Himawari / POMS Receiving and Processing Systems

Himawari / POMS Receiving and Processing Systems

Satellite data are received directly at the Kwajalein weather station and include the geostationary Japanese Himawari and several Polar-orbiting Meteorological Satellites (POMS). Himawari orbits above the equator at an altitude of approximately 35800 km (19330 nm) at a speed that allows it to remain over a fixed point on the equator (approximately 140.7 ^oE longitude). POMS satellites make a complete poleward orbit around the earth about 14 times per day at altitudes around 860 km (464 nm) and collect data as the earth spins beneath the satellite's orbit. Satellite data received and processed at the weather station include hyperspectral imager and sounder data (including visible, infrared, and microwave frequencies).  Real-time POMS data are ingested and processed automatically by the Direct Broadcast Processing System (DBPS) with further processing by the Community Satellite Processing Package (CSPP) to produce specialized products  The satellite data and products are then served to client workstations on site at the weather station and at the distributed operations offices for visualization, including animation, enhancement, and combination with other data sources, through the Man-computer Interactive Data Access System (McIDAS), a sophisticated software package created by the Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The Himawari satellite provides ten-minute infrared (IR), water vapor, and visible images of much of the Pacific Ocean region west of Hawaii. The resolution is 1 km in the visible wavelength and 4 km in the IR and water vapor channels.

There is a wide variety of products available from various sensors on the POMS systems. Product categories most frequently used are listed below and summarized with source satellite and sensors.

• Cloud bulk properties - including cloud top pressure, altitude, temperature, and emissivity to characterize tropical high clouds
• Cloud and aerosol microphysical properties - including optical thickness, effective particle size, and particle habit
• Precipitation - including rainfall rates to identify areas of significant precipitation embedded in deep cloud complexes
• Atmospheric profiles - to obtain sounding data at remote locations in the absence of radiosonde or rocketsonde soundings

Many of the products obtained from the polar-orbiting satellites are unique and cannot be obtained from current geosynchronous satellite systems or other technologies at RTS.