With Curtis Seaman, Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, CSU
When: 15th September 2021 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM MST
The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) will reach 10 years on-orbit onboard the Suomi-NPP satellite in late-October of this year. As the primary imager of the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) program, VIIRS collects observations of the Earth in 22 spectral bands ranging from the near-UV (400 nm) to the longwave-IR (12 μm). VIIRS contains 5 Imagery-resolution bands (~375 m resolution at nadir), 16 Moderate-resolution bands (~750 m resolution at nadir) and the revolutionary Day/Night Band (~750 m resolution across the swath). On-board Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20 (plus the JPSS-2 satellite scheduled to launch a year from now), each VIIRS instrument provides full global coverage twice a day, with ~50 min. temporal sampling of the polar regions. This presentation will discuss the utility of VIIRS imagery, focusing on two spectral bands that are not present on any existing geostationary satellite: the Day/Night Band, which provides visible-wavelength information at night, and the 1.24 μm band (M-8), which is particularly sensitive to the surface properties of snow and ice. The band M-8 is the key component of the recently developed Snowmelt RGB (shown in the image), which has utility for discriminating wet vs. dry snow, old vs. new snow, and even rain on top of snow. The Day/Night Band's unique ability to detect snow and ice at night is a boon to meteorologists and other operational users, particularly in the high latitudes where sunlight is absent during the long winters. In addition, a new tool for viewing VIIRS imagery will be discussed. Named Polar SLIDER, it is currently the only website that provides global VIIRS imagery in near-realtime and - thanks to two VIIRS instruments on-orbit - it provides a quasi-geostationary view of both poles.
How to join the seminar
Zoom
https://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/5409618610
IPhone one-tap
US: +16465588656,,5409618610#
Telephone
US: 1-646-558-8656
Meeting ID: 5409618610
International numbers available: https://zoom.us/u/MNl8z