Group for Earth Observation

No 68 - December 2020

Category-2 Hurricane Zeta, imaged as it approached the Louisiana coast by NOAA 20 on October 28, 2020, wasthe record-breaking eleventh named storm to make landfall on the continental United States this year.
Image © NASA Worldview

Useful User Groups

GEO MANAGEMENT TEAM
Director and Public Relations
Francis Bell,
Coturnix House, Rake Lane,

Weather Satellite Reports
This group provided weekly reports, updates and news
on the operational aspects of weather satellites.

https://groups.io/g/weather-satellite-reports

Milford, Godalming, Surrey GU8 5AB,
England.
Tel:

01483 416 897

email: francis@geo-web.org.uk

SatSignal
This end-user self help group is for users of David
Taylor’s Satellite Software Tools, including the orbit
predictor WXtrack, the file decoders GeoSatSignal and
SatSignal, the HRPT Reader program, the remapper
GroundMap, and the manager programs - MSG DataManager, GOES-ABI Manager, AVHRR Manager etc.

https://groups.io/g/SatSignal

General Information
John Tellick,email: information@geo-web.org.uk

GEO Newsletter Editor

MSG-1
This forum provides a dedicated area for sharing
information about hardware and software for receiving
and processing EUMETCast data.

https://groups.io/g/MSG-1

Les Hamilton,
email: geoeditor@geo-web.org.uk

Technical Consultant (Hardware)David Simmons

GEO-Subscribers
This is the official group is for subscribers of the Groupfor Earth Observation (GEO), aimed at enthusiasts
wishing to exchange information relating to either GEO
or Earth Observation satellites.

https://groups.io/g/GEO-Subscribers/

email: tech@geo-web.org.uk

Webmaster and Website Matters
Alan Banks,e-mail: webmaster@geo-web.org.uk

Management TeamDavid Anderson
Rob Denton
Nigel Evans
Clive Finnis
Carol FinnisPeter GreenDavid SimmonsDavid Taylor

www.geo-web.org.uk

2

Les HamiltonA

s a year like none other draws to a close, perhaps we canall look forward to a brighter future as vaccines against
COVID are proving successful. Another light on the horizon is theprobable launch of Russia’s Meteor M2-3 satellite near the end of
the year.

Meanwhile, as lack of daylight degrades satellite imagery, it
is worth investigating Meteor M2’s infrared channel. An
example image, showing superior land detail at this time of theyear, is reproduced on page 22.

For those among the readership who ﬁnd themselves having
to spend more time than they would like in their homes
this winter, there is an opportunity for a construction project,courtesy Ed Murashie. Ed retired earlier this year, and hasbusied himself building up an HRPT Ground Station fromscratch. You can read all about this on page 10, and Ed will behappy to help anyone else keen on following in his footsteps via
the ‘Messages’ section of the GEO-Subscribers group.

F

inally, everyone on the Management Team sends readers ourvery best wishes for Christmas and New Year. With news of
COVID vaccination commencing before Christmas, there is at lastreason to hope for a return to normalcy before next summer.

Contents
Quarterly Question
Francis Bell
Medicane Ianos
European Space Agency
Iran’s Rainbow Island
NASA Earth Observatory
Fires Char the Pantanal
Experimenting with HRPT
Ed Murashie
Successful launch for Sentinel-6 Mission
NASA
Video Conferencing to the Rescue
Ed Murashie
Spalte Splits
NASA Earth Observatory
Large, deep Antarctic Ozone Hole in 2020
NASA Eqarth Observatory
Giant Berg on collision course for South Georgia European Space Agency
Vatnajökull, Iceland
European Space Agency
Record Breaking Atlantic Hurricane Season
Les Hamilton
Naming Atlantic Storms and Hurricanes
Les Hamilton
Satellite Status

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Francis Bell
Quarterly Question 67
My usual thanks to members who responded to thelast Quarterly Question which related to identifying asatellite image of cloud free Iceland.
When reading some background information about
Iceland I learned that it is one of a few countries
which does not have its own army. The countryof Costa Rica being another example of a country
without its own army. An explanation for the lack ofarmies in these two example countries was provided
in a member’s answer to the Quarterly Question, andit certainly widened my perspective as to how suchsmall countries try to maintain their independence.
Below is the informative answer I received to thesecond part of the question, from Richard Hoover ,one of our readers in the USA.
“Neither Costa Rica nor Iceland maintains a military.
Rather they rely on the United States and otherselect members of NATO for provision of military
assistance in the event of a threat. I have abstracted
the relevant sections of the NATO / US Collective
Defense Arrangements pertinent to Iceland andCosta Rica below:“U.S. Collective Defense Arrangements“The North Atlantic Treaty
This is a treaty, signed on April 4, 1949, by which theParties agree that an armed attack against one ormore of them, in Europe or North America, shall beconsidered an attack against them all; and each ofthem will assist the attacked party by taking forthwith,individually and in concert with the other Parties, suchaction as it deems necessary, including the use ofarmed force.
“PARTIES: United States, Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria,
Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia,
France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, ICELAND ,Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands,
Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovak Republic,
Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom“The Rio Treaty
This treaty, signed on September 2, 1947, provides
that an armed attack against any American State
shall be considered as an attack against all the
American States; and each one undertakes to assist
in meeting the attack.
“PARTIES: United States, Argentina, Bahamas,
Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, COSTA RICA
Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador,
Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama,Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad & Tobago, Uruguay,
Venezuela“As always a great magazine!”

