GEOSTATIONARY METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITE - IMAGERY (ATLAS)

H. Hsu (National Taiwan U., Taiwan)

Announced availability: 1 August 1993

Data Access

A Geostationary Meteorological Satellite (GMS) Images Atlas is available upon request from Dr. Huang-Hsiung Hsu at the National Taiwan University.

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 atlas compiles the twice-daily GMS images which were received by the Central Weather Bureau of Taiwan, Republic of China, and the 1000 mb vector winds based on the 2.5 x 2.5 Basic Level III data (30N - 30S, 90E - 180) from the ECMWF/TOGA model. The vector at the bottom right corner (30 S, 180 E) is the reference vector, not representing true wind.

For more information, please contact:

Huang-Hsiung Hsu
Department of Atmospheric Sciences
National Taiwan University
61, ln 144, Sec 4 Keelung Rd.
Taipei, 10772
Taiwan

email: hsu@asalpha1.as.ntu.edu.tw
Phone: (88) 62-365-4298
FAX: (88) 62-363-3642

Acknowledgment

Thanks go to Ms. Tseng, Mr. Sheh, Ms. Ding and the subtropical data lab for their assistance in producing this atlas. This project is sponsored by the National Science Council grant, NSC 83-0202-M002-004.

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