GEOSTATIONARY METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITE - IMAGERY

T. Nakazawa (MRI, Japan)

Announced availabilty: 1 October 1993
Last modified: 20 October 1995

Data Access

Geostationary Meteorological Satellite (GMS) images are available on one CD-ROM from Tetsuo Nakazawa at the Meteorological Research Institute (MRI), Japan.

Background

GMS-4 is a Japanese satellite in geostationary orbit over the equator at approximately 140E. The satellite is equipped with the Visible and Infrared Spin Scan Radiometer (VISSR) imaging sensor, which uses the spin motion of the satellite to scan the earth in the East-West direction. GMS begins a North-South scan every hour on the half hour, with four additional scans daily for wind estimation. At the satellite subpoint, the visible (0.5-0.75 um) channel has a resolution of 1.25 km and the infrared (10.5-12.5 um) channel has a resolution of 5 km. This gives approximately 10,000 visible and 2,500 infrared lines and samples for each full-globe image. The visible channel is digitized at 6 bits and the infrared channel at 8 bits. The S-VISSR telemetry is transmitted digitally at 1.7 GHz with a bit rate of 660 kbps. Detailed documentation on the GMS satellite and the VISSR can be found in the GMS User's Guide.

Data File Information

The data, collected every hour, have a spatial resolution of approximately 11 km, with a coverage period from 01Z, 1 November 1992 to 00Z, 1 March 1993, and a coverage area from 15N-15S, 130E-180.

For more information, please contact:

Tetsuo Nakazawa
Meteorological Research Institute
JMA
1-1 Nagamine, Tsukuba
Ibaraki 305
JAPAN

email: nakazawa@mri-1.mri-jma.go.jp
Phone: (81) 298-51-7111 ext 518
FAX: (81) 298-51-1449

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