Group for Earth Observation

No 77 - March 2023

This was the very first image transmitted from the now-retired Meteosat-8 geostationary weather satelliteUseful User Groups

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

GEO Newsletter Editor

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

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

Technical Consultant (Hardware)David Simmons
email: tech@geo-web.org.uk

Webmaster and Website Matters

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

Vacancye-mail: webmaster@geo-web.org.uk

Management TeamDavid Anderson
Rob Denton

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

Nigel Evans: nigel.m0nde@gmail.com
Clive Finnis
Carol FinnisPeter GreenDavid SimmonsDavid Taylor

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/www.geo-web.org.uk

2

Les HamiltonO

ne of the most signiﬁcant satellite launches for two decades occurred on December 13 lastyear when the ﬁrst of the Meteosat Third Generation satellites, MTG-I1 (now Meteosat-12 inorbit), took place from Korou in French Guiana. The MTG system heralds a magnitude shift in datacollection and dissemination. You can read an introduction to the new Meteosat constellation in our
article on page 8.

S

ince the December issue, much has happened word-wide: severe ﬂooding in both Australia
and New Zealand at the hands of Paciﬁc cyclones, with the north island of New Zealand inparticular suffering major damage to infrastructure. In the northern hemisphere there was analmost unprecedented ‘weather bomb’ event that brought paralysing Arctic cold to Canada and theUnited States, during which some locations experienced temperatures as low as minus 50 degrees
Celsius. Not even southern states like Florida and Texas escaped this crippling cold. And of course,
most recently, there were the devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria that claimed tens of
thousands of lives and caused incalculable damage to property.

Our thoughts go out to all who have been affected by these recent events, and hope that theyear ahead will bring better times for all.

Contents
NASA Launches SWOT Mission to Survey Earth’s Water
Icy Lake Paiku
Flooding Along Australia’s Fitzroy River
Introducing Meteosat Third Generation
Antarctica’s Brunt Ice Shelf Finally Breaks
Snow in the Sahara Desert in Algeria
World’s Longest Conveyor Belt System
Severe Winter Floods in Latvia
Lake Turkana
End of the Road for Meteosat-8
Probable Demise of Meteor M-N2
Phytoplankton Bloom around Falkland Islands
Racing to Mine Lithium
Fog in California’s Central Valley
Snowy Alps
Saba Island
Unprecedented Deluge Swamps Auckland
Cyclone Gabrielle Lashes New Zealand
Record 2022 Temperatures in Europe
Interferogram of the Anatolian Earthquake
Italian Apennine Mountain Range Covered with Snow
Siling Lake - Tibet
Weather Bomb brings Extreme Cold to North America
Orion Views Earth From Afar
Satellite Status

NASA
NASA Earth Observatory
NASA Earth Observatory
Les Hamilton
NASA Earth Observatory
Copernicus Image of the Day
NASA Earth Observatory
Copernicus Image of the Day
MODIS Web Image of the Day
Les Hamilton
Les Hamilton
MODIS Web Image of the Day
NASA Earth Observatory
MODIS Web Image of the Day
European Space Agency
NASA Earth Observatory
Les Hamilton
NASA Earth Observatory
Copernicus Image of the Day
Copernicus Image of the Day
Copernicus Image of the Day
NASA Earth Observatory
Les Hamilton
NASA Earth Observatory

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NASA Launches SWOT Mission to Survey Earth’s Water
NASA

The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) spacecraft was launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket
from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Friday, December 16, 2022.
Credits: NASA/Keegan Barber

A satellite built for NASA and the French space agency
Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES) to observenearly all the water on our planet’s surface lifted
off on its way to low-Earth orbit at 3:46 am PST on
December 16, 2022. The Surface Water and Ocean
Topography (SWOT) spacecraft also has contributions
from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the
UK Space Agency.
The SWOT spacecraft launched atop a SpaceX rocket
from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space
Force Base in California with a prime mission of three
years. The satellite will measure the height of water infreshwater bodies and the ocean on more than 90% ofEarth’s surface. This information will provide insights
into how the ocean influences climate change; how awarming world affects lakes, rivers, and reservoirs; andhow communities can better prepare for disasters, such as
floods.
After SWOT separated from the second stage of theSpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, ground controllers successfullyacquired the satellite’s signal. Initial telemetry reports
showed the spacecraft to be in good health. SWOT will
now undergo a series of checks and calibrations before it
starts collecting science data in about six months time.
‘Warming seas, extreme weather, more severe
wildfires – these are only some of the consequences
humanity is facing due to climate change,’ said NASA
Administrator Bill Nelson. ‘The climate crisis requires
an all-hands-on-deck approach, and SWOT is therealisation of a long-standing international partnershipthat will ultimately better equip communities so thatthey can face these challenges.’
SWOT will cover the entire Earth’s surface between
78 degrees south and 78 degrees north latitude at least
once every 21 days, sending back about one terabyteof unprocessed data per day. The scientific heart of thespacecraft is an innovative instrument called the Ka-bandradar interferometer (KaRIn), which marks a major
technological advance. KaRIn bounces radar pulses off
the water’s surface and receives the return signal usingwww.geo-web.org.uk

4

two antennas, one on either side of the spacecraft. This
arrangement—one signal, two antennas—will enableengineers to precisely determine the height of the water’ssurface across two swaths at a time, each of them
50 kilometres wide.

of the mission. ‘That SWOT will fill gaps in our
knowledge and inform future action is the direct
result of commitment, innovation, and collaboration
going back many years. We’re excited to get SWOT
science underway.’‘We’re eager to see SWOT in action,’ said Karen
St. Germain, NASA Earth Science Division director.
‘This satellite embodies how we are improving life on
Earth through science and technological innovations.
The data that innovation will provide is essential
to better understanding how Earth’s air, water, andecosystems interact—and how people can thrive on
our changing planet.’

More Mission Information
JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena,
California, leads the U.S. component of the project. For
the flight system payload, NASA is providing the KaRIn
instrument, a GPS science receiver, a laser retroreflector,
a two-beam microwave radiometer, and NASA instrument
operations. CNES is providing the Doppler Orbitography
and Radioposition Integrated by Satellite (DORIS)
system, the dual frequency Poseidon altimeter (developedby Thales Alenia Space), the KaRIn radio-frequency
subsystem (together with Thales Alenia Space and withsupport from the UK Space Agency), the satellite platform,
and ground control segment. CSA is providing the KaRIn
high-power transmitter assembly. NASA is providing
the launch vehicle and the agency’s Launch Services
Program, based at Kennedy Space Center, is managing
the associated launch services.

Among the many benefits the SWOT mission will provide
is a significantly clearer picture of Earth’s freshwater
bodies. SWOT will provide data on more than 95% of theworld’s lakes larger than 62,500 square metres and rivers
wider than 100 metres. Currently, freshwater researchers
have reliable measurements for only a few thousand lakes
around the world. SWOT will push that number into themillions.
Along the coast, SWOT will provide information on sea
level, filling in observational gaps in areas that don’t havetide gauges or other instruments that measure sea surface
height. Over time, that data can help researchers better
track sea level rise, which will directly impact communities
and coastal ecosystems.

References••

NASA SWOT website
https://www.nasa.gov/swot
SWOT Press Kit
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/press-kits/swot

SWOT Swath Data

Such an ambitious mission is possible because of NASA’s
long-standing commitment to working with agencies
around the world to study Earth and its climate. NASA
and CNES have built upon a decades-long relationshipthat started in the 1980s to monitor Earth’s oceans.
This collaboration pioneered the use of a space-based
instrument called an altimeter to study sea level with thelaunch of the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite in 1992.
‘This mission marks the continuity of 30 yearsof collaboration between NASA and CNES in
altimetry,’ said Caroline Laurent, CNES Orbital
Systems and Applications director. ‘It shows how
international collaboration can be achieved througha breakthrough mission that will help us better
understand climate change and its effects around theworld.’SWOT measurements will also help researchers,
policymakers, and resource managers to better assess
and plan for things, including floods and droughts. By
providing information on where the water is—where it’scoming from and where it’s going—researchers canimprove flood projections for rivers and monitor drought
effects on lakes and reservoirs.
‘SWOT will provide vital information, given theurgent challenges posed by climate change andsea level rise,’ said Laurie Leshin, NASA’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) director. JPL developed
the KaRIn instrument and manages the U.S. portion

Source: Yeosang Yoon with images from NASA

This diagram illustrates the swaths of data that SWOT willcollect. The interferometer will produce two parallel tracks,
with a Nadir track from a traditional altimeter in the gap
between the swaths. The overall width of the swaths will
be approximately 120 km.

