Applications of the 16 spectral bands on the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI).

Abstract

The Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) on the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-R series has 16 spectral bands. Two bands are in the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum, four are in the near-infrared, and ten are in the infrared. The ABI is similar to advanced geostationary imagers on other international satellite missions, such as the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) on Himawari-8 and -9. Operational meteorologists can investigate imagery from the ABI to better understand the state and evolution of the atmosphere. Various uses of the ABI spectral bands are described. GOES-R was launched on 19 November 2016 and became GOES-16 upon reaching geostationary orbit. GOES-16 is the first in a series of four spacecraft that will host ABI. GOES-16 became operational on 18 December 2017, in the GOES-East location. The ABI improvement is two orders of magnitude more than the legacy GOES imager due to more spectral bands and finer spatial and temporal resolutions.