Quarterly Question 68
This question, much harder than last time, asks
you to identify the lake illustrated opposite, which
is most certainly not one whose name will comereadily to mind. Here are some details to help you.
This lake is the seventh deepest lake in theworld and the tenth largest by volume (though
not in surface area); it is also the second largest
saline lake after the Caspian Sea. Although it
is surrounded by snow-capped peaks, it neverfreezes. It measures 182 by 60 kilometres and has
a surface area of 6,236 square kilometres.
Please send your answer to Francis Bell at theemail address
francis@francisbell.com

by February 26, 2021.

Can you identify this lake?
Image: NASA Worldview Snapshots

www.geo-web.org.uk

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Medicane Ianos
European Space Agency

Medicane ‘Ianos’ pictures approaching Greece by Sentinel-3 on September 17, 2020.
Image contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2020), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

The Copernicus Sentinel-3
mission captured this imageof a Mediterranean hurricane,or ‘Medicane,’ crossing the
Ionian Sea and approaching
Greece on September 17, 2020
at 10:48 CEST. Medicane
Ianos, is imaged shortly before
making landfall over Greece
where it brought hurricaneforce winds and heavy rain.
Medicanes are similar in form
to hurricanes and typhoons,but can form over cooler
waters. While hurricanes movefrom east to west, medicanes
move from west to east andare generally less powerful.
Three people were reported
to have died after the storm
swept across Greece, flooding
streets and homes and cutting
power. Hundreds of people
became trapped as Cyclone
Ianos,hit areas north of Athens
before heading south.

www.geo-web.org.uk

Train services linking thenorth and south of thecountry were cut off and as
Ianos progressed eastwards
in the early hours, the cityof Karditsa in Thessaly waslashed by winds that peaked
at 120 kilometres per hour,
downing power lines andtriggering landslides. Some
5,000 homes in the citywere reportedly affected byflooding, while roads were also
damaged.

5

The Meteor M2 satellite reactivated its LRPT infrared channel on September 30, 2020, and Rob Bale was quick totake advantage by creating this rainfall image via Meteor GIS, showing a band of heavy showers crossing the UK.

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6

Iran’s Rainbow Island
NASA Earth Observatory
Story by Adam Voiland

With its colourful soils, salt caves and mountains, andochre-stained streams and beaches, Iran’s Hormuz island
is rich with memorable geology.
The island is a salt dome—a teardrop-shaped mound ofrock salt, gypsum, anhydrite, and other evaporites thathas risen upward through overlying layers of rock. Rocksalt, halite, is weak and buoyant, so it loses its brittlenessand flows more like a liquid when under high pressure.
The rising mass is not purely made of salt. Embedded
within it are layers of clay, carbonates, shale, and iron-richvolcanic rocks, some of which have taken on vivid shadesof red, yellow, and orange as they moved upward andinteracted with water and minerals from other rock layers.
The concentric ring structure of the uplifted salt dome
is visible in this natural-colour image acquired by the
Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8. Uplifted
halite is widespread near the central and southern twothirds of the island, which appear reddish amid outcropsof weathered volcanic rocks that appear grey. The tan
northern third of the island is covered by a layer ofsand and other sediment that was deposited by otherprocesses.
The ochre soils on the island have proven appealing tocooks, artists, and miners alike. Locals reportedly use
the red soil to season a certain type of bread. Groups
of artists have used it to create expansive sand carpets.
Sand from a mine in the northern part of the island has
also been used in paints, cosmetics, ceramic tiles, and forthe exteriors of buildings.
One non-geological feature of the island stands out
in the image: At its northern end, a small inlet hosts a
concentrated patch of mangroves that appear green.
Known locally as a hara forest, the area serves as habitat
for numerous types of fish, molluscs, crustaceans, andmigratory birds.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using
Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

www.geo-web.org.uk

7Fires Char the PantanalNASA Earth Observatory
Story by Adam Voiland

This natural colour image of the Pantanalshows smoke plumes from wildfires.

This false colour image of the Pantanal
highlights active fires and charred terrain.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS/LANCE and GIBS/Worldview and Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

The Pantanal, a vast floodplain in South America, isamong the largest wetlands in the world. The mosaic
of grasslands, shrub lands, forests, marshes andlakes covers an area as large as West Virginia. It ishome to thousands of species, including many thatare rare and endangered, such as jaguars, giant riverotters, hyacinth macaws, and giant armadillos.
Though the number of ranches and cattle pastures
has increased on the plateaus that surroundthe Pantanal in Brazil, Paraguay, and Bolivia,
the floodplain itself has remained mostly free ofdevelopment in recent decades. But in the past
few years, the Pantanal has faced a new challenge:
uncontrollable fire.
The 2019 fire season (July through October) was
unusually active, and a shortage of rainfall during
the 2020 wet season (December through April) meant
Pantanal wetlands never had a chance to recharge.
That made it easier for fires to continue burning
throughout the first half of the calendar year, whenfire activity is typically minimal in this region.
The unusually dry conditions have meant that many
fires that were lit intentionally—often to maintainpastures—have been escaping and burning without
control through Pantanal ecosystems. And oncesuch fires have started to spread rapidly and widely,
they can outpace the available infrastructure for
firefighters to contain or stop them.
The result is vast burn scars like those in the falsecolour images above. Both images were acquired on

