Group for Earth Observation
The Independent Amateur Quarterly Publication for

Number 32

Earth Observation and Weather Satellite Enthusiasts

December 2011
Inside this issue . . .
The big news this quarteris the successful launch of
the NPOESS NPP satellite,
the successor to thecurrent NOAA weather
satellites. Inside is an
illustrated account of thelaunch, while Ed Murashie
provides a detailed
overview of the newsatellite's capabilities andinstrumentation.
Also newly aloft are thefirst of ESA's constellationof Galileo geolocation
satellites: John Tellick
explains.
Esko Patäjä describes his
enthusiasm for lightning
detection and describes
how he integrates thisdata with his weather
satellite imagery.
Fallstreak holes, also
known as hole-punch
clouds, have been
observed in our skies for
decades. Once thought amanifestation of UFOs,
their true cause is now
revealed.
There are also features on
Arctic melting, Antarctica,
Typhoons over thePhilippines, Autumn in
Kamchatka ...
... and much more.

Francis Breame provided GEO with some amazing Envisat MERIS imagery, which he received through the Envi-Ham project. The upper
image shows a large area of Egypt, including the River Nile, Nile delta and the Red Sea. At lower left is a zoomed section of the same image
displaying the city of Alexandria and the Suez Canal. The lower right image shows an enlargement of Lake Nasser, behind the Aswan Dam.

GEO MANAGEMENT TEAM
Director and Public Relations
Francis Bell,
Coturnix House, Rake Lane,
Milford, Godalming, Surrey GU8 5AB
England.
Tel:
01483 416 897
email: francis@geo-web.org.uk
General Information
John Tellick,email: info@geo-web.org.uk
GEO Quarterly Editor
Les Hamilton,
8 Deeside Place,
Aberdeen AB15 7PW, Scotland UK.
email: geoeditor@geo-web.org.uk
GEO Quarterly Despatch
Peter Green
Membership and Subscriptions
David Anderson,
35 Sycamore Road,
East Leake, Loughborough LE12 6PP
England, UK.
email: members@geo-web.org.uk
Tel:01509 820 067
Fax:
01509 559 015
Technical Consultant (Hardware)David Simmons
email: tech@geo-web.org.uk
Webmaster and Website Matters
David Anderson
e-mail: webmaster@geo-web.org.uk
Education Coordinator
David Painteremail: education@geo-web.org.uk
GEO Shop Manager
Clive Finnis (Assistant: David Simmons)
email: tech@geo-web.org.uk
International Liaison
Rob Denton
email: international@geo-web.org.uk
Nigel Evansemail: nigel@geo-web.org.uk

Publisher
Published by The Group for Earth
Observation Limited, a company inEngland and Wales, limited by guarantee
and not having share capital.
The Company Number is 4975597.
The registered office is Coturnix House,
Rake Lane, Milford, Godalming,
Surrey GU8 5AB, England.
Printing
Hedgerow Print,
16 Marsh Lane,
Crediton,
Devon EX17 1ES.
Responsibility
Every effort is made to ensure that thetechnical and constructional articles
published in this Quarterly are correct.
However, the ultimate responsibility iswith the reader to ensure the safety of
constructions and for any interfacing withother equipment. GEO cannot accept
liability for shortcomings in any publisheddesign or any constructions carried out bymembers or other third parties.
Copyright GEO © 2011
The contents of this Quarterly remain theintellectual property of the Group for Earth
Observation Ltd. and its contributors.
Copying of text or images, either from theprinted Quarterly or from any electronicallystored source, is forbidden without
permission from the Editor.

Les HamiltonYou will notice that this issue of GEO Quarterly arrives under a change in editorship. As someof you may be aware, Peter Green, who has carried the editorial flag for the past two years,
has recently undertaken new employment which has left him with little time to edit the previous two
issues. Completing the September issue, in particular, proved a real struggle, and Pete asked me
how I felt about a return to the editor’s chair.

I

sympathise fully with Pete because I had a similar problem for several years because of thedemands of caring for a nonagenarian parent beset by Alzheimer’s Dementia; that ate into
my time and forced me to give up the editorship. But this is all in the past now and I am again
in a position where I can devote the required time to editing GEO Quarterly. I’m sure I speak forboth the GEO Management Team and our readership in thanking Pete for his efforts to keep the
Quarterly afloat. In addition, Pete also took delivery of the magazines and mailed them off to you,a role he will continue to fulfil: so he will not be totally lost to GEO.

I’m delighted to report that there has been much improved reader involvement this issue which
has helped me no end, as I had only four weeks to compile this issue: normally one has therelative luxury of three months to do this. For a change, the report on our Darmstad trip comesfrom Rob Alblas, one of the stalwarts of Werkgroep Kunstmanen, while David Taylor reports onwhat was clearly a stimulating visit to Oslo to attend the EUMETSAT User Conference.

E

sko Patäjä has prepared a detailed illustrated feature on his lightning detection station andexplains how he uses the information he gains in conjunction with his weather satellite
images. And in the first part of a series of articles for readers just starting out with APT reception,
Ron Hahn describes the basics of his system. Ron will follow this up with details of capturing andprocessing the actual images next time.

T

his issue completes the eighth year for GEO Quarterly, and also marks a new beginning forweather satellites as NOAA finally embarked on its bold new venture, the NPOESS Preparatory
Project (NPP). Designed as the successor to the current constellation of American polar orbiting
weather satellites, the first NPP craft was successfully orbited last month, as reported on page 31.
Ed Murashie has been on a guided tour of the facilities at Vandenburg Airforce Base, where thelaunch took place, and will document this in the March Quarterly. In this issue though, Ed provides
an overview of the NPP Mission, and details the instruments it carries.

And finally, may I wish all our readers the very best of good cheer for the Festive Season, anda healthy and prosperous 2010.

Contents
GEO Report
GEO Symposium 2011 Report
EUMETSAT Visit 2011
Fallstreak Holes
Fallstreak Holes over West Virginia
Straylight
NOAA Satellites Save 2338 People in 2010
Cover and full page image details
Weather Satellites in Vietnam
Sea Ice and Icebergs off East Antarctica
Philippines Suffer yet more Typhoons
EUMETSAT User Conference - Oslo, 2011

Francis Bell
Francis BellRob Alblas
Les Hamilton
NASA Earth Observatory
Les Hamilton and David Taylor
NOAA
Fred van den BoschNASA Earth Observatory
John Tellick
David Taylor

GEO Shop
GEO Membership Renewal Form
Helplines and Internet Discussion Groups
Copy deadline for the next issue of GEO Quarterly
Arctic Meltdown
Unseasonable Snow in Northeast USA
Envi-Ham Image and Quarterly Question
Successful Launch for NPP
ESA Launches its first Galileo Satellites
An Introduction to APT Weather Satellite Reception
The Ultimate Weather Satellite Enthusiast
Lightning Detection and Weather
The Buddleja EffectPossible Fallstreak Hole seen from Wisely
NPP, NiPPY and the Workhorse
Spring arrives in Antarctica
Feedback
A Kamchatkan Autumn

2
3
5
9
13
14
15
15
16
17
18
20
23
24
25
25

Les Hamilton
NASA Earth Observatory
Francis Bell
NASA/NOAAJohn Tellick
Ron Hahn
Robert Moore
Esko Patäjä
Francis Breame
Francis Breame
Ed Murashie
John Tellick
Readers’ Letters
NASA Earth Observatory

26
28
29
31
32
34
36
37
42
42
43
46
48
48

GEO Quarterly No 32

The Group for Earth Observation

December 2011

Francis Bell

This has been a busy year for GEO, attending rallies, shows
and conferences. There were the Kempton rallies (twice), ourown Symposium in Leicester, the Newbury rally, GEO’s visit
to EUMETSAT in Darmstadt, the RSGB sponsored National
HamFest near Newark and the TORRO (Tornado and Storm
Research Organisation) meeting in Oxford. I gave weather
satellite presentations at the Newark and Oxford meetings. In
addition to these events, I had my own club field days plus
Brownie Guides international JOTA weekends: all featuring
live EUMETCast reception. The Darmstadt visit is reported
by Rob Alblas (page 5) who views the event from a Dutch
perspective. I’ll report on some of the other events, withphotographs, in the March 2012 issue.
MembershipDavid Anderson, our membership secretary, has drawn
attention to our falling membership, which now stands at
about 400 compared with the 500+ we enjoyed a year or
two ago. I am certain that some members fail to renew bydefault, not because of dissatisfaction with the group. I know
I have written this before but please, when you do receive
your renewal notice, treat it as a privileged invitation to joina prestigious, international and influential group. If you
actively don’t wish to renew, I would appreciate a short email
giving your reason for non-renewal. This might allow us toaddress any issues which concern our membership. Please
don’t fail to renew just by default: let it be an active decision.
GEO Shop
I would like to take this opportunity of thanking Clive andCarol Finnis for establishing and running the GEO Shop forour members benefit. Not only does the shop give us accessto equipment which would be difficult or impossible to source
privately but also it makes a profit which provides a financial
buffer to call on should it be needed. Also, thanks to David
Simmons who has acted as assistant shop manager for about
two years and is your first point of contact for orders. I will
ask Clive and Carol to write a short history of the shop for
publication in a future Quarterly.
The Quarterly Question
I am always pleased to receive responses to the Quarterly
Question, which shows that some readers are interested andtaking the trouble to respond. Sometimes I struggle to find asuitable question which will appeal to a broad section of ourmembership. Here is an invitation: if any reader would liketo submit their own suggestion for a question, that would begreat. If you think you may have a question of interest please
send it to me at
francis@geo-web.org.uk

and I will forward it to the editor.
Satellite Update
I would very much like to see a page of GEO Quarterly
devoted to satellite news or updates. We have done this in thepast and I miss the information it contained: I’m sure others
have as well. I sometimes have to refer to data contained in
De Kunstmaan (Werkgroep Kunstmanen’s publication) or to
EUMETSAT’s ‘Image’ brochure. It would be great if a GEO

2member were to take over responsibility for an informative
page in GEO Quarterly. Once the format and layout of thepage were established, it should not be too time consuming
to revise it each quarter. Please, if you are willing to take on
this responsibility and keep such satellite data up-to-date,then please get in touch with me or the GEO editor. I judge
that this could be a rewarding task, keeping our membership
informed of satellite news. This page could replace our APT
satellite prediction page. I can supply samples of a potential
layout to anyone who may be willing or interested in this job.
I have recently become interested in EUMETSAT’s rapid
scanning service. If you have any experience in receiving thisservice, I would love to hear from you. Contact myself or if
you have copy material, I’m sure it would be well received byour editor.

