and Douglas Hilderbrand 3 ![]()
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