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Icy Lake Paiku
NASA Earth Observatory
Story by Kathryn Hansen

Thousands of lakes dot the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau,
the planet’s largest and highest alpine lake system.
Sometimes called the ‘world’s largest water tower,’ theplateau supplies freshwater for billions of people living
downstream. Changes in lake levels can affect thisimportant water resource, as well as influence precipitationand temperature patterns in the region.
On February 19, 2022, an astronaut onboard theInternational Space Station shot this photograph of Lake
Paiku, a deep lake on the plateau’s southern reaches at
an altitude of 4591 metres. At the time of this image, ice
had formed on the lake’s shallower areas, primarily toward
the south. The lake’s depth gradually increases to about
60 metres in the southern half; in contrast, the northernhalf quickly reaches more than 70 metres deep.
The lake’s significant depth affects the timing of seasonalevaporation—one of the main factors that influences thewater budget of lakes with no outlets, such as Paiku.
Averaging 41 metres deep, Paiku can store more heatthan shallower lakes for much of the year. During themonsoon season (July to September), little evaporation,
combined with additions of water from rainfall and melting

glaciers, causes the lake levels to rapidly rise. After the
monsoon season (October to December), high evaporationand small additions of water cause lake levels to drop
significantly.
When ice covers the lake in winter, there is no significant
change in the water level, but there are other dynamics atplay. Research has shown that during these cold months,
the plateau’s lake water acts like a lens, accumulating heatfrom the region’s high amount of solar radiation. Whenthe ice breaks up, the heat is quickly released back to theatmosphere where it can influence local temperatures andprecipitation.
The plateau’s lakes have seen decadal changes, too, amid
warming temperatures, changing precipitation, shrinking
glaciers, and melting permafrost. Many lakes on theplateau’s interior have grown larger, while lakes toward theplateau’s south have been shrinking.
Lake Paiku, located in a southern dry belt near the slopeof the Himalayas, is one of the shrinking lakes. Scientists
estimate lake levels have declined by about four metres
since 1972, reducing its water storage by 8.5 percent.

Astronaut photograph ISS066-E-150477 was acquired on February 19, 2022
and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility
and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space Center.

www.geo-web.org.uk

6Flooding Along Australia’s Fitzroy River
NASA Earth Observatory
Story by Kathryn Hansen

Figure 1 - Fitzroy flooding on January 9, 2023

Figure 2 - The Fitzroy basin on December 30, 2022

NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS datafrom NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview

Starting on December 30, 2022, remnants of Tropical
Cyclone Ellie brought days of torrential rain andwind to northern Western Australia. The deluge
caused the Fitzroy River to swell to record-highlevels, inundating floodplains and isolating several
riverside communities.
The flooding is visible in figure 1, a false-colour
image acquired on January 9, 2023, with theModerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer(MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. Water appears
light to dark blue; vegetation is green and bare landis brown. Figure 2, acquired with Aqua MODIS on
December 17, 2022, shows the same area prior to
the storm.
Flooding is common along rivers of the Kimberly
region in Western Australia. But the amount of water
delivered by the ex-tropical cyclone was exceptional.
From December 30, 2022, through the first weekof January 2023, rainfall totals across the region
ranged from 200 to 500 millimetres.
As a result, the Fitzroy River’s flow rate reachedabout 60,000 cubic meters per second—well above
the 23,000 cubic meters per second usually seen
during floods on this river, and one of the highest
flow rates ever observed in any Australian river.
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology reported thatthe river’s water levels near the town of Fitzroy
Crossing peaked at a record-high of 15.81 metres on
January 4. That’s almost two metres higher than theprevious record attained during flooding in 2002.
The floodwater left many roads and bridges
impassable, isolating Fitzroy Crossing, Derby,
Broome, and many of the region’s remote indigenous
communities. Floodwaters around Fitzroy Crossing

Figure 3 - Floodwaters around Fitzroy Crossing on January 7
NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using
Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey

are visible in figure 3, a natural-colour image,acquired on January 7, 2023, with the Operational
Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8.
Tropical Cyclone Ellie first hit Australia’s
Northern Territory as a category-1 storm on
December 23, 2022. It then weakened into a
tropical low before moving into Western Australia
on December 30. By January 7, 2023, the former
tropical cyclone had moved back into the Northern
Territory and further weakened as it moved toward
Queensland.
The recent flooding in Western Australia follows
several severe flooding events that have occurred ineastern Australia during three consecutive years of
La Niña conditions. La Niña usually brings wetterthan-average conditions to the country. 2022 wasAustralia’s ninth-wettest year on record.

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7

Introducing Meteosat Third Generation
Les Hamilton

This is an artistic depiction of the MTG 3-satellite constellation in geostationary orbit around the Earth
Credit: ESA/Mlabspace, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

The Mission
Building on the long-standing partnership between
ESA and EUMETSAT, Meteosat Third Generation
will guarantee the continuity of data for weather
forecasting from geostationary orbit for the next two
decades. MTG is a cooperative venture between ESA
and EUMETSAT, in which ESA is responsible for thedefinition and implementation of the MTG satellites
and the procurement of recurrent hardware, while
EUMETSAT is in charge of operating the spacecraft
throughout its lifetime. The MTG satellites will
eventually replace the current Meteosat Second
Generation operational system at 0° longitude.

Following the successful launch of the first MTG-I
satellite, the first MTG-S will launch during 2024
and the second MTG-I in 2025. The remaining
three satellites will be launched around ten years
later to replace the first constellation, which has anominal life of 8.5 years but sufficient fuel to remain
operational for more than 10.7 years.
The combination of MTG’s innovative instruments,
along with their increased resolution and sensitivity,
is set to take weather forecasting to a new level,
particularly regarding the challenging task of early
detection and prediction of rapidly evolving andpotentially dangerous weather events such as severe
thunderstorms.

To meet its projected 20-year operational life, theMeteosat Third Generation mission comprises six
satellites: four Imaging satellites (MTG-I) and two
Sounding satellites (MTG-S). When fully deployed,
the system will include two MTG-I satellites
operating in tandem—one scanning Europe andAfrica every 10 minutes and the other only Europe
but every 2½ minutes—along with a single MTG-S
satellite which will provide fast local-area coverageover selected parts of Earth.

MTG-I1
The first MTG satellite, MTG‑I1 (i.e. MTG‑i‑one),was launched aboard an Ariane‑5 launcher from
Kourou in French Guiana on December 13, 2022.
This satellite carries two completely new instruments
designed to deliver high-quality data for the
improvement of weather forecasts.

The image above shows an artistic impression of
the three satellite constellation, with the two MTG-I
satellites at foreground and left and the single
MTG-S satellite on the right.

The instrument package carried aboard each of the
MTG-I satellites includes a Flexible Combined Imager(FCI) and a Lightning Imager (LI), plus systems fordata collection and search and rescue relay.