Coming Events
March 31, 2012
TORRO is holding one of their regular meetings in Oxford. For
details of this meeting and other matters relating to TORRO
visit their web site at
www.torro.org.uk

April 15, 2012
This is the date for the South London Radio and Computer
rally. GEO regularly have a stand here.
May 12, 2012
Werkgroep Kunstmanen are holding one of their regularmeetings in Utrecht. It would be supportive if some of our
UK GEO members were to attend. Our Dutch friends do
consistently support our meetings. Their web site is atwww.kunstmanen.net

June 17, 2012
This is the date for the Newbury open air rally and I expect
GEO will have a stand there, with appropriate shelter.
September 22, 2012
This event and date has still to be confirmed but it is apossible date for our GEO Symposium in Leicester. We
will invite TORRO members, should they wish to come, oreven share the meeting with us. Please note that this event
is still in the planning stage. More details will appear in the
March 2010 issue of GEO Quarterly.
September 28-29, 2012
These are the dates for the two day National HamFest held on
the Newark Showground. GEO will have a stand there.
Finally
In October 2011, EUMETSAT had a stand at theMeteorological Technology World Expo held in Brussels. Sally
Wannop, the Head of EUMETSAT User Services, was on theirstand when visited by GEO’s John Tellick. Sally said to him:
‘When are you coming to see us again—in 2013? We loved
having you last time’.
Well you can’t get better than that!

www.geo-web.org.uk

December 2011

The Group for Earth Observation

GEO Quarterly No 32

Francis BellThe was our sixth annual symposium to be held at the National
Space Centre (NSC) in Leicester, a venue which seems to befavoured by our membership, this time attracting approximately
forty delegates. An advantage of the NSC as a venue is its location
close to the centre of the UK plus easy access, free parking andfree entry into the NSC’s exhibition areas. Interestingly this year,
on the same day as our symposium, the NSC were hosting atheme day devoted to Star Wars, with consequent storm troopers
providing entertaining displays in the public areas.

Storm Troopers guard the GEO conference area at the NSC

I was delighted to see about eight of our Dutch friends, members of
Werkgroep Kunstmanen, who had taken the trouble and expense toattend our meeting in the UK. Two of their number also contributed
to the formal presentation programme. Many of us stayed overnightin the same Leicester hotel and enjoyed an evening out in the town
together, and a delightful evening meal.
The support of our Dutch members must be noted and I encourage
our own membership to attend Werkgroep Kunstmanen meetings in
Utrecht if they can. I will certainly be attending one of their meetingsin 2012. Please see the other notice in this Quarterly.

The programme of presentations ran in two sessions, morning andafternoon. From my perspective, every presentation was of interestand subsequent feedback from delegates seemed to confirm this.
Although I have to admit I did not understand every element of the
HRPT decoding project.
In outline the programme was as follows:• A welcome to all the delegates by myself.
• A talk by Kerian Jones for the NSC about their role inrecording the movements of near objects in space, theirrecords being passed on to other international agencies.
• I gave a brief presentation about the Envi-Ham project andinvited delegates to take away some raw data files which
I had recorded at home. The rationale behind this was toenable interested members to practise processing data before
establishing their own live Envi-Ham receiving stations. Laterin the day a number of members did take up this offer.
• David Taylor gave an update on EUMETCast reception andthe steps required to handle the masses of data now flowing.
EUMETCast provides not only European geostationary
satellite imagery, but also data from worldwide geostationary
and several polar orbitering satellites. Requirements ofsoftware installation for the newer versions of Windows werediscussed, and David showed examples of the new RGB(red, green & blue) colour mapping in GeoSatSignal. Thereis now so much data available that minimising the flow andthe amount stored is much more important, and several
methods of control were mentioned (PIDs, recv-channels.ini
and program controls). David concluded by showing how hehas used MRTG software to monitor correct operation of his
systems.
• Rob Alblas gave a detailed talk about his development of an
HRPT decoder. Elements of his project were available for
examination on the Werkgroep Kunstmanen display area.
• David Anderson, at short notice, gave us a briefing about
the TORRO group. This is a UK based organisations of bothamateurs and academics, interested in extreme weather
phenomena. TORRO’s website is at
www.torro.org.uk

and delegates were encouraged to visit it to learn details of
TORRO’s activities.
• David Taylor presented ‘Gadget Corner’, which related to three

The conference area we use for our symposium in the NSC is
ideal because it can easily be divided into a presentation room forabout 80 people while leaving the other two thirds of the area freefor displays and demonstrations. Within the demonstration area we
had:• John Tellick running live EUMETCast together with muchliterature.
• GEO had an area, again running EUMETCast, and withadditional laptop computers showing recorded images from
MSG and Envisat, again with a variety of literature fromourselves and EUMETSAT.
• GEO Shop was in attendance, with Clive and Carol Finnis
offering a wide range of items for sale and, understandably,
did brisk business during the day.
• Werkgroep Kunstmanen mounted an extensive display of bothcurrent and historical equipment and again ran a variation onlive EUMETCast signals.
• Other members had their own personal display tables.
www.geo-web.org.uk

Kerian James presents his talk on Near Earth Objects

3

GEO Quarterly No 32

The Group for Earth Observation

December 2011

USB stick devices which fit into your pocket for easy travelling.
The first was the Ventus GPS, a GPS logger which can record
your position during the day. Second was the MarineGadget
Radar, which allows the plotting of ship positions with a simple
antenna—ideal for those seaside trips. Finally, there was the
FUNcube Dongle Pro, a receiver from AMSAT UK covering
the VHF and UHF ranges, which is already being used toreceive APT pictures in conjunction with an SDR (software
defined radio) program running on your PC. These receivers
with their broadband front-ends may need additional filteringin good VHF locations. Arne van Belle showed more gadgets,
including SMD workshop tools and a Russian radiation
detector.
GEO AGM
It was encouraging that almost all the delegates stayed for the
AGM. I acted as chairman for this meeting. In my report I tried tocover the significant events of the past year. I identified our group’s
main aims and objectives having remained unchanged, that is, topromote the interests of our members, and to support amateur,
educational and non-commercial users of weather satellites.
I identified the changes that have taken place in our management
team. Peter Green is editor with Les Hamilton as assistant editor.
Rob Denton has taken over the role of international liaison. Peter
Wakelin has retired as a member of our management team. I noted
his contributions each quarter with his ‘Satellite Update’ which will
be missed. Ray Godden has retired as webmaster but still remains
within our management team. On behalf of GEO I expressed thanks
to all the past and present management team: without them GEO
would not exist.

The Werkgroep Kunstmanen Display Area

It was noted that GEO does try to attend appropriate rallies,
exhibitions and conferences when possible. The past year had
included rallies at Newbury, Kempton (twice), the RSGB sponsored
two-day National Hamfest at Newark and, for the first time, theRoyal Meteorological Society conference in Reading. For a
combination of reasons, we were no able to attend the NOAA
conference in Miami, but we did send our literature and display
materials which apparently were well received and conspicuous in
NOAA’s display area. A report from this conference was expected to
be available during our coming visit to Darmstadt.
For the ‘Any Other Business’ agenda item I suggested thatdelegates consider any future policies we should address, whichmight enlarge our membership and benefit other groups who may
not be aware of weather satellite reception.
Individual reports were given by those members of the management
team who were present.
David Anderson, our membership secretary, reported a decline
in membership, which now stands at about 430 whereas, in thepast, it had been over 500. David said he would publish details ofmembership in a coming Quarterly.
Clive and Carol Finnis reported that the shop continues to bebusy and, with the changing technology, they are always trying tokeep up-to-date with their stock. The shop made a profit last yearof about £2,000 and the current balance in the shop account is£8,414. I personally thanked Clive and Carol because, without theirefforts, our membership would not have such easy access to thevital items of hardware we all use. Thanks were also expressed toDavid Simmons who is very busy fulfilling his role as assistant shop
manager.
I reported on the membership financial position. A full statementof accounts was available to all the delegates. Basically themembership side of our finances had just broken even over theyear. There was an unexpected expense repaying two sponsors a
total of £3,000, and the cost of buying computers and software forpublication of the Quarterly. This was balanced by reduced printing
and distribution costs. Our opening balance for the year was £2,176
with a turnover of £13,901 and a closing balance of £2,305. if any

4

Clive and Carol Finnis happily pointing out one of the
DVB World receivers they had available for sale on their stand.

member would like to see the full accounts, as available at theAGM, please email a request to me at
francis@geo-web.org.uk

Other Business
The main discussion here related to widening our membership. It
was decided to approach TORRO and exchange information about
our activities and areas of mutual of interest.
The day ended with the raffle and draw which had raised about£150 during the day. The star prize was a Ray Godden R2FX APT
receiver which went to Rob Denton. I have subsequently discovered
this receiver is in regular use with Rob. I have an audio recording of
the AGM if anyone would like to borrow it.

www.geo-web.org.uk

December 2011

The Group for Earth Observation

GEO Quarterly No 32

Rob Alblas
On July 7/8, a number of members of Werkgroep
Kunstmanen, together with members of GEO, paid a visit to
EUMETSAT in Darmstadt. We made a similar visit in 2007.
The programme consisted of a number of lectures fromEUMETSAT, a visit to various control centres in Darmstadt
and an excursion to the antenna park in Usingen. There
was also a visit to the ESOC space operations centre in
Darmstadt.
From our Werkgroep, among others, Ben Schellekens, Arne
van Belle, Peter Smits, Rob Alblas, Hendrik Jalving andElmar Bogels all attended, as well as one of our German
members. In total there were 28 participants, the majority of
GEO members coming from Great Britain.
For us, this visit started with a long car journey toDarmstadt, which lies just to the south of Frankfurt. After
this long trip, we indulged ourselves at a Greek restaurant
where we found enough materials to make a fanciful
demonstration of the working of an XY-rotator (figure 1).

Figure 2 - The EUMETSAT Headquarters Building

Figure 1 - A fanciful representation of an XY rotator

The next morning we set off to
EUMETSAT headquarters (figures2, 3). In the hall, our attention
was taken by the enormous screenwith live weather pictures. In one
corner of the hall a very particularmanner of showing pictures
was to be seen: on a globe of theworld! (figure 4). Perhaps thisis something worth copying? It
would be a beautiful addition to
our stand but would depend on us
obtaining a grant.

Figure 3 - A model of the MSG Satellite in the Garden at EUMETSAT

The welcome screen at
EUMETSATThe series of lectures was introduced by Sally Wannop, User
Support Manager at EUMETSAT.
After a word of welcome from EUMETSAT’s Director ofOperations, Mikael Rattenborg, Sally provided an overview of
the current state of affairs concerning MSG, as well as theplans for the future: see figure 5. Next the Earth Observation
Portal (EOP) came under consideration. It’s through this,via one central location, that all EUMETSAT’s archived data
becomes available.