August 27, 2020, by the Operational Land Imager(OLI) on Landsat 8. The left hand image shows thescene in natural colour: the second image combines
shortwave infrared, near-infrared, and green light(bands 7-5-2) to highlight active fires (bright red),land that has been charred (darker red), and intact
vegetation (green). Although this may appear to be
one continuous burn scar, the image actually showsburn scars from multiples fires. The oldest fireburned a portion of the scene in April 2020: two of
the others were started in July.
Smoke has, at times, spread far from the sourceof these fires. On September 6, 2020, thehigher-resolution Moderate Resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite
captured the image reproduced on page 9, showing ariver of smoke streaming south from the Pantanal.
Though fires have been burning sporadically in
the Pantanal since the beginning of 2020, it was inJuly and August—the beginning of the dry season—
when fire activity surged. One analysis of NASAand NOAA satellite observations by the nonprofit
Instituto Centro de Vida reported 4,200 hotspots in
the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso in August 2020.
That compares to 71 in August 2018 and 184 inAugust 2019.
As of September 9, 2020, fires had charred an
estimated 24,000 square kilometres of the Pantanalregion in 2020, according to Douglas Morton, chiefof the biospheric sciences branch at NASA Goddard
Space Flight Center. The previous record was set

www.geo-web.org.uk

8This river of smoke streaming south from the Pantanal was imaged by NASA’s Terra satellite on September 6, 2020.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS/LANCE and GIBS/Worldview andLandsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

in 2005, when satellites detected the burning of
4,600 square kilometres in the biome.
“That is an extraordinary amount—more than
10 percent of the Pantanal—and we still haveseveral weeks to go until the start of the wet
season,” said Morton. “The Pantanal has had
fires before, but what is happening this year
is extreme and unprecedented in the satelliteera.”
The large number of thermal anomalies, or
hotspots, detected by satellites does not meanthat each is a separate fire. Most of the hot
spots detected in the Pantanal since mid-Julywere associated with large fires that spread fromjust nine initial starting points, according to an
Instituto Centro de Vida (ICV) report. As seen in
the Landsat images on the previous page, severalof the fires began in the municipality of Poconé,
between the Transpantaneira Highway and theParaguay River, explained Paula Bernasconi of
ICV.

Though it is impossible to determine from satellite
data the precise cause of every fire, experts who
study South America say that many of the large
dry season events this year were most likely
triggered by human activities.
Fires are routinely used by farmers in theregion to clear vegetation from new and existing
pastures, explained Renata Libonati of the Federal
University of Rio de Janeiro. Burning trash is also
common, and fisherman regularly light campfires.
Normally such activities would create small,short-lived fires that are barely visible to satellite
sensors like MODIS. But in dry conditions, suchfires can easily escape and spread.
While some of the savanna-like grasslands andshrub land areas of the Pantanal are well adapted
to fire, other parts are home to plants and animals
that could experience lasting damage. There isparticular concern about fires that have entered
Encontro das Águas park, which is home to manyjaguars.

www.geo-web.org.uk

9Experimenting with HRPT
Ed Murashie

What I love about our weather satellite
hobby is that there are aspects foreveryone. They can be working on
hardware, software, learning about its
history, studying satellite meteorology,
or simply looking at beautiful images.
For me it is the hardware aspect.
When it came time to setup a polarsatellite high resolution picturetransmission (HRPT [1]) station fora recent conference, I chose notto go with my old station but with a
new design. This is the story of thatadventure.
Antennas
It all started with the antenna. As I
was going through my options, I kept
thinking about how simple my GOES
high resolution image transmission(HRIT) station was. Most hobbyists,
including myself, use a WiFi grid dishthat is 39” wide by 24” tall because
it is readily available and relatively
cheap.
Previously, I had bought a pack of five
for $125 on a popular auction site. In
the spirit of experimenting, after the
HRIT station was up and running,
I wondered if I could reduce theViterbi HRIT error rate by adding ¼”
hardware cloth to make it a full dish.
Indeed it did—by cutting the error
rate in half. The resulting fixed dish isshown in at lower right in figure 1.
Having four more WiFi dishes left, I
decided to cut one into thirds, take thetwo outside petals, and attach themto another dish to make a fuller dish.
The pieces are held together using
galvanized wire and epoxy.
An interesting fact about grid dishes
is that the grid acts as a filter. Fora linear signal like HRIT, the dish is
rotated so the dipole is aligned withthe signal polarity and the grids areparallel with the dipole. The linear
signal reflects off the grids and isreceived by the dipole. If the grids arerotated 90 degrees with the dipole inthe same position, a large portion of
the signal passes through the grid andis lost.

Figure 1`
The author’s antenna array. The small one at right is the fixed GOES dishfor HRIT, and the left one is the tracking polar satellites dish for (A)HRPT.

I decided to not take a chance on
the grid alone and see what thecircular polarized HRPT signal
losses might be, so the grid waslined with hardware cloth. A simple
2½ turn helix feed [2] made out of
8‑gauge copper wire with a 5” roundaluminum reflector was used. The
helix coil finished dimensions are
64 mm outside diameter and 51 mm
inter-winding spacing. The low
noise preamp directly connected tothe helix is my design based on a
Qorvo TQP3M9037 [3] ultra low noise
amplifier with a noise figure of 0.4 dB
and a gain of 20 dB. Another option
would have been to use a GOESSAWBird [4] amplifier. My amplifierwww.geo-web.org.uk

is housed in a Bud box located in a
twist storage container [5] with integral
seal. The feed is held in place with asingle center mount consisting of twotelescoping pieces of PVC pipe, ahose clamp to lock the pipes together
at the right focal distance, PVC fittings
and a pipe flange at the dish surface.
Tracking Mount
Next came the tracking mount. I havealways had good luck with Pelco
pan tilts, normally used for security
cameras, so I decided to stick withthat solution. A PT680-24P/PP rated
at 50 pounds with built-in azimuth andelevation feedback potentiometers
works great in this application. The10

www.geo-web.org.uk
Figure 2
The Author’s screen display with four programs active simultaneously