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8and deliver data images of selected regions every
2½ minutes, but for a tradeoff spatial resolution of
500 metres.
FCI offers significant enhancement in detection
capabilities with respect to radiometric, spectral andspatial resolution over its predecessor, the Spinning
Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI)
carried by its predecessor Meteosats, resulting in
improved forecasts and earlier prediction of severe
weather events. The additional channels on FCI will
improve the detection of thin cirrus clouds, aerosols,and localised fire events.
Schematic diagram of an MTG-I satellite
Credit: ESA

The Flexible Combined Imager unit undergoing testing
Image: ESA

Flexible Combined Imager (FCI)
Spectral
Bands
(µm)

Nadir
Resolution(km)Radiometric
Accuracy

VIS 0.4

1.0

5%

VIS 0.5

1.0

5%

VIS 0.6

1.0; 0.5 *5%VIS 0.8

1.0

5%

VIS 0.9

1.0

5%

NIR 1.3

1.0

5%

NIR 1.6

1.0

5%

NIR 2.2

1.0; 0.5 *5%IR 3.8 (TIR)

2.0; 1.0 *<0.1K as 300K

WV 6.3

2.0<0.3K as 250K

WV 7.3

2.0<0.3K as 250K

IR 8.7 (TIR)

2.0<0.1K as 300K

IR 9.7 (O3)

2.0

<0.3K as 250K

IR 10.5 (TIR)

2.0: 1.0 *<0.1K as 300K

IR 12.3 (TIR)

2.0<0.2K as 300K

IR 13.3 (CO2)2.0<0.2K as 270K

* indicates RSS Mode
Satellites

Three-axis stabilised satellites, each weighing
3600 kg (including almost 2 tonnes of fuel)Repeat Cycle
Full Earth Disc every 10 minutes

Dimensions

2.3 x 2.8 x 5.2 metres (launch conﬁguration)

Rapid Scan Service (RSS) every 2½ minutes

Instruments

Flexible Combined Imager (FCI),
Lightning Imager (LI), Data Collection and
Retransmission Service, Geostationary
Search and Rescue Relay (DCS/GEOSAR)

Frequencies available in the FCI

Power

2 kW

Life

Nominal design life 8.5 years(with fuel to last for >10.7 years)
MTG-I Specification

The Flexible Combined Imager (FCI)
FCI is an optical imager that will observe
16 channels in the visible and infrared spectrum,of which eight are placed in the solar spectral
domain between 0.4 - 2.2 μm. FCI will operate at
wavelengths between 0.3 - 13.3 μm, will have aspatial resolution of 1-2 kilometres, and will beable to scan the full Earth disc in 10 minutes. FCI
will also operate in a ‘high spatial resolution fast
imagery mode’ which can zoom in on smaller areas

The Lightning Imager (LI)
LI provides real-time data on the location andintensity of lightning flashes to enable more precise
forecasts of severe thunderstorms. The presence oflightning is a clear sign of atmospheric turbulence,
which can be associated with extreme weather
events. LI can detect all types of lightning: cloud
to cloud, cloud to ground, and intra-cloud flashes,
providing an advantage over ground based lightning
detection networks.
LI will offer a completely new capability for European
meteorological satellites by continuously monitoring
more than 80% of Earth’s disc. In so doing it will beable to detect severe storms in their early stages andwill therefore be key for issuing timely warnings. Its
detectors are so sensitive that they will be able todetect relatively weak lightning, even in full daylight.

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9

LI consists of four identical optical telescopes. These
will collectively and continuously measure at awavelength of 777.4 nanometres with a very narrow
bandwidth and a spatial resolution of 4.5 kilometres
at nadir, which will be triggered by optical pulses
above a threshold that are initiated by lightning.

Infrared Sounder (IRS)
IRwavenumber
(cm)

Nadir
Resolution
(km)

700

4

<0.5K at 280K

714

4

<0.5K at 280K

715

4

<0.4K at 280K

729

4

<0.4K at 280K

730

4

<0.3K at 280K

769

4

<0.3K at 280K

770

4<0.2K at 280K

1040

4

<0.2K at 280K

1118

4

<0.224K at 280K

1210

4

<0.35K at 280K

1600

4

<0.224K at 280K

1630

4

<0.2K at 280K

1750

4

<0.2K at 280K

1871

4

<0.269K at 280K

1980

4

<0.4K at 280K

2134

4

<0.757K at 280K

2175

4

<0.906K at 280K

MTG-S
The instrument package that will be carried oneach of the MTG-S satellites includes an InfraredSounder (IRS) and the Sentinel-4 ultraviolet visible
and near-infrared sounder, the latter part of the EU’s
Copernicus programme.
Satellites

Three-axis stabilised satellites, each weighing
3800 kg (including fuel)Instruments

Infrared Sounder (IRS), Copernicus Sentinel-4
ultraviolet visible & near-infrared mission
(UVN)

Power

2 kW

Life

Nominal design life 8.5 years (with fuel to lastfor >10.7 years)
MTG-S Specification

Infrared Sounder (IRS)
IRS is a hyperspectral infrared sounder set to
revolutionise weather forecasting by tracking the
3D structure of atmospheric water vapour andtemperature for the first time on an operational
basis. IRS includes the ozone band within the LongWave Infrared (LWIR) and the carbon monoxide bandwithin Medium-Wave Infrared (MWIR). This will allow
measurement within the free troposphere, leading
to information on enhanced levels of pollution in theboundary layer below.
IRS will provide vertical profiles of temperature andmoisture every 30 minutes over Europe: a world first.
The satellite will also be capable of providing localarea coverage over selected parts of Earth, with anincreased repeat cycle of just 15 minutes. IRS uses
interferometric techniques in two spectral bands,
LWIR at 8.26-14.70 μm and MWIR at 4.44‑6.25 μm,
with a spectral resolution of 0.625 cm-1 and a spatial
resolution of 4 × 4 kilometres.
Copernicus Sentinel-4 Sounder (UVN)The Copernicus Sentinel-4 Ultraviolet, Visible and
Near-infrared Sounder is dedicated to providing
hourly measurements over Europe of aerosols,ozone (03), nitrogen diozide (N02), sulphur dioxide(SO2) and other trace gases such as formaldehyde(HCHO) and glyoxal (CHOCHO), mainly for air quality
applications.
Nowcasting
Nowcasting in meteorology uses available weather
data to forecast, by extrapolation, for a period
just a few hours into the future. Satellite data isparticularly important in nowcasting because it
can pick out the size, shape, intensity, speed anddirection of movement of weather features on aRadiometric
AccuracyFrequencies available in the IRS

continuous basis. This can make it possible toforecast individual weather events with reasonableaccuracy.
The combination of the frequent, high resolution andhigh quality imagery and sounding products from
MTG will be a breakthrough for European forecasters
in their most challenging task, nowcasting. Thisis about detecting, in real time, rapidly developing
high-impact weather phenomena like thunderstorms,
predicting their evolution a few hours ahead andissuing timely warnings and advice to public andprivate decision makers. Nowcasting is critical for theprotection of life and property and vital sectors of theeconomy, in particular civil aviation.
Nowcasting relates to the monitoring and prediction,in quasi real time, of rapidly evolving and potentiallydamaging weather phenomena such as severe
thunderstorms. Earlier detection of such phenomena
will increase the available reaction time for issuingsevere weather warnings and implementing thenecessary measures to avoid potentially catastrophic
impacts. Improving warnings by a few hours can in
the more extreme cases be the difference between
safe evacuation of the public and significant loss oflife.
To achieve all its aims, the design of the MTG
satellites is based on a significantly different
approach compared with the first two generations of
Meteosat. Rather than implementing the spinning
satellite design adopted for the MSG‑1 and MSG‑2
missions, where the entire satellite rotated at one

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10

hundred revolutions per minute, the MTG satellites
accommodate their state of the art instruments ona three-axis stabilised satellite platform. This meansthat the orientation of the satellites remains fixedwith respect to Earth such that their instruments
continually point directly towards Earth’s disc. By
comparison, the instruments aboard the previous
generations of Meteosats actually spent less than 5%of their time pointing towards the Earth.
Prime
Contractor

Thales Alenia Space for overall
programme and MTG-I satellite; OHB for
MTG-S satellite