Figure 4 - A satellite image projected on the inside of a globe

www.geo-web.org.uk
This article originally appeared in the September
2011 issue of the Dutch magazine ‘De Kunstmaan’

5GEO Quarterly No 32

The Group for Earth Observation

December 2011

Figure 5 - A summary of EUMETSAT's Future Mission Plans

After this, Marianne König
detailed how, through the
combination of several
MSG channels, diverse
atmospheric matters can be
explained. One can think here of
the detection of fog, particulates
and so on. The future (Third
Generation) satellites will bealso be equipped for detecting
lightning activity.
Dieter Klaes held a presentation
about Metop. Here we had thechance to learn about future
developments in the EUMETCast
system. The quantity of data
which is disseminated by meansof this system will only increase,the more so once Meteosat
Third Generation comes into
service. Because of this, a newgeneration of DVB (DVB-S2) will
be necessary. With the current
DVB-S, a data rate of 31 Mbps is
possible: with DVB-S2 this canbecome 44 to 66 Mbps, which
is very close to the theoreticalmaximum. Consequently, yourold DVB-S receiver will eventually
have to be replaced. Although
there are already DVB-S2
receivers available for purchase at
the present time (among others,
from DVBWorld), it’s advisable
for now not to purchase oneof these dearer types. There6

are several types that support
specific modes—but it is not yet
certain which mode will be used
(probably VCM).
The official line from EUMETSAT
is: ‘Do not prepare for, or worry
about, DVB-S2. It is far too soonfor that!’
Around midday we enjoyed aguided tour through the Control
Centres and the Data Centre.
The control centre for the MSG
satellites contains an impressive
number of monitors (figure 6).
In the control centre for polarsatellites such as Metop, yetanother aspect came to thefore. At the moment in timethat this polar satellite passes
over Svalbard, the data froma complete orbit is dumped.
Then, absolute silence must
reign in the control centre, incase of possible problems which
can appear during this criticaltransfer. We were thus requested
to leave the area. Figure 8, takenin the centre just four minutes
before this event, shows a screen
displaying details of an upcoming
Metop pass.
In the basement is found the area
where all data is archived. If arequest comes in for data from,

Figure 6 - The MSG Control Centre with its array of Monitors

Figure 7 - The Metop Control Centre

This article originally appeared in the September
2011 issue of the Dutch magazine ‘De Kunstmaan’
www.geo-web.org.uk

December 2011

The Group for Earth Observation

GEO Quarterly No 32

visible light and near infrared) sounder. In the case of theimager, a backup satellite will also be launched but there will
be no such backup for the sounder.
An important difference between the current and previous
generations of geostationary satellites is that Meteosat Third
Generation (MTG) is three-axis stabilised, whereas the older
generations were spin stabilised.
Finally, François Montagner told us about the cooperation
between EUMETSAT and NOAA concerning polar satellites:
the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). The NOAAs andMetops complement each other.

Figure 8 - The Screen showing details of Metop and NOAA-19 passes

for example, a number of years ago, it’s here that the relevanttape is fetched from a rack (figure 9), read and replaced.
The type of storage medium is always being renewed withadvancing technology.

A CD has been put together with all the presentations. UK
readers who would like a copy can request one, in writing,from Francis Bell, stating their postal address and enclosing
four first class stamps to cover the cost of postage (postal
details for Francis can be found on page 1 of this Quarterly).
In the evening we went for a meal with a number of
EUMETSAT employees in a typical Biergarten.
The following day we travelled by coach to Usingen,approximately 70 km to the north of Darmstadt (on the
opposite side from Frankfurt). Here we enjoyed an extensive
guided trip through the antenna park. Only a small fractionof the antennas are for EUMETSAT-EUMETCast; the majorityof the more than 100 dishes in place are intended forsatellite-TV.

Figure 10 - Antennas for MSG-1, MSG-2 and MSG-3

Figure 10 shows the antennas that receive the raw data from
MSG. In the background can seen the antenna for the yet
to be launched MSG-3. These antennas have a diameter ofapproximately 21 metres and must be aimed very accurately.
The antennas are regularly steered, whereby they are turned
slightly to make certain that their direction is optimal. Thisaction is only apparent from the sound of the motor as thecorrection to the antenna is very small.
Figure 9 - Part of one of the carousels containing tape archives

After lunch there followed presentations concerning the Third
Generation of geostationary satellites which will come into use
in 2017. In contrast with the current 2nd generation and first
generation satellites, the third generation consists of twin
satellites: an imager satellite (MTG-I) and a sounder satellite(MTG-S). The imager satellite makes the weather pictures,
where 16 spectral channels (presently 11) will be used, with aresolution of between 0.5 km and 2 km (at present 1 km and
3 km). Also, there is a lightning detector on board which will
map total lightning activity around the world. The soundersatellite contains both an infrared and a UVN (ultraviolet,

The raw data is sent from here to Darmstadt by means of
microwave links (figure 12). Because a small hill stands inthe way, a relay station has been placed on top of it. In caseof interruptions, the data can also be transferred by means ofcables. Generally speaking, the quality using the microwave
link is better (with less chance on data errors).
After processing in Darmstadt, the data are returned toUsingen, whence they are sent to the Eurobird satellite(figure 11) which then provides the distribution over Europe.
Figure 13 shows an overview of part of the antenna park.
There seems to be an antenna hidden behind every bush…

www.geo-web.org.uk
This article originally appeared in the September
2011 issue of the Dutch magazine ‘De Kunstmaan’

7

GEO Quarterly No 32

The Group for Earth Observation

December 2011

Figure 11 - Uplink to Eurobird
Photo: Arne van Belle

Figure 12 - The Usingen Transmission Tower

Back in Darmstadt, we still had to visit the ESOC Space
Centre. There is not much of interest to see here justnow. The Main Control Room was unfortunately closed on
account of rebuilding work. In 2007, we were able to see
it. Unfortunately, the policy at ESOC is much stricter thanat EUMETSAT and visitors are not allowed into the control
rooms. Because of this, the tour was restricted to a mere

8

Figure 13 - An overview of the Usingen Antenna Park

peek in from the corridor, and viewing the posters andsatellite models/fragments in the showcases.
That same day we had to set off home again. All in all, it was
an interesting excursion. There are many more photographs
to be seen at:
http://www.alblas.demon.nl/reis/EUMETSAT/index.html

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This article originally appeared in the September
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Les Hamilton
A few years ago, NASA Earth Observatory featured two
remarkable images under the banner of its Image of the Day.
Figure 1 is a photograph taken of the sky above Arcadiana, aregion of the Gulf coast of Louisiana stretching between New
Orleans and Texas [1].
On January 29, 2007, inhabitants saw unusual looking
cloud formations that appeared for all the world as thoughholes had been punched right through the cloud layer. Often
dubbed 'hole-punch' clouds, these phenomena are correctly
termed 'fallstreak holes'. Not only were these clouds visible
to ground-based observers but they were also captured by
the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)
flying aboard NASA’s Terra satellite (figure 2). Indeed, averitable swarm of these holes, some circular and others
elongated, showed up in the MODIS image over an area ofcloud stretching across Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, andTexas.

Figure 1 - Seen from below, one of the many fallstreak holes
observed over Arcadiana on January 29, 2007

Fallstreak holes have been observed for many years but it is
only recently that the cause of their formation has become
understood. Often, in the past, the phenomenon had been
considered to be evidence for UFOs, and as recently as
October 2009 a fallstreak hole that appeared in the sky
over Moscow fuelled widespread reports of a 'mystery UFO'
above the city. The cause is much more mundane andhas for several decades been considered to be related to a
combination of low temperatures and air traffic.
The cloud blanket shown in figure 2 consisted of supercooled
clouds, where water existed as liquid droplets even though
the temperature was well below freezing. Such clouds are
by no means unusual. Figure 3, a colour composite AVHRR
image created using David Taylor's HRPT Reader software [2]also shows the fallstreak holes to good effect, as does theenlarged channel-2 image (figure 4). HRPT Reader also
created a thermal image (figure 5) which shows that thetemperature of the affected cloud mass was in the range-25°C to -35°C. On the other hand, through the fallstreakholes, temperatures (of land or lower cloud levels) areconsiderably lower, generally above -10°C.
Throughout the day, aircraft from Dallas-Fort Worthinternational airport passing through this cloud mass wereclearly causing its supercooled water droplets to freeze
rapidly; the more massive ice crystals fell from the clouddeck, creating the 'punch-holes' while, as figure 1 shows,some of the tinier ice particles remained suspended in thecentre of the hole.
Recent Research
In December that same year (2007), Andrew Heymsfield, ascientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research(NCAR) based at Boulder, Colorado, was present at an eventthat was, fortuitously, to lead to his establishing that themost likely cause of these cloud holes was aeroplanes on
their take-off and landing flight paths [3] .
At the time, Heymsfield was participating in an unrelated
project, the Ice in Clouds Experiment, which aimed to
predict the number of ice particles nucleating in clouds attemperatures warmer than −37°C. The NCAR operates a

Figure 2 - A segment from a 250 m resolution MODIS image showing someof the fallstreak holes that developed over Louisiana on January 29, 2007
Image: Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at GSFC

Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft equipped with a range ofspectrometers to measure aerosol, cloud droplet, and ice
particle size distributions, as well as upward and downward
Doppler cloud radar, plus an upward-viewing twinwavelength polarization LIDAR to provide remote sensing
data. It was during a flight aboard this craft, north of Fort
Collins, Colorado, that the LIDAR detected light snowfall froma layer of cloud 1.5 kilometres above the C-130.
It was not till some months later, when reviewing datalogged by the aircraft’s video cameras during that flight, that
Heymsfield and colleague Patrick Kennedy noticed a gap in
the otherwise unbroken deck of altocumulus clouds above
their plane, as well as a band of snow that extended to theground. This hole measured 1 x 1.8 kilometres and had thesame orientation as the standard flight tracks of commercial
aircraft in the region. Radar from the ground picked up
a strange echo in their wake, indicating oddly-shapedsnowflakes.
A subsequent review of flight track records from the Federal
Aviation Administration revealed that turboprop planes
operated by two airlines had flown close to the hole's location

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December 2011

Figure 3 - This NOAA-17 image acquired at 16:27 UT on January 29, 2008 shows the fallstreak holes in the cloud at the left-hand side
Image: NOAA CLASS Archive

Figure 4 - An enlargement of the channel-2 NOAA-17 image

Figure 5 - A thermal version of the same NOAA-17 image

about an hour earlier, following a standard flight path, andseemed to have produced the subsequent band of snow.
The research plane had in fact flown through the snow
produced by the fallstreak hole. Snow crystals began falling
about five minutes after the second aircraft flew throughthe cloud and snowfall, in a band about 30 km long and
4 km wide, continued for about 45 minutes, resulting in
about five centimetres of snow on the ground. Away fromthe fallstreak hole only very light snow occurred and it
failed to make significant accumulations.

as condensation nuclei, and accumulated drops of liquidwater as they fell. But in the centre of the hole, all theliquid had either frozen or evaporated and there were no
droplets remaining to collect on the snow. Heymsfieldsurmised that an airplane flying through that cloud was
likely to have caused ice particles to form and 'snow out'
along its path, leaving a fallstreak hole behind.

Normally, snowflakes and raindrops need a nucleus—aspeck of dust or salt—around which to form. But
supercooled water can freeze instantly if it cools rapidly
to around -40°C. To confirm this idea, the researchers
compared the snowflakes that fell on either side of thefallstreak hole with the ice crystals that fell directly
beneath it. The snowflakes that fell from the hole were
simpler and more plate-like than those that originated in
the surrounding clouds. The latter snowflakes had acted

10

Why?
The idea of aircraft creating fallstreak holes relates tothe cooling of air as it passes over the wings, causing
supercooled water droplets to spontaneously turn into ice
crystals without the requirement of condensation nuclei(see side panel on page 12).
His team found that—at lower altitudes—jet planes canpunch holes in clouds and create small quantities of rain
and snow. Their research determined that this precipitation
was triggered by supercooled water droplets below about-5°C. As a plane flies through mid-level cloud layers, it

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This fallstreak cloud was photographed near Linz, Austria on August 17, 2008 by H RaabImage courtesy Wikipedia Commons

A fallstreak cloud visible over Omarama, New Zealand in May 2006
Image courtesy Dollsworth: Wikipedia Commonswww.geo-web.org.uk

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December 2011

This Fallstreak Hole was photographed from near Mobile, Alabama, USA - Image: Joel Knain/NASAThis image has been featured on NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day website at http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040112.html

forces the air to expand rapidly and cool. As a result,supercooled water droplets in the cloud freeze to ice,then turn to snow which can fall to the ground. This
creates a gap in the cloud which can expand to createa spectacular fallstreak hole in the cloud layer. This
inadvertent seeding of clouds can be produced byany aircraft, whether jet or propeller driven, and theresulting fallstreak holes are often observed near theends of airport runways.