11dish mounts cleanly on the top plate and considering thelight weight I chose not to use counterbalances. Originally
I used a Yaseu G5400B AZ/EL controller to drive the
24 V AC pan/tilt but later experimented by modifying a
Pelco MPT24DT joystick controller to interface to a PC
computer. The modification consists of four CPC1976Y
solid state relays placed across the joystick switches andan op‑amp circuit connected to the pan/tilt potentiometers
to remove any offset and scaling issues.
A +6V and a +12V regulator are added inside the controller
to power the AZ/EL potentiometers and external tracking
interface board respectively. The tracking interface board
used is a Fox Delta ST3 board left over from my previous
system, and connects to the PC through a USB port and to
the MPT24DT through a 9‑pin D-connector.
A tracking program such as David’s Taylor’s WXTrack [6]sends the desired antenna coordinates to the ST3 board.
The ST3 measures the pan/tilt potentiometer voltages andcalculates the antenna’s current coordinates while driving
the motor relays to match the desired coordinates. The
ST3’s nice two‑line LCD displays the desired and current
azimuth and elevation coordinates. The pan/tilt is mounted
on two Pelco extensions so that when the dish is pointed
at the horizon, the bottom edge does not bottom-out on theroof.
To mount the antenna to the roof, a wood structure wasbuilt, painted and attached to the roof with two long roof
screws and caulking to prevent leaks. The wood structure
consisted of two triangle shaped pieces made from 2” x
6” lumber with an angle that matches the roof pitch, anda wood deck the antenna mount bolts to. The deck edge
closest to the roof is pulled slightly back so that waterflows down the roof and under the wood structure. The
antenna has been on the roof nearly a year and has stoodup to 50 mph Santa Ana winds.
Software
I was impressed with how well the software defined radio(SDR) dongle handled the HRIT signal and wondered if
there was Windows HRPT software out there. I was inluck: Raydel Abreu Espinet had written a free program
hrpt_rtl_noaa.grc, based on the GNU Radio package. Byrunning WXTrack and Raydel’s decoder with either an
RTL-SDR or AirSpy Mini SDR, I was able to receive thefirst images on the new station.
Once again the experimenter in me wanted more,
and so the search was on for another program. I was
intrigued when I came across xHRPT [7] written by Joe atusa‑satcom.com. It claimed to decode NOAA-15, 18, 19,
MetOp-A, B, C, FengYun-3A, 3B, 3C and Meteor‑MN2
all for $150. The software installation was easy and it
was compatible with WXTrack and the AirSpy Mini SDR.
Spyserver—to serve the SDR data to xHRPT—was
installed next along with MetFy3x.exe which performs
additional post receive decoding of the MetOp, Meteor and
FenYun data.
To display the images my choice is David Taylor’s
ReadHRPT program. Figure 2 (page 10) shows thecomputer screen during a NOAA-19 pass after thesatellite passed overhead near 80 degrees and was within
10 degree of the horizon. Not bad for a cheap, lightweight,
40” dish! Starting in the top left screenshot (figure 2) andgoing clockwise, you see xHRPT Decoder, WXTrack, the xHRPT
receive signal strength plot and the XHRPT constellation/frequency
plot programs all running simultaneously.
Software operation is simple. You start WXTrack, choose
the satellite you want to receive and then run Spyserver.
Finally start xHRPT Decoder, click on the ‘Connect’ buttonin the Tracking section, set the Gain and then click on the‘Stream On’ button in the SDR section. When the satellite
comes up over the horizon, xHRPT selects the satellite
from the tracking program data, opens a time stamped file,receives and saves the data. When finished, if the data isfrom MetOp, Meteor or FengYun, run MetFy3x to further
decode the data. Finally open up HRPTReader and enjoy
scrolling through the channels.
To see the station in operation head over to my website [8]and play the video, and while there check out aninteresting comparison of HRPT visible Channel 2 andinfrared Channel 3 during the recent California wildfires [9].
It was created using the free Twenty20 Image Before-After
WordPress plugin and this simple one line command:[twenty20 img1=”601” img2=”600” width=”150%”
offset=”0.1” before=”NOAA-19 VISIBLE” after=”NOAA-19
CHANNEL 3” align=”left” direction=”vertical”].
I hope this has inspired you and given you someideas on building your own HRPT station. If you havequestions or want to share your experiments, you cando so on the GEO-Subscribers email group at

https://groups.io/g/GEO-Subscribers/topics
References
1 EUMETSAT Direct Dissemination
https://www.eumetsat.int/direct-dissemination
2 Other feed examples
http://members.inode.at/576265/equipment.html
3 QORVO TQP3M9037 LNA
https://www.qorvo.com/products/p/TQP3M9037
4 NOOELEC SAWbird+ GOES - Premium SAW Filter
https://www.nooelec.com/store/sawbird-plus-goes-302.
html
5 Container Store SKU#10078214 4-1/2” diameter x
3-1/2” high 22 oz container
6 David Taylor’s Weather Satellite Tools
https://www.satsignal.eu/software/wxsat.htm
7 USA-Satcom xHRPT decoder setup
https://uhf-satcom.com/blog/usa-satcom-xhrptdecoder-setup
8 Station Operation Video
http://proengineered.com/hrpt_station
9 USA West Coast Fires Imagery
http://proengineered.com/calfires

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12

Successful launch for the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich Mission
NASA
The Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite was successfullylaunched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, aboard aSpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, on November 21, 2020. This
joint venture by the USA and Europe has been designed
to monitor global sea levels and acquire critical ocean
measurements over the coming five years. About the sizeof a small pickup truck, Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich will
extend a nearly 30-year continuous dataset on sea level
collected by an ongoing collaboration of US and European
satellites while enhancing weather forecasts and providing
detailed information on large-scale ocean currents to
support ship navigation near coastlines.
Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich is named after former directorof NASA’s Earth Science Division, Michael Freilich. He wasa pioneer in oceanography from space, and dedicated hislife to a better understanding of the Earth, with the goal of
improving the lives of those who call it home.

