Non-meteorological Applications for Next Generation Geostationary Satellites

The deployment over the next few years of a constellation of advanced meteorological satellites in geostationary (geo) orbit, with their improved spectral, spatial and temporal resolution sensors, opens up a world of new possibilities for continuous monitoring of the high-temporal dynamics of the land, oceans and atmosphere, addressing a broad range of societal challenges, particularly in combination with moderate resolution low Earth orbit (LEO) observing satellites.

This community aims to explore these opportunities and develop applications that realise the potential of these data streams.

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Land

Time series from next generation geostationary satellites present opportunities to extract new and unique information in support of disaster response and management, Land Surface Temperature (LST) and surface energy balance monitoring, and vegetation process/carbon cycle observation, among many others.

Atmosphere

A number of atmospheric products are currently being generated including cloud and aerosol properties and water vapour, with additional products under consideration.

Oceans

There are numerous ocean applications that can be achieved with measurements of Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and ocean colour including physical processes such as tides, monitoring and forecasting of flood plumes and algal blooms, data assimilation of biological phenomena, and water quality and river plume monitoring.

Background

While the primary mission of the new GEO satellites is to support operational meteorological services, they offer opportunities for non-meteorological applications that can enhance and complement the LEO-based applications that have been the workhorse for monitoring of the broader environment. The characteristics of the advanced GEO sensors complement current moderate resolution LEO sensors, approaching the LEOs in spatial and spectral resolution while offering far greater temporal resolution, and complementary view and illumination geometries.

GEOs can fill gaps in LEO coverage due to cloud. They are particularly well suited to monitoring rapid changes in the land surface (such as snow, burns and harvest), ocean (such as ocean color, including algal blooms and sediment plumes, and sea surface temperature), and non-meteorological characteristics of the atmosphere (such as aerosol, including smoke and dust events, ozone and potentially air quality).

Unique GEO-LEO Opportunities

Even further enhancements in observation capability can potentially come from applications that use data from both the advanced GEO and LEO sensors together, by exploiting their complementarity. Possibilities include merging the finer spatial resolution of the LEOs with the fine temporal resolution of the GEOs, or exploiting the availability of simultaneous observations with different view or illumination conditions, and the fusion of GEO and LEO products into global products that address sampling issues at high latitudes.

Gap and Purpose

The development of meteorological applications of the advanced GEOs is well addressed by the meteorological community. The development of non-meteorological applications from the advanced GEOs, including in conjunction with LEOs, is a new area of EO application development that shows much promise but will benefit from a systematic survey of the potential applications, their benefits and capacity to meet societal needs, and their relationship to other EO applications.