Supercooled Water in the Atmosphere
Lower level clouds, where temperatures frequently lie between zero and-15°C, normally consist almost entirely of water droplets, not ice crystals.
This may come as a surprise when you consider that the freezing pointof water is 0°C but, in the absence of suitable seed crystals or nuclei(such as suspended ice crystals or dust particles), water droplets do notspontaneously freeze until cooled to around -40°C.

In the case of propeller driven aircraft, the ice crystals
are formed by adiabatic [4]. expansion of air at the tipsof the propeller blades at temperatures as high as −8°C.
For aircraft in general, ice crystals form as air expands
above the wing surfaces when the temperature is below-20°C. In both scenarios, the resultant cooling chills the
air down to −37°C or below, causing the supercooled
droplets to freeze spontaneously without the need of aseed nucleus.
References
1 Hole Punch Clouds in Acadiana
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=7362
2 SatSignal Software
http://www.satsignal.eu/software/hrpt.htm
3 Aircraft-induced Hole Punch and Canal Clouds
Andrew J Heymsfield, Patrick C Kennedy et al
Journal of the American Meteorological Society, June 2010
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2009BAMS2905.1
4 Adiabatic: a thermodynamic process in which no heat is neither
gained nor lost.
5 Hole Punch Cloud: the Uncloud
http://weatherthings.com/HolePunch.html
6 The Hole Story
http://www2.ucar.edu/magazine/features/hole-story
7 Punching Holes in the Sky
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/hole-punch.html

12Such water droplets, which remain liquid at temperatures below 0°C, aresaid to be supercooled. Most lower level clouds consist of supercooled
water droplets.
Higher level clouds, where the temperatures falls between -15°C and-40°C, consist of a mixture of supercooled droplets and ice crystals. By
the time a cloud temperature has fallen to -40°C, it will consist almost
entirely of ice crystals.
Droplets of supercooled water often exist in stratiform and cumulus
clouds and aircraft flying through them can seed an abrupt crystallizationof these droplets. This can cause ice to form on the plane's wings
unless it is fitted with a de-icing system.
When supercooled water drops fall as rain the result can be freezing
rain. When the supercooled drops strike ground which is already at or
below freezing, they freeze instantly, coating roads, pavements, powerlines and trees with a thin film of ice. Readers living in South and West
Yorkshire will remember events of January 12, 2010, when freezing
overnight rain caused a heavy ice glaze on the roads and caused major
disruption to commuter traffic.
In extreme cases, freezing rain can produce an ice storm, such as theevent that hit Ontario and Quebec, Canada in January 1998. Mature
trees were felled and electricity power lines flattened under the sheer
weight of the encrusting ice. Around three million people were without
electricity, some for as long as six weeks.

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GEO Quarterly No 32

A NASA Earth Observatory Report

NASA image by Rob Simmon, using Landsat-5 data from the USGS Global Visualization Viewer. Image interpretation courtesy Andrew Heymsfield.

Looking up on a chilly December morning in 2009, residents ofrural West Virginia, southwest of Charleston, would have seena halo of light bursting through the thin bank of clouds that hungoverhead. The light was streaming through hole-punch clouds andcanals, most likely created by passing aeroplanes. This image,taken by the Landsat-5 satellite on December 11, 2009, shows theunique conditions in which such holes can form.
When aeroplanes, particularly propeller aircraft, pass throughthe clouds, they disturb the air, which expands in the turbulencecreated by the propellers and wings. As the air expands, it cools,
and the supercooled water droplets in the clouds freeze into ice.
These ice crystals act as seeds upon which other water droplets
freeze. Over time, the clouds around the disturbed area disappear
and an ice cloud grows.
Clouds created in this manner take two different forms: hole-punch
clouds and canals. The hole-punch clouds consist of an ice cloudsurrounded by a halo of clear sky where the water in the clouds
has frozen into ice and disappeared. Canals resemble contrails,
and are long streaks where ice clouds are continuously being
formed as the aircraft travels within the altocumulus cloud layer.
The image above was made using both infrared and visible light,
a combination that makes it possible to distinguish between waterand ice clouds. The main cloud blanket is pale blue and pink, thewarmer tones of clouds consisting of water droplets. In the holepunch clouds, however, can be seen the iridescent blue signatureof ice crystals, surrounded by a halo of clear sky. A similar blue
streak from a canal runs across the top left.
The surrounding cloud bank was made up of altocumulus clouds
at an altitude of between 2 000 to 7 000 metres, which radiosondedata showed had temperatures between -5°C and -20°C. Despite
the chill, this image reveals that the clouds were made of water
droplets, and not ice.

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GEO Quarterly No 32

The Group for Earth Observation

December 2011

Les Hamilton and David Taylor
Although we are used to the periods during the spring and autumn
when the sun is in line with our satellite dish and interference
results, the sun can also cause problems for the SEVIRI imager
used in the spinning Meteosat Second Generation (MSG)
geostationary satellites. Just as you can get flare when taking
photographs into the sun, so there can be effects on the images
from the MSG satellites depending on the exact angle of the sun
relative to the sight line of the imager. As the sun's elevation
relative to the satellite varies throughout the year, so the effects
vary as well.

Unfortunately, additional light rays, sometimes referred to as'parasitic light' can reach the detector. Parasitic light does not arriveby the regular optical path (figure 3, left) but by• diffuse scattering off the mirrors. (figure 3, centre)• reflections off non-optical parts of the telescope such asbaffles etc. (figure 3, right)• other effects, such as diffraction.

These effects are mainly seen around midnight in spring andautumn when the sun shines on the imager, peeping out above thepolar regions. If you only run during the daytime, you're less likely
to see these artefacts.

Figure 1 - Meteosat in Eclipse
Figure 3 - How straylight reaches the Meteosat detectors

This drawing illustrates what are known as the eclipse seasons,those times in the year when Meteosat enters Earth's shadow.
Eclipse seasons occur between late February and mid April, andfrom late August to mid October.
Occasionally, images can be degraded when unwanted sunlight
intrudes into the radiometer, mainly when Meteosat is in the eclipse
penumbra and at least part of the sun is visible from the satellite
when it is over the night hemisphere of Earth. For obvious reasons,these intrusions are most troublesome on infrared and watervapour images. The sequence of images at the foot of this pageillustrates the problem. EUMETSAT dubs this unwanted radiation
as 'straylight'.
What is Straylight
The SEVIRI instrument carried by MSG satellites consists of ascan mirror, a three-mirror telescope and a set of filters and lenses
that illuminate a cluster of infrared and visible light detectors. Eachacquired image of Earth is projected on to each detector in sucha manner that, in principal at least, any light ray arriving on thedetector originates from a specific location on Earth (figure 3).

Source: EUMETSATGood telescope design helps to minimise the incidence of straylight,
but any particularly bright light source can potentially contributestraylight to an image. The prime source of straylight in SEVIRI
images is, of course, the sun but a secondary source, despite beingorders of magnitude fainter, is the moon. As yet, artefacts causedby straylight emanating from bright objects on the Earth, such as
clouds, have not yet been identified.
The amount of straylight affecting an image depends on various
factors, most importantly the position and angle of the sun relative
to the telescope. For the reasons explained above, straylight is only
observed during spring and autumn: during the remainder of theyear the sun is too far north or south of the equator. Straylight isobserved only during the night, when Meteosat is directly opposite
the sun in its orbit.
The SEVIRI spectral channels are not all equally sensitive tosunlight. The VIS-06, VIS-08, NIR-16 and HRV channels were
designed to be sensitive to reflected visible light while the IR-3.9
channels are sensitive both to reflected visible and infrared

Figure 2 - Five Meteosat WV images acquired around midnight on April 14 1997 show the typical effects of straylight from the sun entering the radiometer
Images © 1997 EUMETSAT

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frequencies. All remaining IR
channels were designed tomeasure thermal radiation
emitted from Earth's atmosphereand do not respond to reflectedsolar radiation. Only direct
illumination arising when the sunis actually in the image will havean effect on those channels (seeFigure 4).
It follows that straylight can
only be expected in the VIS-06,
VIS‑08, NIR-16, HRV and IR-3.9
channels. In practice, straylightis really only significant in theIR-3.9 channel, given that there
is little useful signal in the otherfour channels during night-time.

Figure 4
A straylight artifact on a
Meteosat IR-3.9 image
Image © EUMETSAT

Because straylight can arise from various light paths, a variety ofcomplex effects can be produced, such as those in figure 5, whichshows patterns that depend on the distance to the sun as well as
visual artefacts in both the horizontal and vertical directions. The
vertical extent of the image is achieved by moving the scan mirror
the same way as for Earth imaging. The horizontal extent is built upby the satellite rotation, again the same as Earth imaging.

Summary
The factors describing the intensity of straylight include• the angle between satellite (telescope), rotational plane andthe sun, given by date — and to a lesser degree the satellite
attitude• the angle between the Sun and the telescope's line of sight in
the rotational plane of the satellite• the scan mirror position• the individual detector and, thereby, the spectral channel.
Correcting for of Straylight Effects
The EUMETSAT Image Processing Facility cannot predict complex
straylight patterns such as that shown in figure 5, but it does allow
for a correction based on a simple distance law towards the sun.
This correction is activated only for the IR3.9 channel since, for theother IR channels, straylight does not exert a significant effect.

Figure 5
A straylight pattern around an image of the Sun in the NIR1.6 channel
Image © EUMETSAT

During image data processing, straylight estimation is performed
before the image lines are resampled. The straylight contribution
is calculated its contribution to each individual detector line iscalculated, after which it is subtracted from the line. Finally, thecorrected line data is subject to a resampling process to create thefinal Level 1.5 image.
Because of this correction process, it is unlikely that GEO readers
ever experience straylight artefacts in their images these days.
But if anyone has images from the eclipse periods that show
unexpected aberrations, do please send them to the editor for
possible inclusion in a future Quarterly.
Acknowledgement
Thanks to EUMETSAT for making much of the information in thisarticle available on the pages of their website
Reference
Known Meteosat Image Anomalies - GEOQ5, p5 (2005)

Cover and Full Page Images
Front CoverThis image has been created from measurements taken by
the AMSR-E instrument aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite on
September 9, 2011, and depicts the sea ice in the Arctic at
it lowest extent for the year.
Image: NASA

Besides serving as the backbone for all weather forecasts, NOAA’ssatellites also provide another relatively unknown service: searchand rescue. The Search and Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking system(COSPAS-SARSAT), is an international program that provides rescue
assistance around the world. The NOAA GOES and POES satellites,
along with Russia’s COSPAS satellites, can detect signals from searchand rescue beacons and relay their positions back to land. NOAA’s
SARSAT facility in Maryland works closely with the U.S. Coast Guard and
Air Force to coordinate rescues in U.S. territories. In 2010, the COSPASSARSAT program was responsible for saving 2,338 lives internationally,and 295 lives in the U.S. The position of each rescue is plotted as a white
dot on the map above.