Project andcommissioning

Satellite design and development andrecurrent satellite builds managed at
ESA’s European Space Research andTechnology Centre (ESTEC) in the
Netherlands (on behalf Eumetsat)

Launchers

Ariane 5 from Kourou, French Guiana

Latest News
MTG-I1 successfully reached geostationary orbit,
nearly 36,000 kilometres above the Equator on
December 28, 2022. Following its release from its
Ariane-5 launcher, MTG-I1 entered the criticallaunch and early operations phase (LEOP). This
phase was performed on behalf of EUMETSAT by
Telespazio from the Fucino Space Centre in Italy.
During the LEOP, which lasted nearly 15 days, aseries of critical operations successfully deployed
the satellite’s solar arrays, manoeuvred it into
geostationary orbit, and deployed its communications
antennas from their stowed launch positions.
According to Seán Burns, EUMETSAT’s Director ofOperations and Services to Users:‘The LEOP confirmed the correct functioning of
MTG-I1’s core systems to generate its own power,change its orbit, and reliably communicate withthe ground’.
Now, EUMETSAT has control of a healthysatellite and will begin an intense 12-monthcommissioning phase. During the commissioning
phase, we activate and calibrate the satellite’s
payload instruments and validate the processingof the instrument data.
“After commissioning, MTG-I1 will move to its
final position over Europe, currently served by anolder satellite of the second generation Meteosat
series, and be declared operational. Then we will
begin disseminating MTG-I1’s crucial data thatwill transform the forecasting of severe weather
events in Europe and beyond.”
MTG-I1 will become fully operational towards
the end of 2023 and is the first of EUMETSAT’s
highly advanced and innovative third generationof Meteosat geostationary satellites that will serve
European users into the 2040s.
In a statement from EUMETSAT Director of
Programme Preparation and Development CristianBank, he stated:‘Meteosat Third Generation is EUMETSAT’s mostcomplex and innovative meteorological satellite
system so far,’‘When fully deployed, the MTG constellation of
two imagers and one sounder satellite will allow
meteorologists, for the first time, to track fromspace the full life cycle of convective storms – frominitial instability in the atmosphere to lightning
strikes.’
References
For more information about all aspects of the
Meteosat Third Generation programme, please
consult the following URLs.
All the following are active links: just click
to open in your internet browser
Meteosat Third Generation
https://www.eumetsat.int/meteosat-third-generation
MTG Ground Segment
https://www.eumetsat.int/mtg-ground-segment
Flexible Combined Imager
https://www.eumetsat.int/mtg-flexible-combined-imager-fci
Imaging Service
https://www.eumetsat.int/mtg-imaging-service
Lightning Imager
https://www.eumetsat.int/mtg-lightning-imager
Infrared Sounderhttps://www.eumetsat.int/mtg-infrared-sounderSounding Service
https://www.eumetsat.int/mtg-sounding-service
Sentinel 4
https://www.eumetsat.int/sentinel-4
MTG Data and Products
https://www.eumetsat.int/mtg-data
Introducing MTG
https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/
Meteorological_missions/meteosat_third_generation/
Introducing_MTG
EUMETSAT takes over control of its newest weather
satellite
https://www.eumetsat.int/eumetsat-takes-over-control-itsnewest-weather-satellite

www.geo-web.org.uk

11Antarctica’s Brunt Ice Shelf Finally Breaks
NASA Earth Observatory
Story by Kathryn Hansen

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

In February 2019, a rift spanning most of the Brunt Ice
Shelf in Antarctica appeared ready to spawn an iceberg
about twice the size of New York City. The question amongscientists was not if the growing rift would finish traversing
the shelf and break, but when? Now, nearly four years
later, it has done just that.
According to the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), thebreak occurred late on January 22, 2023, and produced
a new iceberg with an area of 1550 square kilometers.
The U.S. National Ice Center has named the Iceberg
A-81. The berg is visible in the image above, acquired on
January 24, 2023, with the Moderate Resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite.
The glacial ice in the shelf flows away from the interiorof Antarctica and floats on the eastern Weddell Sea. The
shelf has long been home to the British Antarctic Survey’s
Halley Research Station, where scientists study Earth,atmospheric, and space weather processes. BAS reported
that the station, which was relocated farther inland in2016 as the chasm widened, was unaffected by the recent
break.

The break occurred along a rift known as Chasm 1.
This chasm started growing in the 1970s, followed by aperiod of dormancy, and then resumed growth in 2012. It
continued to lengthen for almost a decade, extending by
as much as four kilometers per year in early 2019. But
even this growth spurt slowed. That is until the 2022‑2023
Antarctic summer, when the chasm speeded up andultimately broke past the McDonald Ice Rumples—asubmerged knob of bedrock that served as a pinningpoint for this part of the shelf. Several factors may havecontributed to the completion of the break, including alack of sea ice to help resist, or ‘push back’, against thestresses on the shelf ice in 2023.
A second image, shown on page 13, was acquired with the
Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8, and showsthe extent of Chasm 1 on January 12, 2021, about one
year prior to the break. Notice several other cracks acrossthe northeast part of the shelf.
The ‘new crack’ in that image ultimately separated in
February 2021 and formed Iceberg A-74.

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12

“The rapid formation ofsubsequent rifts—to long-standing
Chasm 1—and recent calving to
the northeast makes it clear thatthese shelf areas are dynamic withpoorly understood stresses,’ said
Christopher Shuman, a Universityof Maryland, Baltimore County,
glaciologist based at NASA’s
Goddard Space Flight Center.
The breaking (calving) of icebergs
from ice shelves is part of a natural,
cyclical process of growth and decay
at the limits of Earth’s ice sheets.
As glacial ice flows from land andspreads out over the sea, shelf areas
farthest from shore grow thinner.
These areas are stressed by storms
and tides, and thin as they are melted
from both above or below, ultimately
making them more prone to forming
rifts and breaking away.
As for the ‘new’ Brunt, it remains to be
seen how the complex floating glacial
ice responds to the most recent
calving event. According to Shuman:“We have no solid idea what ‘normal’
really is for this unusual ice shelf.”

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

Snow in the Sahara Desert in Algeria
Copernicus Image of the Day

Credit: European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery

On January 24, 2023, heavy snowfall fell in northwest
Algeria, on the peaks of the Bèchar Province, on theedge of the Sahara Desert. This image, acquired thefollowing day by one of the Copernicus Sentinel-2
satellites, shows the snow-capped peaks and the townof Benzireg. Snowfalls are very rare in the Sahara
because of the high temperatures and dry air. Usually,
the snow in the lower Saharan Atlas Mountain Range
melts rapidly, but Sentinel-2 happened to be at theright place to record the rare event.

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13

This superb image of cloud-free British Isles, France
www.geo-web.org.uk
and Spain was captured
by NOAA 20 on August 11, 2022

14

World’s Longest Conveyer Belt System
NASA Earth Observatory
Story by Emily Cassidy

On the western edge of the
Sahara Desert, a white line
61 miles long cuts across the
sand. This conspicuous line is
the world’s longest conveyer
belt system, which traverses
Western Sahara’s desert from the
Bou Craa phosphate mine to thecoastal town of El Marsa near
Laayoune. The conveyor belt helps
transport a critical mineral fromremote parts of northern Africa
to farmlands across the world,
including to the United States.
Phosphorous is a fundamental
element to all living things andforms the backbone of our DNA. It
is also one of three key nutrientsused in commercial fertilisers.
Most of the phosphorous inthese fertilisers comes from
phosphate rock, which is mined
predominately is China, Western
Sahara and Morocco, and theUnited States.
According to the U.S. Geological
Survey, Morocco and Western
Sahara produce about 38 million
metric tons of phosphate rock a
year, which was 17% of global
production in 2021. USGS also
estimates that this region contains
70% of all known phosphate rockreserves on the planet.