An artist’s impression of the Sentinel‑6/
Michael Freilich satellite in orbit.
Image: NASA/JPL

Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich will measure sea level atcentimetre accuracy for more than 90% of the world’s
oceans to add to the long-term dataset that began with thejoint US-French TOPEX/Poseidon satellite in 1992. The
sea level monitoring effort has since continued through the
Jason-1, OSTM/Jason-2 and Jason‑3 missions, the last
launched in 2016 and currently still operational.

look at the stratosphere, the layer immediately above thetroposphere. An instrument on board the satellites uses
the Global Navigation Satellite System Radio-Occultation
sounding technique, which analyses changes in signals
from international global navigation system satellites todetermine atmospheric temperature and humidity.

A secondary objective of the mission is to measuretemperature and humidity in the troposphere, theatmospheric layer in which we live. The satellites will also

Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich and Sentinel-6B (due for launch
in 2025) compose the Sentinel-6/Jason-CS (Continuity ofService) mission developed in partnership with ESA.

Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich launches from Vandenburg Air Force Base on November 21, 2020
Photo: NASA /JPL

www.geo-web.org.uk

13Video Conferencing to the Rescue
Ed Murashie

One word that comes to mind this year is ‘adapt’. People
have had to adapt in the way they work, go to school andvisit their friends. One of the tools used to adapt is videoconferencing, which took getting used to for some. We
have all seen virtual backgrounds swallow up the person
talking, or the kids running around in the background, or
choppy videos because of slow Internet connections. But
once people became familiar with video conferencing it
really started having its advantages. No more getting on
a plane to fly off to attend a conference and having to pay
the conference, hotel, and food expenses. Instead you
have the convenience of being home and can pop in andout of a teleconference, if your kids let you!
I remotely attended two weather satellite related
conferences this year, the Satellite Educator’s Association
Conference in July and the Community Meeting on NOAA
Satellites in September. Here are some of the highlightsthat I think you will be interested in and where you can see
the recordings.
Satellite Educator’s Association Conference
The Satellite Educator’s Association Conference at Cal
State Los Angeles brings together teachers, student
teachers, and industry leaders to talk about satellite
related topics. The teachers and students learn where tofind satellite technology resources and how to use themto teach science, technology, engineering and math, also
called STEM. This year, instead of a two-and-a-half-day
conference, it was condensed into one and was held
online via Zoom.
For those that can receive GOES, checkout Steve Miller’stalk where he discusses the advantages of new GOES-R
satellite series and explains how they make a color image
without a green sensor. You might also be interested
in John Moore’s augmented reality Merge Cube talk.
Using a cube with different figures on each side and the
HoloGLOBE software running on your phone, you see
the cube replaced with an animation of the Earth. As you
move the cube, you move the view of the Earth. This
year instead of only being able to take one of my weather
satellite stations to the conference, I had the pleasure of
showing all of them so be sure to check out my talk on
APT, HRPT, HRIT and GRB. All the talks can be found on
the association’s website [1].
Community Meeting on NOAA Satellites
Without a doubt, NOAA has figured out video conferencing
and raised the bar. Not only were they using WebEx videoconferencing software but also Slido for taking polls andasking questions. It was also an interesting format. Not
only were they trying to convey information but they werealso soliciting input on a few subjects including what thefollow-on GOES-R mission should look like. They would
give a GEO-XO talk, then ask questions while taking polls

and finally answer the Slido questions that had been asked
during the talk. Slido was interesting in that you would ask
a question and others who see your question could ‘up
vote’ it. The speaker would then be sure to answer thequestions with the most votes before time ran out. For the
benefit of the folks overseas, condensed versions of the
day conferences were repeated at night which was moretime-friendly for them. I enjoyed the weeklong conference
because I could shift my work hours to later in the day.
There were many talks on the GOES-R follow-on
mission called GEO-XO, including “NOAA Satellites
and the Future” which started by showing some of thephenomenal weather events this year and ended witha GOES-R and GEO-XO timeline. “GEO Overview &GEO-XO Introduction” discussed GEO-XO planning withthe various orbit types, locations and use of commercial
satellites being considered. “Future NOAA Ground System
Evolution” and “Migration to the Cloud” struck fear into
those of us who enjoy working on the hardware: the goodnews is they plan on keeping GOES-R operational as longas possible.
The “GEO-XO User Engagement Effort” talk included
the phrase, “People don’t want a quarter inch drill, theywant a quarter inch hole” to describe why NOAA wants tounderstand what the scientists need and not just supply
any satellite. Even though you may not receive GOES,
you might be interested in the links to the Fire, Weather
Foresting, Human Health, Agriculture, Space Weather andOceans Workshops that were held and how scientist areusing satellite data for those applications. One day was
devoted to the science of satellite observations, with talks
on the lightning mapper, space weather, soundings andother satellite sensors.
And if you thought the conference was just about NOAA,
you will be happy to know there were talks from the
Korean, Japanese, Chinese, European, Canadian, andBrazilian meteorological agencies who gave an overview
of their current and future weather satellites.
The slides from each presentation are available on the
NOAA website [2]. I am sure you will find somethinginteresting in one or more of the over forty talks.
Now we just need to have a go at a GEO videoconference!
References
1 Satellite Educator’s Association Conference
https://www.sated.org/conferences/conf33.htm
2 Community Meeting on NOAA Satellites
https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/sat-community-2020

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On October 4, 2020, Storm Alex wreaked havoc in southern France and inflicted a full month of rain on parts of the UK in just 24
hours. This composite infrared Meteor M2 image of the storm was created by Joachim Scharrer.