Back CoverThis MODIS image acquired by NASA’s Terra satellite on
August 10, 2011 serves to illustrate the depletion of sea icefrom Russia’s Arctic coastline. The course and delta of the
Lena river are easily identified, flanked by the Verkhoyansk
mountains. The New Siberian Islands are prominent in theocean to the north.
Image: NASA

Page 45Showing that APT still has much to offer is this visible
channel image from the 12:59 UT pass on October 28,
2011. The low winter sunshine accentuates the cloud
structure as a depression encroaches on Britain.

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Image: Les Hamilton

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The Group for Earth Observation

December 2011

Fred van den Bosch
This year I made my dream come true: living in Asia. Not in Bali,
which is what I had wanted since I was eight years old, but in
Vietnam, where my wife comes from. Last year we bought a pieceof land in a small village about 20 km West of Nha Trang. Nha
Trang is the beach resort of Vietnam. We left Holland at the end of
February 2011 and by mid-March, the beginning of the dry season,
construction of our house had started. Because work on the house
continued seven days a week, with an average of 10 men andwomen—occasionally 20—on the job, construction was completed
in late July, when we moved in. Late in August, the container with
our stuff arrived. In it were my R2FX receiver and PADAT antenna,
so it was time to try to receive satellites again.
During construction, we considered where to place my antennas.
One of the pillars was built a little higher, so that a mast can be
attached to it. Near the pillar, a pipe was inserted through the wall
into my room to carry antenna leads.

Meteosat 7
I will try to receive it here. This satellite has an elevation of
approximately 30°, a rather favourable position for me. I’ll have to
make an antenna for this although I still have a down-converter.
Last year, at Air Displays by the Royal Dutch Air Force, I tested
it with Hendrik Jalving’s antenna. Even in Holland we received
pictures from Meteosat 7!
HRPT
This will be ‘a bit more difficult’. To be sure, I have ordered the
GODIL module for decoding. Now ‘only’ the antenna, the rotors
and the receiver have to be constructed. This will clearly be a longduration project.
I remain a member of the Dutch Workgroup and GEO and so I
hope to stay informed of all developments. If there are any on thisside of the world, I will certainly let you all know about them.

Because I have the highest house of the environment, I am rather
afraid of lightning. Not without reason: the phone line at the house
where we stayed during construction was hit by lightning and I saw
a flash coming from the phone modem. By a great stroke of luck,
the wireless modem and my netbook, both in use, survived it. Arne
gave me some very useful hints for lightning protection; some ofthem are already implemented while others have yet to be done.
Fortunately, according to the locals, the lightning season is over,so hopefully I will have some time to install the missing lightning
conductors.

For this reason I have not set up the mast yet. I have therefore
placed the PADAT antenna on a tripod and, should the weather bevery bad I can lay it flat on the roof. Although the metal water tankon the roof is higher up than the PADAT, I do not want to count onit (to protect the antenna from lightning). The reception is definitely
good, as shown in figure 2, a recording from 20-09-2011.
Once the house is decorated—-and that could well take up aconsiderable time—I want to do more with weather satellites.
Unfortunately I cannot receive MSG here so it will be mainly APT.
In addition, there are certainly further (wild) plans.

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A NASA Earth Observatory Report

NASA image created by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASAEO-1 team
Caption by Michon Scott based on image interpretation by Ted Scambos, National Snow and Ice Data Center

Though composed entirely from frozen water, naturally occurring
ice is rarely uniform. On October 7, 2011, the Advanced Land
Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite
captured this image displaying a variety of ice types off the coastof East Antarctica. Brilliant white ice fills the right half of the image.
This is fast ice, deriving its name from the fact that it holds fast
to the shore: it is thick enough to completely hide the underlying
seawater, hence its brilliant white colour. Trapped within the fast
ice, and stuck along the edge of it, are icebergs, which calve fromice shelves attached to the coast. These ice shelves can range inthickness from tens to hundreds of meters and the icebergs they
calve often tower above the surrounding sea ice. One iceberg,
drenched with meltwater, has toppled and shattered (top rightcorner of the image).

The icebergs along the edge of the fast ice are probably groundedon the shallow sea floor and their presence may well help to holdthe fast ice in place. Farther out to sea is pack ice that drifts withwinds and currents. Much thinner than the fast ice, the translucent
pack ice appears in shades of gray.
The pack ice includes some newly formed sea ice. As seawater
starts to freeze, it forms tiny crystals known as frazil. Although theindividual crystals are only millimetres across, enough of themassembled together become visible from space as delicate swirls in
the open water. Frazil crystals can coalesce into thin sheets of ice
known as nilas, which often slide over each other and eventuallymerge into thicker layers of ice.

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GEO Quarterly No 32

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December 2011

John Tellick
I reported briefly in GEOQ 31 about category-4 typhoon
Nanmadol which crossed Luzon the northern island of
the Philippines in August. The 2011 storm season in
the NW Pacific has been very active as the storm track
diagram shows. Notice how many storms crossed thePhilippines. On several occasions this season there were
two systems active at the same time as with TS Rokeand Typhoon Sonka—which was close to Japan on July
19.
Having endured Typhoon Nanmadol in August, worse
was to follow: two typhoons within a week at the end of
September and the beginning of October. Typhoon Nesat
was followed by Typhoon Nalgae in less than a week,
crossing the same area of Luzon and causing damage,flooding and loss of life (figure 2).
Michael Carlowicz of NASA Earth Observatory reported:
In a matter of five days, the Philippines and south eastern
Asia were hammered by two intense tropical storms in late
September and early October. Several months worth of rain
fell within a week—a deluge even by tropical standards—on
Luzon in the northern Philippines, as well as in northern
Vietnam and the Chinese island of Hainan.

Figure 1 - NW Pacific Storms (2011)
Credit: Wikipedia Commons

Figure 3 shows average rainfall totals in the Western Pacificfrom September 26 till October 2, when Typhoon Nesat andSuper Typhoon Nalgae passed through. The heaviest average
rainfall, more than 350 millimetres, appears in dark blue.
Localized rainfall could be significantly higher. The lightest
rainfall, less than 50 millimetres, appears in light green.
Superimposed on the rainfall totals are the storm tracks for
Nesat and Nalgae, with maroon indicating the strongest storm
intensity, and pink indicating the weakest. Typhoon Nesat
reached category-3 strength, with winds estimated at 195 kph
late on September 26, when it crossed into the heavily
populated island of Luzon (figure 4). The storm weakened but
still maintained typhoon force winds when it reached Hainan
on September 29.
Nalgae was a category-4 super typhoon when it made landfallin the on October 1, with winds approaching 240 kph (figure5). The storm was later downgraded to tropical storm force,but continued to approach Hainan and Vietnam two days later.
According to news reports, almost three million Filipinos wereaffected by the storms. At least 58 people were killed andanother 28 were reported missing as of October 3. More than
300,000 people were being housed in evacuation centres,and damage estimates were approaching US$200 million.
In southern China, roughly 140,000 people were evacuated,losses approached US$ 251 million, and at least four people
lost their lives.

Figure 2 - Tropical Storm Roke and Typhoon Sonka
MTSAT image acquired on September 19, 2011
Credit: EUMETSAT © 2011

Having visited the Philippines twice, I’m pleased to saythat the weather was wonderful—though perhaps a bit
too hot and humid. However, I caught in a tropicalstorm whilst taking an 18 hour ferry journey (on an
old Isles of Scilly ferry) back from Vava’u to Tongatapu(Tonga). It wasn’t much fun to say the least. The
outward leg, travelled by light plane, was straight out ofa glossy travelogue, flying over the islands in an azure
Pacific, thanks to BBC TV.
Figure 3 -Tracks and rainfall from typhoons Nesat and Nalgae
Credit: Weather Underground – www.wunderground.com

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Figure 4 - Typhoon Nesat tracks across the Philippines in this image from Metop-A dating from September 27, 2011
Credit: EUMETSAT © 2011

Figure 5 - Typhoon Nalgae tracks across the Philippines in this Metop-A image dating from October 1, 2011
Credit: EUMETSAT © 2011www.geo-web.org.uk

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David Taylor
The EUMETSAT Meteorological Conference was held at the Oslo
Kongressenter, where some of the ground floor windows were stillboarded up following last July’s explosion. With the EUMETSAT
flag boldly displayed outside the conference centre, there could
be no doubt where to go (figure 2). The main hall could easily
accommodate the record 400-plus delegates expected to attend.

Figure 2 - The Oslo Kongressenter. Some ground floor windows left of theentrance are boarded up. Note the EIUMETSAT flag outside.

Figure 1 - The main auditorium at the Oslo Kongressenter

The opening session included presentations by EUMETSAT’s new
Director General, Alain Ratier (figure 3), pictured with the Director
General of the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, Anton Eliassen.
The early history of EUMETSAT was covered by its founding
Director, John Morgan, who gave a highly entertaining talk including
two books he would like to have had at the start: The Complete
Idiot’s Guide to Creating an International Organisation and Building
your own Satellite Organisation for Dummies.
Lunchtime on the first day can sometimes be a bit of a hit-and-missaffair but fortunately the organisers had provided delegates witha list of eateries in the neighbourhood, categorised by price andstyle. The low-cost Thai food at the Rice Bowl Restaurant proved
very popular, and the place was packed out minutes after the lastmorning presentation was over. Those who thought ‘It’s Norway, it
will rain’, were not disappointed.
By far the major sessions (by number) were those devoted toCurrent and Future Satellites, Instruments and their Applications. In
the USA, GOES-R is the first of the higher-capability geostationary
satellites, due for launch late in 2014. In Europe, Meteosat Third
Generation (MTG) will comprise a pair of satellites, one an imager
and the other a sounder, due for launch in 2018/2019. Rather closer
are the next polar orbiting satellites, with the USA’s NPP due in
October 2011 (so it may be in orbit by the time you read this), andthe next European Metop satellite in spring 2012.
Of these satellites, only Metop-B is a direct follow-on to an existingsatellite (Metop-A). NPP includes many new instruments, as do
GOES-R and MTG. All these instruments will need to have theirdata calibrated and validated after they reach orbit, and only once
this is complete will data be released to the user community.
Japan’s GCOM-W1 hardware has suffered from the earthquake
in early 2011, when the wall of the clean room at the TsukubaSpace Center collapsed; this allowed some hardware to become

20

Figure 3 - Alain Ratier (right)
and Anton Eliassen

Figure 4 - The Rice Bowl
Restaurant

contaminated and other items weredamaged. While the hardware has now
been cleaned up, the schedule has been
delayed.
Once again, data formats were discussed.
For example, some of the Japanese
HDF4 products will also be available in
HDF-5, GeoTIFF and netCDF-4 formats.
EUMETSAT also talked about netCDF asa format for the future.
RF Interference
Although members receiving APT in the
UK have had to live with RF interference
from pages for many years, it seems that
this problem may be spreading to theUS, where LightSquared are proposing
to use frequencies extremely close toreserved space allocations for a highpowered urban broadband service. It
appears that this has been driven by
President Obama’s broadband Initiative,
and whist I had heard of this from theGPS community (recall that the basic
SNR of GPS is less than 0 dB), it appears

www.geo-web.org.uk

Figure 5Mark Mulholland

Figure 6
Olav Orheim

December 2011

The Group for Earth Observationthat some of the 1.7 GHz allocation used by weather satellites isbeing removed, with high-powered transmittersplaced in those bands, immediately adjacent to
the remaining polar orbiter and geostationary
allocations. Mark Mulholland from NOAASIS
gave a most entertaining talk about thisserious problem, concluding with a quote from
Vice Admiral Jon L Boyes: ‘Radio frequency
management is done by experts who meldyears of experience with a curious blend of
regulations, electronics, politics and not a
Figure 6
little bit of larceny. They justify requirements,
Roger Saunders
horse-trade, coerce, bluff, and gamble with an
intuition that cannot be taught other than by long experience.’
Arctic Plenary
A highlight for me was the talk given at the Arctic Plenary by
Dr Olav Orheim, Senior Adviser to the Research Council of Norway.
His title was: ‘The changing Arctic climate: What and how do weknow?’ He ended by showing a slide of polar bears enjoying music
and TV from an iPod, whilst drinking beer and looking forward toenjoying some roasted penguin (see figure 9 on page 21).
A packed lunch was the incentive to attend this lunch-time session,as if any incentive were needed.