Figure 1 - MODIS image from NASA’s Terra satellite showing the conveyer belt
Image by Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and
GIBS/Worldview

White dust from chalky phosphaterock can be seen blowing from thebelt structure in figure 1, acquiredon December 14, 2022 by the
MODIS instrument) on NASA’s
Terra satellite. The white dust
helps the belt stand out from thebeige and brown desert landscape.
The open pit mine and its
conveyor belt, which carries
2,000 tonnes of phosphate rockan hour, is so conspicuousin the Sahara Desert that it
has attracted the attention ofastronauts on the International
Space Station. The photograph ofthe mine in figure 2 was taken byan astronaut in 2018.

Figure 2 - The open mine as viewed from the International Space Station
Astronaut photograph ISS056-E-32453 is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations
Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space Center

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15

Severe Winter Floods in Latvia
Copernicus Image of the Day
https://www.copernicus.eu/en/media/image-day

Latvia is at risk of being affected by the worst flooding
episode since 1981 due to an ice jam in the Daugava
River. The ice jam is affecting the normal flow of theriver, causing the water level to rise and threatening toflood large areas in central Latvia. This image is a datavisualisation of the CEMS product released on 18 January

and highlights in blue the 8 square kilometre area near thecity of Jekabpils, throughout which the river is frozen.
The Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS)
has been activated (EMSR644) to map the extent of theice that is obstructing the flow of the river.

Credit: European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery and Copernicus Emergency Management Service data

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16

Lake Turkana
MODIS Web Image of the Day

Sitting in the arid landscape of Africa’s Eastern Rift
Valley, Lake Turkana is both the largest permanent
desert lake and the largest alkaline lake on Earth.
This long, narrow lake, which stretches 250 km
from north to south and 43 km across, is locatedalmost entirely in Kenya. At the northernmost tip,a delta is formed by the influx of the Omo River.
This area, as well as the Omo River itself, belongs
to Ethiopia.
The lake’s salty, alkaline water creates a uniqueecosystem, where species have adapted to harshconditions. Turkana contains about 50 different
species of fish, with 11 species found only in thislake. It is home to the largest remaining populationof the Nile crocodile and supports more than
350 native and migratory bird species.
Three rivers, the Turkwel, Kerio, and Omo, provide
water to Lake Turkana, but Turkwel and Kerio
are seasonal. The Omo River provides 90% of the
inflow (about 19 cubic kilometres) of water eachyear. No rivers exit the lake, so the only outflow
is by evaporation, which readily occurs in thehot, dry climate. The Omo River not only provides
water to Lake Turkana but its waters are also used
for hydroelectric power generation, and some arediverted for agriculture.
Currently, a new hydroelectric dam is underdevelopment in Ethiopia as part of an expanding
system of power plants that should double theelectricity output as well as increase industrial
farming. The Gilgel Gibe III dam will likely have
major impacts on Lake Turkana, the species that
rely on the lake for life, and the people relying on
the lake for their livelihoods.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terrasatellite acquired this true-colour image of Lake
Turkana on December 21, 2022. The Omo Delta isvisible as a large dark area at the northern tip ofthe long, shallow lake.

Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC

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17

End of the Road for Meteosat-8
Les Hamilton

MSG-1, launched on August 28, 2002 and renamed
Meteosat‑8 once in orbit—the world’s longest-serving
geostationary meteorological satellite—officially retired at
the end of 2022 after 20 years of service despite originallyhaving a design lifetime of only seven years. Its very firstfull Earth image is reproduced on the front cover of thisissue of GEO Quarterly Newsletter.
During its operational lifetime, Meteosat-8 produced
about a million images over Europe, the whole of Europe
and Africa as well as the Indian Ocean, its islands andsurrounding countries. It monitored countless storms andsevere weather events, helping national weather services
to provide timely warnings to their communities and civil
authorities. Meteosat-8 completed 7,366 orbits of the
Earth, the equivalent of 5,000 trips to the moon.
After providing the full Earth imagery service over
Europe and Africa from longitude 0° for almost five years,
Meteosat-8 was designated as the standby satellite in
May 2007 once the full commissioning of its successor,
Meteosat-9, was complete. Another year forward, in May
2008, and Meteosat-8 started to provide the rapid scan
service (RSS).
With the commissioning of more MSG satellites,
Meteosat-8 eventually became totally redundant
at 0° longitude and was repositioned to 41.5°E on
September 21, 2016 to provide the Indian Ocean Data
Service (IODC).
Using all its remaining propellant, Meteosat-8 will now
be elevated to a ‘graveyard orbit’ around 250 kilometresabove the geostationary ring. Once there, the satellite’s
spin rate will be reduced from 100 to 20 revolutions per

This is the final image from Meteosat-8 disseminated by
EUMETSAT to meteorologists , captured on July 1, 2022
Image: EUMETSAT

minute and all its electrical systems will be switched off.
These procedures will minimise the risk that the satellite
could break up, generating debris that would pose a threat
to other operational satellites.
To maintain the Indian Ocean Data Coverage service,
Meteosat-9, took over as the prime IODC satellite, at atarget longitude of 45.5° E, on 1 June 2022.

Probable Demise of Meteor M-N2
Les Hamilton
Not for the first time, Meteor M‑N2 suffered a majororientation problem on December 24, 2022, and has
not produced any transmissions since.
The final image, transmitted over central Europe,part of which is shown here, clearly indicatedthat the satellite was pointing towards the Earth’s
southern limb.
In the past, such problems have generally beencorrected within a couple of weeks or so, but thelength of radio silence experienced from Meteor on
this occasion does rather suggest that its failure
could be permanent.

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18

Phytoplankton Bloom around the Falkland Islands
MODIS Web Image of the Day

Brilliant jewel-toned swirls coloured the dark waters
surrounding the sedate landscape of the Falklands
Islands in mid-December 2022. The Moderate
Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on
board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-colour
image of the spectacular scene on December 19.
The Falkland Islands, also known as Islas Malvinas,
is a group of more than 700 islands situated in theSouth Atlantic Ocean, about 500 kilometres east ofsouthern Argentina. Just two of the islands—East
Falkland and West Falkland—comprise the bulk of
the Connecticut-sized landmass.

The bright colours lighting up the Southern Ocean
are caused by massive populations of microscopic
plant-like organisms called phytoplankton. Thesetiny organisms contain chlorophyll and otherpigments and thrive in nutrient-rich waters, such as
can be found in the Malvinas Current, which sweeps
cold water from near the Antarctic northward andaround the Falkland Islands. As sunlight begins
to lengthen in the springtime, the combination ofabundant light and dense nutrients proves a headyconcoction for phytoplankton, spurring them toreproduce explosively. This often results in huge
floating blooms which can easily be seen from space.

Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC

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19

Racing to Mine Lithium
NASA Earth Observatory
Story by Adam Voiland

Exploding white dwarf stars are thought tobe the ultimate source of much of our solar
system’s lithium. But on Earth, there are certain
environments where this soft, lightweight, silverywhite metal is most concentrated and easily mined:
notably in briny groundwater aquifers found beneathdesert salt flats.
An ideal climate for mining lithium is generally
arid, punctuated by seasonal rains or melting. This
allows water to pool in shallow, salty lakes and thenevaporate during the summer—a cycle that helps
to concentrate the lithium. Thermal hot springs,
volcanic activity, and a subsiding landscape also
typically accompany major lithium reserves.
These conditions abound in the Atacama Desert inSouth America, where some of the world’s largest
lithium deposits and mining operations are located.
But they can also be found in Nevada’s Clayton
Valley—the site of the only active lithium mine in
the United States. The town of Silver Peak was
established in the 1860s around gold and silver
mines, but since the 1960s the town has focused on
harvesting lithium, which is concentrated under the
Clayton Valley in an area where an extinct volcano
left lithium-rich deposits.
The Operational Land Imager-2 (OLI) on Landsat 9
acquired this natural-colour image of the lithium
mining operation in Silver Peak on December 8,2022. The mine pumps brine to the surface andshunts it into a series of shallow evaporation ponds.
Colour variations in the ponds are due to varying
concentrations of lithium in the water: lighter blue
ponds have higher concentrations of lithium. The
valley’s frequently dry, sunny, and windy weather
evaporates water and leaves an increasingly
concentrated lithium brine—a process that can take18 months or more. The brine is then pumped toa nearby facility where it is processed, dried into a
powder, and packaged.
Global demand for lithium has ballooned in recent
years and is forecast to continue surging in the
coming decade because the metal is used in therechargeable batteries used to power electricvehicles. Makers of laptops, cell phones, and otherproducts with rechargeable batteries also rely heavily
on lithium. Lithium is also used in ceramics, certain
types of glass, industrial grease, and some types of
medication.
Like many lithium mines around the world, the mineat Silver Peak is adding new pumps and evaporation
ponds to try to keep up with the demand. The mine,

NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using
Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. .

which has been the only U.S. source of lithium for
decades, plans to double its production by 2025.
Demand for U.S. produced lithium is particularly
strong due to tax incentives that reward consumers
for buying electric vehicles with domestically
produced and assembled parts.
The Silver Peak mine generates about one percentof the world’s annual production of lithium. Brine
operations, mostly in Chile and Argentina, generate
about 75 percent of worldwide production. The
mining of lithium-containing ore, which is especiallycommon in Australia, accounts for the rest.

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20

Fog in the California’s Central Valley
MODIS Web Image of the Day

Thick fog frequently fills California’s Central Valley inlate fall and winter, often creating a risk for drivers
as visibility plummets. The Moderate Resolution
Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s
Terra satellite acquired a false-colour image of ahuge bank of fog on December 15, 2022.
In this type of false-colour image, infrared andvisible light (MODIS Bands 7,2,1) are combined tohelp separate snow, which appears electric blue,
from cloud and fog. Fog and most clouds look brightwhite, although high, cold clouds which contain ice
crystals, may be tinted with electric blue. Vegetation
appears green, open land looks tan, while watershows up as inky-black.

The formation of fog requires three ingredients: wet
ground, still air, and cold temperatures. Conditions
are ripe after the ground has become damp fromrecent rainfall. During the day, the warmth of theSun causes the moisture to evaporate into the air.
After sunset, air temperature slowly drops. Because
cool air can hold less moisture than warm air the
many tiny moisture droplets suspended in the air
during the day combine into large droplets, creating‘low cloud’, or fog.
The Central Valley winter fog, also called Tule (too-le)tends to form—often rapidly—after sunset, becomes
thickest just before dawn, then slowly thins as the
air warms in the morning. Tule fog season typicallybegins in December and ends in February.

Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC

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21

Snowy Alps
European Space Agency

Snow cover is a vital source of water for industry, agriculture and human consumption. Records
show that winter snow cover in the Alps during 2022 was the lowest it has been since 2001. This
Copernicus Sentinel-3 image captured on December 18, 2022 shows the wide-coverage of snowfall
which hopefully bodes well for the coming year.
Carrying a suite of cutting-edge instruments, the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission measures Earth’s
oceans, land, ice and atmosphere to monitor and understand large-scale global dynamics.
Sentinel-3 measures the temperature, colour and height of the sea surface as well as the
thickness of sea ice, while over land it provides indices of vegetation state, maps land andmeasures the height of rivers and lakes.

Image contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2022), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

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22

Saba Island
NASA Earth Observatory
Story by Emily Cassidy

Saba is a 13-square-kilometer
island in the Dutch Caribbeanrich in biodiversity. Locatedabout 140 kilometres east of
the US Virgin Islands, the active
stratovolcano rises 1,500 metresabove the sea floor. Above thewater, rainforests cover the steep
slopes of the volcano, home to
many birds, orchids and reptiles,
including an endemic spotted
lizard, the Saban anole (Anolus
sabensis). Below the water, corals
and other species thrive.
The Operational Land Imager(OLI) on Landsat 8 captured thisnatural-colour image of Saba on
August 16, 2022. The largest cityand capital of the island, called
The Bottom, lies between the port
and the higher elevations of the
volcano. The island has no natural
sandy beaches which makes itless of a tourist destination thanother Caribbean islands, but
Saba’s coastal waters have been
ideal for divers looking to spot
healthy populations of corals andsea urchins.
That is until recently. In early
2022, sea urchins in the
Caribbean started mysteriously
dying off. Sea urchins graze on
algae, the main competitors forcorals for space and light, andthey remove algae from coralsurfaces, allowing baby corals to
attach and grow. In this way, thesurvival of coral reefs depends
on healthy populations of sea
urchins.
In early February 2022, diveshops in the Caribbean began
reporting on mysterious sea
urchin die-offs, specifically thelong-spined sea urchin (Diadema
antillarum). Saba’s reef was once
home to more than 5,000 D.
antillarum. But in April 2022,
in a section of Saba’s reef called‘Diadema City’, half of the longspined sea urchins died off in justone week, and only 100 remained

NASA Earth Observatory image by Allison Nussbaum, using
Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Saba Wearing a Cap
Photo: Richie Diesterheft / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0

in June, according to reportingin ScienceNews.

event in the 1980s indicates the
spread of an unknown disease.

The massive loss of sea urchinsis reminiscent of a die-off thatstarted in 1983, in which
virtually all of the D. antillarum
population in the Caribbean
was eliminated within a year.
Although the exact cause of the1983 and 2022 die-offs is still amystery, many researchers agree
that the speed and scope of the

Populations of D. antillarum
never fully recovered from thedie-off nearly 30 years ago,
which incentivised Dutch
researchers to cultivate andbreed them in the lab. The
researchers hope to repopulate
the sea urchins in Saba’s
surrounding waters, to help thereef bounce back.

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23

Unprecedented Deluge Swamps Auckland
Les Hamilton

Described as ‘the biggest non-earthquake event’ in New
Zealand’s history by the nation’s finance minister Grant
Roberston, the city of Auckland was deluged by torrential
rainfall on Friday, January 27, 2023, the result of an influxof warm moist air from the tropics which tracked south
across the Tasman Sea over North Island.
The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Researchclaimed that the rainstorm created the city’s wettest 24
hours ever after more than 150 mm of rain fell in just threehours, rising to a record 249 mm over 24 hours. This
figure represented more than eight times the city’s average
January rainfall and 40% of its annual average rainfall.
The previous 24 hour rainfall record was a ‘mere’ 161 mm.
The storm also broke previous monthly rainfall records:
206 mm for January 1986 and 304 mm in July 1998, thearea’s wettest month ever. In just three days this January,
320 mm had already fallen with forecasts of more heavy
rain for the days ahead. Average rainfall for the Auckland
area is 386 mm per year!
The unprecedented precipitation led to sudden andwidespread flooding, prompting the imposition of a stateof emergency across the entire Auckland metro area
which has a population of 1.6 million people. The city’s
international airport was closed after its terminal was
overrun with water and some 2000 stranded passengers
had to be evacuated from its terminal: in all, some 9000
passengers had their flights cancelled because of thesituation. That Friday evening, Elton John was due toperform at a concert, which a full house of 40,000 people
were expected to attend in the Mount Smart Stadium. The
event was cancelled just minutes before it was due tostart, with concert-goers already in their seats.
And a second Elton John concert planned for the following
evening also had to be cancelled at short notice while fanswere already driving to the venue, as it was deemed too
dangerous to continue. Many of the concert-goers who didturn up later found themselves stranded because their cars
had become swamped by floodwaters and could not be
started.
Between that fateful Friday evening and the following
Saturday morning, Fire and Emergency New Zealandcrews responded to 719 incidents across the region,
received more than 2,242 emergency calls and rescued
126 people who had been trapped in houses or cars by
the floodwaters, or had been involved in vehicle crashes.
Sadly, four people lost their lives as a result of the flash
floods and landslides that took place.
The widespread flooding led to many properties teetering
precariously at the edges of virtual cliff-faces following
dramatic landslides. Other properties simply floated off
their foundations. Thousands of homes and businessThis MODIS image from NASA’s Terra satellite
shows the warm air mass descending on New
Zealand’s North Island of January 27, 2023
Image: NASApremises were inundated by floodwaters, losing both
power and water supply and many of the city’s roads wereclosed by flooding. Many residents had to be evacuatedfrom their homes, some aided by rescuers in kayaks.
Over 5000 affected homes required to be assessed forstorm damage, and ultimately 277 homes or buildings
were red stickered and 1615 yellow stickered. A red sticker
indicated that a building was uninhabitable and unsafe
to enter, while a yellow sticker allowed people restricted
access to certain parts of a building in order to claim
possessions.
Following what has been dubbed a once in 250 year
event, insurance companies face many thousandsof claims ranging from rebuilding entire properties toreplacement of possessions suffering water damage. The
cost of the clean up is expected to top the NZ$97 million
bill for the 2021 West Coast flooding but will be much lessthan the estimated NZ$31 billion insurance costs of theChristchurch earthquakes in 2010-2011.