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Spalte Splits
NASA Earth Observatory
Story by Kathryn Hansen.

1985 and 2020 images of the Spalte Glacier compared.

‘Spalte’ is a Danish verb meaning ‘to split’. The aptly
named Spalte Glacier in northeast Greenland once
branched from its parent glacier, Nioghalvfjerdsbrae(79 North), which is the Arctic’s largest remaining ice
shelf. In late June 2020, Spalte completely split off from its
parent and crumbled away into numerous icebergs.
Scientists have been watching Spalte Glacier crack, shed
ice, and retreat for decades. But the loss of 113 square
kilometres of ice in summer 2020 means that the branch offloating ice on the northeast side of 79 North is essentiallygone for good. Scientists say the recent loss of Spalte,
and the subtler changes to the adjacent 79 North, are partof a ‘progressive disintegration’ that has happened amid
unusually warm temperatures in recent years.
The pair of satellite images above show changes in theregion across three decades. The right-hand image was
acquired with the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on
Landsat 8 on July 24, 2020, nearly one month after Spalte
Glacier broke up. For comparison, the left-hand image
from Landsat 5 shows the same scene on August 16,
1986.
The icebergs in the 2020 image had already started
drifting north in Dijmphna Sound after breaking away on
June 30. More rifts, already visible just southwest of thecalving front, indicate that the 79 North floating ice tongue
is not in good shape,” according to glaciologist Christopher
Shuman.

Also visible in the 2020 image is a long, gray line withcurves that resemble the line plot from a seismograph;this is actually a seasonal river of liquid water that runs
along the top of the glacier. The location of the bends inthe river, which move with the glacier, can be correlated
to stationary rocky landmarks and used to track theoverall flow of the ice. For now, the ice at the main frontof 79 North in Nioghalvfjerd Fjord is relatively steady, but
recent research indicates further changes are likely to
come.
About six small islands and submerged rocky ‘pinningpoints’ help to hold the floating front of 79 North in place.
Two of the larger islands are clearly visible in theseimages. According to Shuman, another small island in
the northern fjord may once have been crucial for holding
Spalte Glacier in place during the 1970s. ‘This is the only
ice shelf I know of that is fronted by so many distinct
bedrock features,’ he stated.
Even after the loss of Spalte Glacier, 79 North remains the
Arctic’s largest ice shelf, measuring about 70 kilometreslong and 20 kilometres wide. Together with neighbouring
glaciers Zachariæ Isstrøm and Storstrømmen, the threeglaciers are part of the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream
and are the main outlets through which land-based ice canbe drained from a 200,000-square-kilometre section of theGreenland Ice Sheet.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using
Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

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Large, Deep Antarctic Ozone Hole in 2020
NASA Earth Observatory
Story by Theo Stein, NOAA, and Ellen Gray, NASA Earth Science News Team, with EO Staff

Persistent cold temperatures and strong circumpolarwinds supported the formation of a large and deep
Antarctic ozone hole in 2020, and it is likely to persist
into November, NOAA and NASA scientists reported.
On September 20, 2020, the annual ozone hole reached
its peak area at 24.8 million square kilometres (Mkm2),
roughly three times the size of the continental UnitedStates. Scientists also detected the near-complete
elimination of ozone for several weeks in a 6-kilometrehigh column of the stratosphere near the geographic
South Pole.
The map above shows the size and shape of the ozone
hole over the South Pole on September 20, the day of
its maximum as calculated by the NASA Ozone Watch
team. NASA and NOAA monitor the ozone hole via
complementary instrumental methods. NASA’s Aurasatellite, the NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite, andNOAA’s JPSS NOAA-20 satellite all measure ozone
from space. Aura’s Microwave Limb Sounder also
estimates levels of ozone-destroying chlorine.
This year brought the 12th-largest ozone hole (byNASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens, using dataarea) in 40 years of satellite records, with thecourtesy of NASA Ozone Watch and GEOS-5 data from the Global
Modeling and Assimilation Office at NASA GSFC.
14th-lowest ozone readings in 33 years of balloon-borne
instrumental measurements. However, scientists notedthat ongoing declines in the atmospheric concentration of
Atmospheric levels of ozone-depleting substancesozone-depleting chemicals (which are controlled by theincreased up to the year 2000. Since then, they haveMontreal Protocol) prevented the hole from being as large
slowly declined but remain high enough to produce
as it might have been under the same weather conditions
significant seasonal ozone losses. During recent years
twenty years ago.
with normal weather conditions, the ozone hole has
typically grown to a maximum of 20 mkm2 .
“From the year 2000 peak, Antarctic stratospherechlorine and bromine levels have fallen about 16
In addition to the area of the ozone hole, scientists also
percent towards the natural level,” said Paul Newman,
track the average amount of ozone depletion—how
an ozone layer expert and the chief Earth scientist atlittle is left inside the hole. On October 1, 2020, weather
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “We have a long
balloons launched from NOAA’s South Pole atmospheric
way to go, but that improvement made a big difference
observatory recorded a low value of 104 Dobson units
this year. The hole would have been about a millionof atmospheric ozone. NASA’s Ozone Watch reported
square miles larger if there was still as much chlorine ina lowest daily value at 94 Dobson Units on October 6.
the stratosphere as there was in 2000.”
Prior to the emergence of the Antarctic ozone hole in the
1970s, the average amount of ozone above the SouthThis year represented a dramatic turnabout from 2019,
Pole in September and October ranged from 250 to 350
when warm temperatures in the stratosphere and a weak
Dobson units.
polar vortex hampered the formation of polar stratosphericclouds (PSCs). The particles in PSCs activate forms of“The amount of ozone between 13 to 21 kilometreschlorine and bromine compounds that destroy ozone. Lastin altitude, as measured over the South Pole, has
year’s ozone hole was the smallest since the early 1980s,
been close to record lows at several points this year.
growing to 16.4 Mkm2 in early September.
“It’s about as close to zero as we can measure,”
said Bryan Johnson, a scientist with NOAA’s Global“This clear contrast between last year and this year
Monitoring Laboratory.
shows how meteorology affects the size of the ozone
Still, the rate at which ozone declined in September washole,” said Susan Strahan, a scientist with NASAslower compared with 20 years ago, which is consistent
Goddard and Universities Space Research Association.
with there being less chlorine in the atmosphere.
“It also complicates detection of long-term trends.”