GEO Quarterly No 32

At the time of writing it was all showing sun but, when we were
there the rain was indicated as ‘estimated mm’, as well as asymbol. Not dumbing down, thank goodness! The institute also had
an art display of Arctic-related images in the conference centre,with postcard-size versions that you could just take away. Most
generous, and really excellent images (figure 12).
Social Programme
A EUMETSAT User Conference would not be complete without an
extensive social program, designed to help delegates meet in lessformal surroundings and make new friends. The Oslo conference
was no exception, with three such events:• A welcome drink on Sunday evening at the conference centre.
• We had a real treat on Monday evening, as the Icebreaker(how appropriate) reception was held in the world-renowned
Fram Museum, just a short distance from the centre of Oslo.
It was a boat trip there and coaches back (figure 13). The
museum houses the original Fram which was involved in threemajor Arctic and Antarctic expeditions with Fridtjof Nansen,
Otto Sverdrup and Roald Amundsen. It is quite impossible toimagine making a major sea voyage in such a small boat, letalone being in Arctic conditions, especially when you are in a
warm museum, walking on the deck with a drink and canapé
in hand (figure 14).
http://www.frammuseum.no

Volcanic Ash
Although the conference’s broad theme was the Arctic, there wasof course, a lot of interest in volcanic ash, and several papers were
presented on this topic. It’s fair to say that a lot more is now known
about ash and its effects, even though the general press may nothave given that impression. Among the presentations was one by
the UK Met Office, presented by Roger Saunders. One advantage
which the Met Office have is their atmospheric model, whichallows more accurate derivation of ash concentration from satellite
observations than the raw values would provide. The question ofwhether the total ash in a plane’s flight path may be more important
than just its concentration was also raised, although quite how thiswould be tested in practice is open to question.
Posters and Exhibition
During coffee breaks, and outside the oral presentations, there was
the opportunity to look at both the exhibition and the posters. There
were far more papers offered than could be accommodated, evenwith the parallel conference sessions, so presenters were offereda poster area instead. While Tuesday afternoon was the official
time set aside for viewing posters, you could visit at any time andready your questions for the presenters. A welcome feature of many
posters was the chance to take away an A4-sized summary of thework being presented. I did miss the chance to vote for the bestposter, a feature they have run in previous years (figure 10).
We were lucky in having not only the industry’s top firms at theexhibition, showing off their software and systems, but also
EUMETSAT themselves, who put on an impressive display with arow of laptops showcasing a variety of products and services. A
number of EUMETSAT staff were on hand throughout the week toanswer questions and discuss topics of mutual interest.
Figure 11 shows EUMETSAT’s display, with the big screen for
detailed examination of any of the products on the portables. Notethe Norwegian fine art in the background, where there were seats
for the delegates to use their own PCs with free Wi-Fi access.
Norwegian Meteorological Institute
In addition to providing the logistics for much of the conference,
Met.no had a most interesting stand with a large screen display ofthe software they use to help their forecasters. For an example ofthe quality of their work, combining excellent visual presentation
with actual numbers (rather than just symbols) visit their forecast for
Oslo athttp://www.yr.no/then click on ‘Oslo’, then ‘Hour-by-hour’.

Figure 8 - The conference ended with closing remarks from Volker Gärtner• Wednesday’s Conference Dinner was held at the excellent
D/S Louise restaurant (figure 15) in Oslo’s popular Ake Brugge
area. Even without the consideration of catering for threehundred people, the food was first class, and there was plentyof wine or your favourite tipple. This was an excellent choicefor the dinner and could not have been bettered. It went onlong after I left near midnight.
Thanks to the sponsors of the Social Programme.
SummaryThis was the best regular EUMETSAT User Conference I haveattended. There was lots happening, plenty of folk to talk with, oldfriends to meet, excellent lectures, a friendly city, and first-classsocial events.
The organisers, especially Madelaine Pooley and her team—andthe local Norwegian team—are to be congratulated on their efforts
and the results. Many thanks.
Look out for the 2012 EUMETSAT Meteorological Satellite
Conference in the resort town of Sopot, Poland from
September 3-7, 2012. If it’s half as good as this one, it will be well
worth attending.

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21

GEO Quarterly No 32

The Group for Earth Observation

Figure 9 - Illustration from the Arctic Plenary Session

December 2011

Figure 12 - Some of the Arctic-related images on display

Figure 13 - Awaiting the next boat
to the Fram Museum

Figure 10 - A coffee break in the exhibition area , with the Norwegian Met Office large-screen display.

Figure 14 - Socialising aboard Fram

Figure 11 - The EUMETSAT display, with a big screen and a range of products on laptops.

22

www.geo-web.org.uk

Figure 15 - Restaurant D/S Louise

December 2011

The Group for Earth Observation

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GEO Quarterly No 32

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GEO Quarterly No 32

24

The Group for Earth Observation

www.geo-web.org.uk

December 2011

December 2011

EUMETCast
On-Line Registration
Guide
If you require to register as a first-time user for
any of the free EUMETCast data streams suchas MSG, NOAA AVHRR, Metop etc., or need torenew an existing subscription, this must be done
on-line.
GEO has produced a step-by-step guide to theentire process at
http://www.geo-web.org.uk/eumreg.html
This guide also contains a direct link to the official
EUMETCast on-line registration form, which canotherwise prove somewhat tricky to locate.

GEO Helplines
Douglas Deans
Dunblane, Perthshire, SCOTLAND
All aspects of weather satellites from APT, HRPT
to Meteosat-8 DVB/EUMETCast systems.
• telephone:(01786) 82 28 28• e-mail: dsdeans@tiscali.co.uk
John Tellick
Surbiton, Surrey, ENGLAND
Meteosat-8 advice - registering for the various
MSG services, hardware and software installationand troubleshooting. John will also field generalqueries about any aspect of receiving weather
satellite transmissions.
• telephone: (0208) 390 3315
• e-mail: info@geo-web.org.uk
Geoff Morris GW3ATZ
Shotton, Flintshire, NE WALES
Geoff has lots of experience with aerial,coax,connectors, mounting hardware etc. and has
also done a lot of work with the orbiting satellites.
Geoff has been a EUMETCast Meteosat-8 user
for some time and is familiar with David Taylor’s
MSG software; he should be able to share his
experiences with newcomers to this branch of thehobby.
• Tel: (01244) 818252• e-mail: gw3atz@btopenworld.com
Mike Stevens
Portland, Dorset, England.
Advice offered on EUMETCast (MSG and Metop)and APT.
• email: mikeg4cfz@mypostoffice.co.uk
Guy Martin G8NFU
Biggin Hill NW Kent, ENGLAND
Guy is prepared to advise anyone who wishing toreceive MSG/Metop using Windows 2000 or XP.
Can also help with networking and ADSL router
setup.
• gmartin@electroweb.co.uk
Hector Cintron
San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA
Hector is prepared to field enquiries on HRPT,
APT, EMWIN and NOAAPORT• Phone: 787-774-8657• e-mail: n1tkk@hwic.net
Email contact can of course be made at any
time, but we would ask you to respect privacy by
restricting telephone contact to the period 7.009.00 pm in the evenings.

The Group for Earth Observation

Internet News/
Discussion Groups
There are a numerous Internet-based discussion
groups available to weather satellite enthusiasts.
You can join any of these by sending an e-mailto the appropriate address, with a request to
subscribe. Indeed, a blank e-mail containing theword ‘subscribe’ in its Subject line is all that isrequired. Some of the more useful groups andtheir contact addresses are listed below.
APT Decoder
This is a group where users of Patrik Tast’s
APTDecoder can share information and problems.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/
group/APTDecoder/
GEO-Subscribers
This is GEO’s own group, where members can
exchange information and post queries relating to
any aspect related to weather satellite reception(hardware, software, antennas etc), Earthobservation satellites and any GEO-related matter.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/
group/GEO-Subscribers/
Satsignal
An end-user self help group for users ofDavid Taylor's Satellite Software Tools(SatSignal, WXtrack, GeoSatSignal, HRPT
Reader, GroundMap, MSG Data Manager,
AVHRR Manager and the ATOVS Reader).
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SatSignal/
MSG-1
A forum dedicated to Meteosat Second Generation(MSG), where members share information about
the EUMETCast reception hardware and software.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MSG-1/
METOP
A forum for users of high-resolution AHRPTdata from the MetOp satellite, available via
EUMETCast.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/METOP/
AVHRR
A forum for users who download high-resolution
EARS-AVHRR data from the NOAA polar orbiting
weather satellites via EUMETCast.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/AVHRR/ATOVSA Group for discussions about using ATOVS
data. Data from the whole world is available from
CLASS (www.class.noaa.gov) and for an extended
Europe, via EUMETCast.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ATOVS/
Weather Satellite Reports
This group provides weekly reports, updates andnews on operational aspects of weather satellites.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/
group/weather-satellite-reports/
WXtoImg
Users of the WXtoImg software package for
capturing and imaging NOAA APT can air theirproblems, discuss its features and ask questions
about it.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wxtoimg-l/

www.geo-web.org.uk

GEO Quarterly No 32

The Copy Deadline for

GEO Quarterly No 33
is Sunday, January 29
The Editor is always delighted to receive
articles and images for inclusion in
GEO Quarterly. These can relate to any
aspect of Earth Imaging, especially• Technical articles concerning relevant
hardware and software• Construction projects• Weather satellite images• Reports on weather phenomena• Descriptions of readers’ satellite imaging
stations• Activities from overseas readers• Letters to the Editor• Problems and Queries for our experts toanswerContributions should of course be original and,
where possible, should be submitted to theeditor in electronic format (floppy disc, e-mailattachment, CD, DVD). But of course wewill also accept handwritten and typed copy
should the need arise.
Please note, however, that major articles
which contain large numbers of satellite
images, photographs or other illustrations
should be submitted as early as possible, sothat they can be prepared and made up into
pages in time for publication.
Images and Diagrams
Images can be accepted in any of the major
bitmap formats: JPG, BMP, GIF, TIFF etc.
Images in both monochrome and colour
are welcomed. Line drawings and diagrams
are preferred in Windows metafile andpostscript formats. We can also scan original
photographs, negatives and slides.
Gridding, Overlays and Captions
Please note that readers’ satellite images
should be provided without added grid lines,
country outlines or captions unless these areconsidered essential for illustrative purposes
within an article.
If your article submission contains embedded
images and diagrams, please note that you
must also submit the individual, original
images, in one of the formats describedabove: these are essential for page make-up
purposes.
Submission of Copy
All materials for publication should be sent to
the editor,
Les Hamilton
9 Deeside Place
Aberdeen AB15 7PW
ScotlandThe most efficient way to do this is as email
attachments to the following address
geoeditor@geo-web.org.uk
And finally . . .
if you do have material ready for the next
issue of GEO Quarterly, please submit it
as soon as it is ready—do not wait till thedeadline above: this will simply create an
editorial log-jam and delay publication.