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24

Cyclone Gabrielle Lashes New ZealandNASA Earth Observatory
Story by Kathryn Hansen

Cyclone Gabrielle lashed New
Zealand with strong winds and heavy
rain in mid-February 2023, adding towhat has already been an unusually
wet start to the year. The latest
round of extreme weather brought
destructive flooding, storm surge, andlandslides to the region.
The Visible Infrared Imaging
Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on theNASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satelliteacquired this image at about 3 pm
local time on February 14, 2023. It
shows Cyclone Gabrielle as it slowly
moved toward the southeast. At thetime, the storm was centred near
the North Island, but its cloud bands
spanned much of the country.
Cyclone Gabrielle encountered New
Zealand as a powerful subtropicalstorm after transitioning from a
tropical cyclone. Rainfall from thestill-powerful storm began falling on
the island nation on February 11 andcontinued for the next several days.
Accumulations at Napier Airport(Hawke’s Bay Airport) reached 175.8
millimetres over a 24-hour period
from February 13-14, more than threetimes the average typically seen
during the entire month of February.
By around 7 am local time on
February 15, the cyclone wascontinuing to move slowly toward
the southeast and away from New
Zealand. Still, warnings for heavy rain
and swell remained in effect alongsome central parts of the country.
According to news reports, officials
declared a national state of

emergency—only the third suchdeclaration in the country’s history.
The storm left hundreds of thousands
without power, led to the cancellationof flights, and damaged roads,
homes, and infrastructure.
The drenching rains in February
follow the storm that hit the country on
January 27. During that storm, partsof Auckland saw all-time daily rainfall
records, which contributed to the city’swettest January on record.
According to the New Zealandmeteorological service, an averageof ten tropical cyclones form in theSouth Pacific each year between
November and April. Of those, only
one will normally affect New Zealandas an ex-tropical cyclone, most often
in February or March.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Suomi
National Polar-orbiting Partnershipwww.geo-web.org.uk

25

Record 2022 Temperatures in Europe
Copernicus Image of the Day

Credit: European Union, Copernicus Climate Change Service data

In 2022, Europe experienced extremely hightemperatures and a continuous rise in theconcentration of greenhouse gases in theatmosphere. According to the Global Climate
Highlights for 2022, recently published by theCopernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) which
is implemented by ECMWF, (European Centre
for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) many
temperature records were broken.
The summer season in 2022 was extremely
warm, and it was in fact the hottest on record
for the European continent, with many countries
in Western and Northern Europe affected byintense and prolonged heatwaves. Temperaturesin the Autumn were also significantly above
average, and the season was registered as thethird warmest on record. Overall, 2022 was thesecond-hottest year on record for the continent:
apart from Iceland, all of Europe recorded annual
temperatures higher than the 1991-2020 average.
The unusually warm and dry weather caused
significant drought conditions to affect large partsof Europe, especially in countries in the southwest, such as France and Spain.
This image, created using data retrieved fromthe C3S Climate Data Store, shows the Surface
Air Temperature Anomaly for the averagetemperatures in 2022 in Europe.

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26

Interferogram of the Anatolian Earthquake
Copernicus Image of the day

https://www.copernicus.eu/en/media/image-day

Credit: European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-1 data
Processed by European Commission Directorate-General for Defence Industry & Space (DG DEFIS)

A devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake has hit
Türkiye and Syria. The damage is considerable,with many tens of thousands of fatalities. The
earthquake was so strong that it caused massive
ground deformations. This interferogram wascreated using radar data acquired by the Copernicus

Sentinel-1 satellite in ascending orbit on January 28
and February 9, 2023. The areas with the greatest
displacement are those close to the Anatolian
fault, where analysis of the radar data indicatesa displacement along the satellite’s line of sight ofabout four metres.

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27
27

Italian Apennine Mountain Range Covered with Snow
Copernicus Image of the Day

Credit: European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-3 imagery

After an unusually warm start of the winterseason characterised by the lack of significant
snowfall, a massive late January snowstorm
covered the peaks of central and southern Italy
with snow. Several municipalities in inland Italy
were heavily affected, and local schools wereclosed for several days in order to preventchildren, parents and teachers from commuting
in unsafe road and weather conditions. The fresh
snow cover on the Central and Southern partsof the Apennine range is visible in this image,acquired by one of the Copernicus Sentinel-3
satellites on January 24, 2023.
The Copernicus Land Monitoring Service
product portfolio includes Snow & Ice (HR-S&I)
Monitoring products, which provide highresolution (20 × 20 metres) information derived
from Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite data onsnow and ice conditions in the 38 Member
States and Cooperating Countries of theEuropean Environment Agency.

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28

Siling Lake - Tibet
NASA Earth Observatory
Caption by Cadan Cummings, Jacobs, JETS Contract at NASA-JSC

Astronaut photograph ISS066-E-86268 is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility
and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space Center.

While orbiting over the northern Tibetan Plateau, anastronaut aboard the International Space Station
captured this photograph of Siling Lake. The lake, also
called Selincuo, is one of the largest water bodies on the
Tibetan Plateau. In this image, fresh snowfall from theprevious day blankets the landscape.
Located at an elevation of approximately 4,500 metres,
Siling Lake is a high-altitude endorheic lake, whichmeans that it does not drain through any outlets.
The lake is fed by precipitation—approximately 38
centimetres per year—as well as runoff from rain, snow,
and glacial meltwater from the surrounding landscape.
Siling Lake is a saline water body due to the lack ofoutflow, which concentrates salts as the lake water
evaporates.
The climate of Siling Lake is typically below freezing
from December until mid-April, causing the lake to freeze
over. The lake was not yet frozen when this photograph
was taken on December 4, 2021, further amplifying thecontrast between the white snow and the blue hues of
the water.
Changes in global climate have led to fluctuations in lakesize, with waterbodies on the southern Tibetan Plateau
shrinking and lakes on the northern portion growing.
Siling Lake has been growing since the 1970s, andscientists have used several modeling approaches to try
and explain this trend. However, conclusions have varied
between two potential causes: an increase in glacial melt
runoff, or a decrease in annual wind speed between the
1980s and early 2000s.
The Tibet Selincuo Wetlands around Siling Lake were
designated as a Ramsar wetlands area in 2018. The
wetlands provide important habitat for two vulnerable
species of eagles, the Pallas’s fish-eagle (Haliaeetus
leucoryphus) and the eastern imperial eagle (Aquila
heliacal). Gymnocypris selincuoensis fish are also part of
the wetlands ecology and are endemic to Siling Lake.