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Giant Berg on Collision Course with South Georgia
European Space Agency

Image contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2017–20), processed by ESA; Antarctic Iceberg Tracking Database

The colossal iceberg that split from Antarctica’s
Larsen C ice shelf on July 12, 2017 is on a collisioncourse with South Georgia.
Over the last three years, satellite missions such as
Copernicus Sentinel-1 have been used to track the
berg as it has drifted in the Southern Ocean. For
the first two years it remained close to its parent ice
sheet, impeded by sea ice. But now, as the map above
illustrates, the main chunk of the A-68 berg, known as
A-68A, is heading rapidly for South Georgia. It is now
about 350 kilometres from the island.
About the same size as the South Atlantic island,
it could ground in the shallow waters offshore andcause real problems for the island wildlife and sea-

floor-dwelling life. Penguins and seals need accessto the sea to feed, so the iceberg could easily block
their foraging routes, and life on the sea floor could be
crushed if the berg grounds. The fear is that if the berg
does anchor against the South Georgia coast, it could
remain there for up to 10 years. When iceberg A38
grounded here in 2004, many dead penguin chicks andseal pups were found along the shoreline.
The map includes historic iceberg tracks, based ondata from a number of satellites including ESA’s ERS-1
and ERS-2 as part of the Antarctic Iceberg Tracking
Database, and shows that A-68A is following thiswell-trodden path. Hopefully, currents will take A-68A
around South Georgia and off to the northwest, andeventually break it up.

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Vatnajökull, Iceland
European Space Agency

ESA’s Sentinel-2 mission captured this image of the Vatnajökull ice cap on July 6, 2019.
This image contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2019), processed by ESA

Covering an area of around 8400
square kilometres (km2), which isthree times the size of Luxembourg,
Vatnajökull is not only classified
as the biggest glacier in Iceland,
but the biggest in Europe. With anaverage ice thickness of around
900 metres, the ice cap has about
30 outlet glaciers – many of which
are retreating owing to warming
temperatures. This summer time
image of the ice cap was obtained on
July 6, 2019.
The most prominent outlet glaciersof Vatnajökull include Dyngjujökull
in the north, Breiðamerkurjökull
and Skeiðarárjökull to the south.
Vatnajökull conceals some of the mostactive volcanoes in the country, of

which Bárðarbunga is the largest andGrímsvötn the most active. Periodic
eruptions of these volcanoes melt
the surrounding ice and create large
pockets of water, which can often
burst the weakened ice causing
glacial floods, or ‘jökulhlaup’ in
Icelandic.

In the bottom-right of the image, on
the southern side of Vatnajökull, theJökulsárlón glacial lake, dotted withicebergs, is visible. Jökulsárlón began
to form when the Breiðamerkurjökull
glacier began retreating from theAtlantic Ocean owing to risingtemperatures.

During these jökulhlaups, the glacier’s
meltwater carries sediments andsands composed of ash to the coast.
These outwash plains are called‘sandurs’ and are commonly found in
Iceland. Skeiðarársandur, the large
area of black sand, visible south of theSkeiðarárjökull outlet glacier, covers
an area of around 1300 km2 and wasformed as the glacial rivers in the area
washed ash and ice towards the sea.

The lake has grown considerably
over time because of the meltingof the glacier. It now covers an
area of around 18 km2, and with amaximum depth of around 250 m it
is considered Iceland’s deepest lake.
The lake connects with the ocean
and is, therefore, composed of bothseawater and freshwater—causing its
unique colour.

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Record Breaking Atlantic Hurricane Season
Les Hamilton
Hurricane Season 2005
For the first time, in 2005, the number of named storms
in the Atlantic basin outstripped the official list, and lettersof the Greek alphabet had to be pressed into service toextend the list of names. The 2005 hurricane season was
also notable for stretching past the nominal end date to
the very end of the year, when Tropical Storm Zeta wasconfirmed on December 30 of that year. Zeta was therecord 28th named storm of 2005, a total that included no
fewer than 15 hurricanes, also a record.