25

GEO Quarterly No 32

The Group for Earth Observation

December 2011

Les Hamilton
Last March, GEO Quarterly reported that the concentration of
permanent Arctic sea ice had fallen to its lowest ever recorded
January level in 2011. Had that trend continued, there was a distinct
possibility that the winter maximum extent might also attain a record
low value: and it very nearly did. Arctic sea ice extent for the monthof March turned out to have the second lowest maximum in thesatellite record, on March 7, when it tied with 2006 for the lowest
winter figure yet of 14.56 million km2.
Figure 1 is a sea ice map prepared at the University of Bremen,showing the ice extent on March 7. This is based on observations
by the Japanese microwave sensor AMSR-E, flying aboard NASA's
Aqua satellite. Data received from two servers, one in the US
and another in Japan, are used to produces these maps. The
sea ice concentration retrieval is based on the ASI (ARTIST Sea
Ice) algorithm, which uses the 89 GHz (about 3 mm wavelength)
passive microwave channels of AMSR-E.

From this 'low' winter maximum, there was every possibility
that there might be record losses in ice cover as the seasons
progressed, but the melt got off to a slow start in April, when thesea ice declined more slowly than usual, at no time coming near
to approaching a record low for the month, as occurred in March.
Towards the end of April though, warm conditions over the eastern
Arctic and Siberia prompted an early retreat of snow cover from
central Russia and open water areas (polynyas) started to form
near Franz Joseph Land and along the coast in the Kara Sea, andmelting also started in Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait.
Arctic sea ice extent for May was the third lowest in the satellite
data record since 1979, continuing the long-term decline. Sea ice
decreased at a near average rate, while air temperatures in the
Arctic remained generally above average. Polynyas continued todevelop in the Beaufort, Chukchi, and Laptev seas, and in Hudson
Bay. These open water areas absorb the sun's energy, and help

Figure 1 - Sea ice extent on March 7, 2011

Figure 2 - Sea ice extent on September 8, 2011

Image: University of Bremen

26

Image: University of Bremen

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December 2011

The Group for Earth Observation

GEO Quarterly No 32

to promote further ice melt. Overall, ice extent during May was
already decreasing at an average of 50,000 km2 per day. Average
air temperatures for May were averaging around 4.5°C higher thannormal in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, western Siberia, andin the Kara Sea, the locations where ice retreated and polynyas
formed. By contrast, temperatures were 2 to 5°C below normal in
Baffin Bay and the East Siberian Sea.
The June ice extent was lower than normal throughout much of the
Arctic Ocean, and especially so in the Kara Sea region. Ice also
started to break up off the coast of Alaska in the Beaufort Sea. The
rate of sea ice decline was now greater than in June 2007, the year
when the September sea ice minimum extent reached its record
low. Ice loss in the Kara Sea became almost double its rate of theprevious four years (2007 to 2010) and ice all but disappeared fromits southern reaches.
Ice continued to retreat rapidly throughout the first half of July due
to a persistent high-pressure cell over the northern Beaufort Sea
which led to above-average air temperatures over much of the
Arctic Ocean. Sea ice was particularly low in the Barents, Kara, andLaptev Seas, Hudson Bay and Baffin Bay. Air temperatures over
the North Pole (at the 925 millibar level, roughly 1,000 metres) were
6°C to 8°C higher than normal, while temperatures along the coastsof the Laptev and East Siberian seas were 3°C to 5°C above thenorm for the time of year.
The high pressure broke down briefly towards the end of July,slowing ice loss and spreading out the ice pack and making it

Figure 3
This graph above shows daily Arctic sea ice extent during summer 2011 (asat October 1), along data for the previous three lowest years for the minimum
ice extent. Light blue indicates 2011, dashed green 2007, dark blue 2010 and
purple 2008. Dark gray shows the 1979 to 2000 average with the gray bandaround the average line representing the two standard deviation range of thedata.
Credit: National Snow and Ice Data CenterSource: NSIDC

Figure 4 - The western end of Canada's Northwest Passage: Victoria Island is prominent at the centre of the image with Amundsen Gulf to its west.
The Aqua MODIS instrument acquired this image on September 14, 2011, during a clear slot just a few days after sea ice minimum
Credit: NASA/GSFC, Rapid Response

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GEO Quarterly No 32

The Group for Earth Observation

thinner. When the pressure rose again in early August, the ice
resumed its decline at a brisk pace, although its total extent
remained higher than for the same period in 2007. Sea ice
remained low across almost all of the Arctic, with the exceptionof some areas in the East Greenland Sea. Across the ocean,
however, the southern route of the Northwest Passage appeared
to be largely free of ice. In the Kara Sea, the combination of ahigh-pressure cell with low pressure to the west resulted in strong
northward ice movement, pushing the ice pack away from the coastand reducing its extent. This same weather pattern also increased
the movement of ice out of Fram Strait, between Greenland andSpitsbergen.
By early September, as in recent years, northern shipping routes
had opened up. The Northern Sea Route across Russia was openfrom mid August till late September, while the southern 'Amundsen
Route' of the Northwest Passage, through the straits of theCanadian Arctic Archipelago, had opened for the fifth year in a row.
Analysis of Sea Ice Data
The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) obtains its datafrom the Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS)
carried on the DMSP-F17 satellite. This data record, using analgorithm developed by the NASA team at Goddard Space
Flight Center, provides the longest series of sea ice extent data,
stretching back to 1979. The University of Bremen, on the other
hand, employs an algorithm based on high resolution informationfrom the JAXA AMSR-E sensor aboard NASA's Aqua satellite. This
allows small ice and open water features that are not observed byother products to be taken into account.
The Final Verdict
On September 9, the sea ice extent was very close to the record
low set in 2007, according to NSIDC. By their calculations, theice covered 4.34 million km2 of the Arctic Ocean on that date, thesecond lowest minimum in the satellite record and only marginallyabove the figure for 2007. Scientists at the University of Bremen,
who use a slightly different method to calculate their sea ice
extent from AMSR-E measurements, declared that 2011 actuallysurpassed 2007, setting a new record low of 4.240 million km2 on
September 8, one percent below the previous figure. The image
on the front cover of this issue is a NASA realisation created frommeasurements taken by AMSR-E on September 9. It depicts
the sea ice at it lowest point and, notably, shows the Northwest
Passage, the sea route that threads through the islands of northern
Canada to link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, to be entirely ice
free. Figure 4 is an Aqua MODIS image of the Northwest Passage,acquired a few days later during a clear spell of weather, thatshows no apparent ice in the Passage.

December 2011

Year

Average Arctic
sea ice extent for
September (mkm2)

Trend(% per decade relative tothe 1979-2000 average)

2007

4.30

-10.2

2008

4.67

-11.1

2009

5.36

-11.2

2010

4,90

-11.6

2011

4.61

-12.0

Figure 5 - Trends in sea ice minimum during the past five years

Verkhoyansk mountains on its east. The New Siberian Islands areprominent in the ocean to the north, with just the barest suspicion ofbrash ice to their east.
Climate models have suggested that the Arctic could lose almost allof its summer ice cover by 2100 but in recent years, ice extent has
if anything declined faster than current models predict. For sure, thenext few years in the Arctic promise to be extremely interesting.
Acknowledgement
Much of the information contained in this report has come from themonthly NSIDC Arctic News and Analysis RSS feeds, and from theNASA Earth Observatory website.
The front cover image, as well as a revealing HD movie showing
one year in the Arctic sea ice cycle come fromhttp://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=52230

A NASA Earth Observatory Report
An unseasonably early snowstorm on Saturday, October 29, 2011
dropped as much as 80 centimetres of the white stuff on someparts of the northeastern United States. The nor’easter left wet,heavy snow on trees that were still loaded with leaves. The groupthat manages Central Park in New York estimated that they mightlose some thousand of their trees because of damage caused by
the unprecedented snowstorm. Many of the trees that line the edgeof Central Park snapped under heavy snow, and many had to be
cut down.

Conclusions
This year, ice cover over the Arctic Ocean was more dispersed
than in 2007, with many small open water areas within the ice
pack. While different monitoring centres do show slightly different
numbers, all of the data agree that Arctic sea ice is continuing its
long-term decline. The last five years (2007 to 2011) have produced
the five lowest extents for seasonal sea ice minimum in thecontinuous satellite record (figure 5).
During the record low year of 2007, conditions were ideal for
melting. Skies were clear, wind patterns were favourable andhelped to thin the ice, while generally warm air temperatures
promoted its melting. In 2011, there were more typical weather
patterns but continued warmth over the Arctic, according to NSIDC,
meant that the ice was already thin and spread out before theseasonal melting even started. This supports the idea that the Arctic
sea ice cover is continuing to thin. Models and remote sensing dataalso indicate this to be the case. A large area of low concentration
ice in the East Siberian Sea, visible in NASA Moderate Resolution
Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) imagery, suggests that theice cover this year was particularly thin and dispersed. There isa superb Terra MODIS image, dating from August 10, 2011, on
the back cover of this issue. To the left of the image, the courseand delta of the Lena river are easily identified, flanked by the

A swath of snow sweeps from West Virginia to Maine inthis Terra MODIS image acquired on October 31, 2011

NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC

The storm broke snowfall-total records in cities throughout
the US Northeast and produced wind gusts of 111 kph along
the Massachusetts coastline. More than 3 million homes andbusinesses lost electricity because of the storm, including a record(Continued on page 48 )28