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29

Weather Bomb brings Extreme Cold to North America
Les Hamilton

This image from NOAA’s GOES-E geostationary satellite illustrates the weather over North America on December 24, 2022
Image provided by John Tellick - © EUMETSAT 2022

In December 2022, during the week leading up to
Christmas, a polar vortex caused a spell of exceptionallycold weather to descend from the Canadian Arctic tocover large swathes of the United States. So severe wasthe cold that sub zero temperatures were widespread as
far south as Texas. On one occasion, Elliott in Montana
experienced a low of -51 degrees Celsius.
Stretching from the Great Lakes near Canada to the
Rio Grande along the Mexican border, a bomb cyclone
resulted in the deaths of at least 60 people because of thefreezing conditions in the US states of Colorado, Illinois,
Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New
York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.
Half of these fatalities were recorded in western partsof New York State, which was so severely hit by theconditions that one observer likened it to a war zone.
Particularly badly affected was the city of Buffalo and its
environs, which were hit by a massive dump of lake-effectsnow. At its height the blizzard was depositing almost ten
centimetres of snow per hour, and at Buffalo airport, snow
accumulations reached a depth of more than one metre.
Some of the fatalities in Buffalo, a city near the border
between Canada and New York state, were found frozen to

death in their cars after being stranded due to the whiteout
blizzard conditions. Others simply died from the cold
trapped in piles of snow on the streets.
In New England, more than 200,000 consumers awoke on
Christmas morning to find themselves without power, while
many more had to cancel their travel plans for visiting
family and friends over the Festive Season because roads
had become impassable and snowbound airports wereforced to cancel some 13,000 flights across the nation.
Because of the warnings of impending extreme cold,
schools in Boston and Worcester, Massachusetts, New
England’s two largest cities, were closed on December 23
over concerns about the risk of hypothermia and frostbite.
People were warned to stay indoors and minimise travel.
At its worst, as many as 1.8 million properties were without
power throughout the US, with thousands of flights fromairports cancelled and delayed.
In Canada, at least 140,000 homes lost power, principallyin the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. In Yellowknife
in the Northwest Territories the temperature fell to -28°C
overnight bringing the risk of frostbite in just minutes. In
Whitehorse, in Canada’s Yukon territory, the temperaturefell to -30°C with wind chill factored in.

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30

Orion Views Earth From Afar
NASA Earth Observatory
Story by Kathryn Hansen

On December 7, 1972, the crew of theApollo 17 mission were on their way to
the Moon when they snapped an iconic
photograph of Earth that became known
as the Blue Marble. Now, 50 years later,humans are preparing to return to theMoon via the Artemis missions. In theprocess, cameras have again captured
stunning views of our home planet fromafar.
The new photographs were taken in
November 2022 during the uncrewed
Artemis I mission. The purpose of Artemis I
is to demonstrate the performance ofsystems on the Orion spacecraft during
spaceflight, and to ensure its safe reentry,
descent and splashdown on Earth. The
subsequent mission, Artemis II, will include
a human crew.
The upper photo was acquired on
November 16, on the first day of the
26-day mission. Unlike the camera carriedon the Apollo spacecraft, the camera thatshot this image was mounted externallyon the Orion spacecraft. Attached to thetip of a solar array wing, the camera—and
three others just like it—can be used byengineers to remotely inspect Orion’s
exterior. It can also capture spacecraft
selfies. In the background of this selfie wasEarth, located about 92,000 kilometres inthe distance.

Earth shows in the background of this Artimis image from November 16, 2022

By the mission’s 13th day, Earth was
432,210 kilometres away when a cameraon the spacecraft’s solar array acquired
the lower image on November 28. This
was the farthest distance from Earthreached by Orion during the Artemis I
mission, and the farthest distance reached
by any vehicle designed to carry people tospace and back. Earth and our Moon hang
like dots in the distance.
Orion returned to Earth on December 11,
2022, when the spacecraft splashed downin the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San
Diego around 12:40 p.m. Eastern Time.
But you don’t have to wait for the next
mission, Artemis II, for more photographsof Earth from space. Astronauts on
the International Space Station snap
outstanding pictures of Earth from above
almost every day.

Both Earth and Moon appear in this this Artimis image from December 11, 2022

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31

Currently Active Satellites and Freqencies
Polar APT Satellites

Satellite
NOAA 15NOAA 18NOAA 19
Meteor M N2
Meteor M N2-2

Frequency
137.6200 MHz
137.9125 MHz
137.1000 MHz
137.1000 MHz
137.9000 MHz

Satellite
NOAA 15NOAA 18NOAA 19
Feng Yun 3C
Feng Yun 3D
Feng Yun 3E
Metop B
Metop C
Meteor M N2
Meteor M N2-2

Frequency
1702.5 MHz
1707.0 MHz
1698.0 MHz
1701.4 MHz
7820.0 MHz
7860.0 Mz
1701.3 MHz
1701.3 MHz
1700.0 MHz
1700.0 MHz

Status
On
On
On
On
Off

Format
APT
APT
APT
LRPT
LRPT

Image Quality
Intermittant sync problem
Good
Good [1]Off - probably terminal failure
System failure [8]Polar HRPT/AHRPT Satellites
Mode
Omni
RHCP
RHCP
RHCP
RHCP
RHCP
RHCP
RHCP
RHCP
RHCP

Format
HRPT
HRPT
HRPT
AHRPT
AHRPT
AHRPT
AHRPT
AHRPT
AHRPT
AHRPT

Image Quality
sync problem
Good
Good
Inactive [2]Active {2}Commissioning
Good
Good
Off - probably terminal failure [1]Active [8]Geostationary Satellites

Satellite
Meteosat 9
Meteosat 10

Transmission Mode(s)HRIT (digital)
HRIT (digital)

Meteosat 11
GOES-13GOES-14
GOES-15 (W)GOES-16 (E)GOES-17
GOES 18
MTSAT-1R
MTSAT-2
Feng Yun 2E
Feng Yun 2F
Feng Yun 2G
Feng Yun 2H
Feng Yun 4A
Feng Yun 4B

HRIT (digital)
GVAR 1685.7 MHz
GVAR 1685.7 MHz
GVAR 1685.7 MHz
GRB 1686.6 MHz
GRB 1686.6 MHz
GRB 1686.6 MHz
LRIT 1691.0 MHz
LRIT 1691.0 MHz
SVISSR (digital)
SVISSR (digital)
SVISSR (digital)
SVISSR (digital)
HRIT (digital)
HRIT (digital)

LRIT (digital)

Position
45.5°E
9.5 E

Status
IODC - On
Off [4]

LRIT (digital)
LRIT 1691.0 MHz
LRIT 1691.0 MHz
LRIT 1691.0 MHz
HRIT 1694.1 MHz
HRIT 1694.1 MHz
HRIT 1694.1 MHz
HRIT 1687.1 MHz
HRIT 1687.1 MHz
LRIT (digital)
LRIT (digital)
LRIT (digital)
LRIT (digital)
LRIT (digital)
LRIT (digital)

0°W
61.6°E
105°W
128°W
75.2°W
137.2°W
137.0°W
140°E
145°E
86.5°E
112.5°E
99.5°E
79.0°E
99.5°E
Just

On [3][5]

StandbyOn [6]On [7]On [7]On [7]
StandbyOn
OffStandbyOn
On
On
Launched

Notes
1 LRPT Signals from Meteor M N2 may cause interference to NOAA 19
transmissions when the two footprints overlap.
2 These satellites employ a non-standard AHRPT format and cannot bereceived with conventional receiving equipment.
3 Meteosat prime Full Earth Scan (FES) satellite
4 Meteosat prime Rapid Scanning Service (RSS) satellite.
5 Repurposed by US Space Force
6 GOES 15 also transmits EMWIN on 1692.700 MHz GOES 16 alsotransmits EMWIN on 1694.100 MHz GOES 17 also transmits EMWIN
7 GOES Rebroadcast (GRB) provides the primary relay of full
resolution, calibrated, near-real-time direct broadcast space relayof Level lb data from each instrument and Level 2 data from theGeostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM). GRB replaces the GOES
VARiable (GVAR) service.
8 Following a collision with a micrometeorite, the power system aboard
Meteor M2-2 has been compromised. AHRPT is still being transmitted
when the solar panels are sunlit, but there is insufficient battery power
to enable the LRPT stream.

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