The Suomi-NPP satellite captured this image of Hurricane Eta
making landfall on Florida on November 8, 2020
Image: NASA Worldview Snapshots

subsiding to tropical storm status over Cuba and thenbriefly strengthening to a Category‑1 hurricane as it
approached Florida on November 11. It was the first
November storm to make landfall in Florida for 22 years,
bringing torrential rain to the south of the state. Eta finally
exhausted itself over the Atlantic Ocean on November 14.
Hurricane Eta was, at the time, the second-most intense
November Atlantic hurricane on record, behind only the
Cuba hurricane in November 1932.

Tropical Storm Zeta at peak intensity in the
open Atlantic on January 3, 2005
Image: Wikimedia / NASA

But records are made to be broken, and it was no surprise
when, on November 10, Tropical Storm Theta developed
southwest of the Azores in the eastern Atlantic, but wellclear of land, to become the record-breaking 29th named
storm of the year.

Hurricane Season 2020
The current hurricane season has broken all records.
Whereas Tropical Storm Zeta was little more than anafterthought in 2005, forming as it did on December 30,
this season’s Hurricane Zeta, pictured on the front cover,formed a full two months earlier, in late October. It was
already the 27th named storm of this season, and the 11th
hurricane. Zeta hit Louisiana as a Category-2 hurricane
with 170 kph winds which claimed six lives, disrupted
power supplies to over two million consumers andproduced heavy rain and a dangerous storm surge.
The 2005 record was soon equalled with the arrival of
Hurricane Eta. This long-lived storm ravaged Nicaragua
as a Category‑4 hurricane on November 3 before

Tropical Storm Theta, imaged on November 11 by NOAA 20
Image: NASA Worldview Snapshots

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And it didn’t stop there! On November 16, Hurricane Iota,
considered the most powerful storm ever to hit Central
America, bore down on Nicaragua and Honduras as a
Category 5 storm, with sustained winds of 260 kilometres
per hour. Iota was the thirty-first tropical cyclone, thirtieth
named storm, thirteenth hurricane, and sixth major
hurricane of the record-breaking 2020 Atlantic hurricane
season.
Iota was the only storm of the 2020 season to reach
Cartegory‑5, the highest status on the Saffir-Simpson
Hurricane Wind Scale, and at one point strengthened froma Category‑2 storm to a Category‑4 major hurricane within
the space of one hour, another record!
Hurricane Iota was the latest-season Atlantic hurricane
ever known to attain Category‑5 intensity, and only thesecond Category‑5 hurricane ever recorded within themonth of November—the other being the 1932 Cuba
hurricane. Iota caused severe damage to areas of Central
America already devastated by Hurricane Eta just two
weeks previously. According to initial reports, more than
38 people died during floods and landslides caused by
Iota, and nearly half million people in Guatemala andHonduras—189,000 of them children—were affected bythis latest storm. The strong winds and heavy rainfall
devastated crops, destroyed wooden buildings and ripped
the roofs from structures, and tens of thousands of people
were evacuated to government shelters for safety.

Hurricane Iota approaching Nicaragua on November 16, 2020
Image: NASA / Wikimedia

Naming Atlantic Storms and Hurricanes
Les Hamilton
Nowadays we are all familiar with the naming system for
Atlantic Tropical Storms and Hurricanes: an alphabetic
list of alternate girls’ and boys’ names that are applied inchronological order. But it wasn’t always so! Early in the20th century, only a few notable hurricanes were afforded
informal names related to where they impacted, suchas the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane and the 1938 New
England hurricane.
It was not till 1953 that names originating from the National
Hurricane Center came into force, initially based onphonetic alphabets, but the following year it was decided to
employ a list of female names for tropical storms. Six such
lists of names are currently maintained by the Hurricane
Committee of the World Meteorological Organization andare used successively in a six-year rota.
Each alphabetic list consists of 21 names only, the letters
Q, U X, Y and Z being deemed unable to support sufficient
meaningful names, and since 1979, they have comprised
alternate male and female names. Within the north Atlantic
Ocean, names are assigned by the National Hurricane
Center once a storm intensifies to tropical storm status(i.e., with sustained wind speeds of at least 39 miles perhour).
Until 2005 it had never been necessary to make use of
all 21 names, but that year the list became exhausted as
early as October 15 on the arrival of Hurricane Wilma a fullmonth before the official end of Hurricane Season (June 1- November 30). In the event, six further storms arose thatyear, invoking the contingency plan which uses the namesof the letters of the Greek alphabet, culminating with
Tropical Storm Zeta on December 30, to complete a thenrecord total of 27 named storms for the calendar year.
Retired Names
Although the lists of storm names are intended to repeat ina six-year cycle, there are exceptions. Where a hurricane
has proved particularly devastating, either because of thecost of damage incurred or the number of lives lost, its
name is retired and replaced. The deadliest storm to have
had its name retired was Hurricane Mitch, which struck
Central America on October 29, 1998, dropping almost two
metres of rainfall on Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua,
resulting in devastating flooding that claimed over ten
thousand lives.
In August 2005, category‑5 Hurricane Katrina had its nameretired after causing over 1,800 deaths and $125 billion indamage in the city of New Orleans and its environs.
More recently, in August 2017, Hurricane Harvey, despite
being only category‑4, tied with Katrina when it hit
Louisiana and Texas, also causing $125 billion of damage,primarily from catastrophic rainfall-triggered flooding in the
Houston metropolitan area and southeast Texas.

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With winter now starting to bite with widespread overnight frosts, infrared images from Meteor M2 become ever more interesting.
This image was acquired from the 18.57 UT pass on November 30, 2020 and shows Scotland enduring its coldest night.

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This Copernicus Sentinel-3 image acquired on September 10, 2020 shows the extent of the smoke plume over the western USA asclose on a hundred wildfires burned in the states of Washington and Oregon.
Image contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2020), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

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