NOAA shares first infrared imagery from GOES-17 satellite

While experts continue addressing an issue with the cooling system of GOES-17’s Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI), they have made progress in increasing the available observing time of the affected infrared channels. Due to adjustments in operating procedures, the ABI is demonstrating improved performance from initial observations.

This new imagery shows data are currently available from all 16 ABI channels. Channel availability will fluctuate seasonally depending on the amount of solar radiation absorbed by the instrument. During the instrument’s “cool” seasons (near the summer and winter solstice), all channels are expected to be available 24 hours per day. During the instrument’s “warm” seasons (before and after the vernal and autumnal equinox), experts estimate 7 channels (bands 1-7) will be available 24 hours per day and the other 9 channels (bands 8-16) will have outages of 2-6 hours per night. These estimates are preliminary and are still being refined. The warmest part of the season is coming up in early September and performance estimates will need to be confirmed through observation during that time.

This 16-panel image shows a snapshot of the continental U.S. and surrounding oceans from each of the Advanced Baseline Imager channels at 2:02 p.m. EDT on July 29, 2018. This includes, from top left to bottom right, two visible channels, four near-infrared channels, and ten infrared channels. Each channel has a specific purpose in discerning meteorological and environmental features. A number of features can be seen in this image, including clouds over the mid-Mississippi region and off both coasts, the warm land temperatures over the Western U.S., and atmospheric moisture. This imagery was captured between the instrument’s “cool” and “warm” season, when all 16 channels are available 24 hours per day. During the instrument’s “warm” seasons, varied data outages are expected for 9 of the channels during nighttime hours.

Infrared imagery is used to monitor aerosols, clouds, thunderstorms, hurricanes, rainfall, moisture, atmospheric motion, and volcanic ash. Among the channels that are expected to be fully available is the band that is used for fog/cloud identification at night and for fire/hot spot detection, which will be critical for forecasters in the western U.S.