In a joint effort, NCAR's Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology Division (MMM) and the Research Applications Program (RAP) have obtained a commercial system to receive and process the data transmissions from the new generation of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES). Funding for the equipment acquisition was provided by the NCAR Director's Equipment Fund. The goal of the project is to facilitate the use of modern satellite data by NCAR scientists.Although the system can receive data telemetry from either the Eastern (GOES-8) or Western (GOES-9) satellites, the system is currently set up for routine monitoring of the imagery from the GOES-8 satellite, covering the continental U.S., South America, and the Atlantic Ocean. With our own receiving station, NCAR is able to receive and process imagery from all five data channels collected by the satellites. Visible imagery is recorded at a native resolution of 1 km, while infrared data sets have a spatial resolution of 4 km. The system is also capable of receiving and processing multispectral data from the GOES sounding instrument.
For information about this system, contact David Johnson at MMM or investigate the new MMM Satellite Information web page. While the system is primarily designed as a research tool, real-time images from the system have already become one of the more popular features of the NCAR Web.