GOES-R ABI smoke imagery for the Proving Ground
J. Braun, Louis Grasso and Don Hillger
GOES-R ABI will have the ability to produce imagery at 0.47 µm (blue) and at 0.67 µm (red). Although GOES-R will be unable to produce any images at 0.555 µm (green), color imagery can still be generated with certain techniques. These techniques can be tested through the use of synthetic GOES-R ABI imagery. Synthetic imagery refers to satellite imagery of numerical model output. Shown in Figure 1 is an example of synthetic GOES-R ABI color imagery over southern California for 23 October 2007. On this particular day, southern California was experiencing wildfires. As a result, smoke properties were used to include smoke in the synthetic imagery. Each of the above listed bands were reproduced followed by the RGB combination that led to the color image seen in Figure 2. Smoke detection with GOES-R ABI will exceed current GOES capabilities as thin smoke plumes are only visible during low sun angle periods, while GOES-R will be able to highlight these areas during the entire daylight period. This is due to the inclusion of a band at 0.47 µm (blue).
Figure 1: Synthetic GOESR-ABI color imagery over southern California for 23 October 2007.
Figure 2: Synthetic GOESR-ABI color imagery over southern California for 23 October 2007 with smoke.