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December 2011

The Group for Earth Observation

GEO Quarterly No 32

Francis BellMy Quarterly Envi-Ham image submission (on page 30,
overleaf) shows the southern two thirds of the islandof Madagascar. Although the image was time stamped
06:53:14 UTC, local time is indicated by the cloud shadowson it. I used a one-metre dish and a DVB World receiver(bought from the GEO Shop), with the signal being fed intomy medium specification Dell computer. The software was the
ESA Beam VISAT package supplied to me free of charge by
ESRIN.
I used channels 9 (red), 10 (green) and 4 (blue) to colour
the raw image and highlight features present in it. I am stillon a learning curve here: with 15 channels to choose from,applying colour by combining red, green and blue, together
with different brightnesses can produce a mind boggling
number of possibilities.
I was attracted to this image for a number of reasons. The
island of Madagascar is not a superficial or ephemeral islandbut, geologically, a splinter of the African continental plate
which split away some 135 million years ago and driftedaway from mainland Africa now lying 250 miles to the east in
the Indian Ocean. Madagascar is approximately 1000 miles
long and 300 miles wide. Mountains run longitudinally along
the island from north to south, and these generate climate
differences from east to west. The eastern side of the islandis exposed to the moist southeast trade winds while the west,
being in a rain shadow, hence experiences a drier climate.
Just over a year ago, I visited the north of the island fora few days and had the privilege of seeing wild lemurs,
together with other wild life. As a result of this visit I havebecome more sensitive to some of the issues that the islandis facing: principally, the consequences of deforestation andsubsequent surface erosion. The consequences of erosion canbe seen on the satellite image, with westerly flowing rivers
carrying their heavy sediment loads, together with extensive
surface deposits, along their flood plains.
The island of Madagascar is a country named the Malagasy
Republic, and has been a little more newsworthy recently
than in the past. I have followed BBC programmes presented
by David Attenborough, where he has sensitively reported on
the effect humans have had on this once lush and forested
island. Little is reported of the island’s history and its rolein World War Two. The Japanese attempted a submarine
invasion on the north of the island in an effort to establish
a naval base. They failed, but with consequent loss ofallied lives. I respectfully visited the commonwealth graves,
numbering a few hundred, on the northern tip of the island.
A zoomed subset from this image forms the basis of thisissue’s Quarterly Question.

had received at home using my Envi-Ham system. Rather
unusually, this image covered part of the USA slightly incontrast to most of my Envi-Ham high resolution FRS images
which understandably tend to cover Europe and Africa. The
other reason it caught my eye was because I will be visiting
this part of the USA next March and will include a visit to the
Hover Dam and Grand Canyon.
The answer to the question was the image showed ‘Lake
Powell’. Anyone interested in following up this question
should look up its Wikipedia entry, which gives two or three
pages of interesting information. Interestingly, the satellite
image within the Wikipedia entry is almost identical to theone published for this question.
I received correct answers from Francis Bream (UK),
Christopher Bell (USA), Ken Barker (UK) and Elmar Bogels(Germany).
Here is the interesting reply to my question that I received
from Francis Bream.
‘At last one I know. This is Lake Powell, Arizona/Utah,
which was created by the building of the Glen Canyon
Dam on the Colorado River. It is upstream of thebetter-known Lake Meade-Hoover Dam and the Grand
Canyon.
‘I visited it a few years ago, staying at Page, which is asmall town descended from the construction camp used
for the Dam. Incidentally, the equivalent for the Hoover
Dam is Boulder City, a delightful little town at which tostay if, like me, you want to avoid Las Vegas.
‘It’s a pity that Envi-Ham have stopped sending highres North American images: the European, Middle East
and African ones which is all we now receive, although
excellent, can be rather repetitive.’
Quarterly Question No 32
The Quarterly Question for this issue relates to the zoomed
subset of the Envi-Ham image of Madagascar shown at thefoot of the next page.
The question is straightforward: Name the river shown in theimage.
I know we have had ‘name the river’ questions before but
this one caught my eye because of the extensive flood plain
deposits which are shown; these indicate some measure of
the erosion taking place within this river’s catchment area. As
guidance note that this river is also shown on the wider viewof Madagascar at the top of the same page.
Answers to me by January 29, 2012, which is the copy
deadline for the next issue of GEO Quarterly.
Please email replies tofrancis@geo-web.org.uk

Quarterly Question No 31
My thanks to those members who responded to Quarterly
Question 31. The question related to an image of a large lakeor water reservoir in the USA. The image shown was one I

or mail them to my address, as shown on page 1 of thismagazine. One winner will be picked at random, to whom
I will send one or two postcards I collected while visiting
Madagascar.

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Southern Madagascar as imaged by Envisat on October 21, 2011
Image: ESA

Quarterly Question: Can you name this river in southwest Madagascar
Image: ESA

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December 2011

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GEO Quarterly No 32

NASA/NOAA
Following a year-long delay, the NASA/NOAA NPOESS Preparatory Project
spacecraft (NPP) was successfully launchedfrom Vandenberg Air Force Base, California
in the early hours of October 28, 2011
to begin its Earth observation mission.
This new satellite, lifted into orbit atop a
United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket, will
enable NOAA to continue issuing accurate
forecasts and provide advance warning forsevere weather, such as tornados, heatwaves, floods, snowfall and wildfires.
The new satellite orbits Earth in a sunsynchronous polar orbit every 102 minutes
at an altitude of 824 km, where it willcapture data from the Earth’s land, oceans,
and atmosphere. These data are used by
NOAA forecasters to detect the potential for
dangerous weather conditions days—even
several weeks—in advance. For example,
data from current polar-orbiting satellites
helped NOAA meteorologists to predict, fivedays in advance, the major snowstorms
that struck the Atlantic Coast in February2010 (the so-called Snowmageddon), andanother which paralysed New York City inDecember that same year.

A Delta II rocket arcs across the sky carrying NASA’s NPP spacecraft toward Earth Orbit
Image credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Unlike the currently operating NOAA
satellites, NPP is actually a NASAmission, but NOAA will be responsible forfeeding the data from the satellite’s new,sophisticated instruments into the forecast
models. The satellite data will be used togenerate dozens of products, including
cloud and vegetation cover measurements,
ocean colour, and sea and land surface
temperatures. NPP as the Bridge
NPP data will, in time, replace NOAA-19 as
the prime ‘afternoon’ satellite. The afternoon
orbit is especially important since some ofthe spacecraft’s sensors work best in fulldaylight. NPP is also the bridge that willlink NOAA’s current constellation of polar
orbiting satellites to the next generationof advanced spacecraft, the Joint Polar
Satellite System (JPSS). Data from NPP,
as is the case with all other US weather
satellites, is processed and distributed
from NOAA’s Satellite Operations Facility
in Suitland, Maryland to key users aroundthe world, in particular NOAA’s National
Weather Service.
In addition to providing data for accurate
weather forecasting, NPP will track ash
plumes from volcanic eruptions, assist
emergency responders to fight wildfires,help in the advance of climate science,
accurately measure the quantity of Arctic
sea ice, changes in the ozone hole, andmonitor phytoplankton and other organisms
in the oceans.

The NPP mission takes off from
Vandenberg Air Force Base
Image: NASA/ULA

www.geo-web.org.uk

Preparing the NPP satellite in a In a clean room
at Vandenberg Air Force Base
Image: Ball Aerospace

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December 2011

John Tellick
Aboard a Soyuz VS01 flight operated by Arianespace (the first
Russian space transport vehicle ever launched from Europe’s
Spaceport at Kourou in French Guiana), the first two satellites
of Europe’s Galileo global navigation system were successfully
deployed into orbit on October 21 2011. All of the Soyuz stages
performed perfectly and its Fregat-MT upper stage released theGalileo satellites into their 23 222 km altitude orbit 3 hours 49
minutes following liftoff.
A new site for Soyuz in French Guiana, operated by Arianespace,adds to the flexibility and competitiveness of Europe’s fleet oflaunchers. Soyuz is a medium-size vehicle which complements
ESA’s own launchers: Ariane 5 which handles large payloads andthe new Vega, planned to debut in 2012, which will lift smaller
satellites.
Launching from close to the equator allows the European Soyuz tooffer improved performance. When launched from Europe, Soyuz iscapable of raising a payload of only 1.7 tonnes to the geostationarytransfer orbit typically required by commercial telecommunications
satellites: from Kourou, it can deliver payloads up to 3 tonnes.
What is Galileo?
Galileo is Europe’s own global navigation satellite system, a €20
billion project currently being built by the European Union (EU) andEuropean Space Agency (ESA) and named after the famous Italianastronomer Galileo Galilei. One of the political aims of Galileo
is to provide a highly accurate, guaranteed global positioning
service under civilian control, totally independent from the Russian
GLONASS and US GPS systems, which can be disabled forcommercial users in times of war or conflict. It will, however, beinter-operable with GPS and GLONASS.

This launch represents a great deal to Europe and will position ourcontinent as a world-class player in the strategic domain of satellite
navigation, a domain with huge economic perspectives, according
to Jean-Jacques Dordain,
Director General of ESA. Thishistoric launch, aboard one of thelegendary Soyuz craft that wereused for Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin(the first Soyuz to be launchedfrom a site outside Baikonur in
Kazakhstan or Plesetsk in Russia),
was the first of many from Kourou.
It is a symbol of the cooperation
between ESA and Russia, witha strong essential contribution
from France, and also of thecooperation between ESA andthe European Union. The launch
consolidates Europe’s pivotal rolein space cooperation at the global
level.
Acknowledgement
ESA Media Relations Office

The Soyuz launch pad at Baikonur

Reference
http://www.esa.int/esaNA/galileo.html

By offering dual frequencies as standard, Galileo, which will be afree service, will deliver real-time positioning accuracy down to themetre range. Availability of the service will be guaranteed under
all but the most extreme circumstances and users will be informed
within seconds of any satellite failure, making it suitable for safetycritical applications such as guiding cars, running trains and landing
aircraft.
These first two operational satellites are part of the In-Orbit
Validation (IOV) phase that will see the Galileo system’s space,ground and user segments extensively tested. Two more will follow
in 2012. Once this In-Orbit Validation phase has been completed,additional satellites will be launched to reach Initial Operational
Capability (IOC) around mid-decade. The range of services will
be extended as the system builds up and it is the aim to reach fulloperational capability by 2019.
The satellites are currently under the control of a joint ESA and
CNES French space agency team in Toulouse. After these initial
operations they will be handed over to SpaceOpal, a joint companyof the DLR German Aerospace Centre and Italy’s Telespazio, toundergo 90 days of testing before being commissioned for the IOVphase.
The fully deployed Galileo system will consists of 30 satellites(27 operational and three active spares), positioned in three circularorbital planes at 23 222 km altitude, and inclined at 56°to theequator. When in operation, Galileo will use two ground operations
centres, near Munich, Germany and in Fucino, Italy.

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A variety of Soyuz launchers

December 2011

The Group for Earth Observation

GEO Quarterly No 32

The First Soyuz launch from Kourou on October 21, 2011 - note the new launch pad gantry arrangements

The first two Galileo satellites separate from the Fregat-MT upper stage

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December 2011

Ron Hahn
Reception of the APT satellites is not particularly difficult,but it does present some challenges to the budding weather
enthusiast. There’s an aerial to put up, a receiver to connect,
and bits of software to configure. If you want daily (24/7)
reception there are some additional considerations. None ofthese tasks is insurmountable for the amateur enthusiast,
but some do present a bit of a challenge.
In order to receive the polar satellites you first need an
outdoor aerial. Not just any aerial, but one capable ofreceiving the satellite signal with an azimuth (direction) of
0-360 degrees with an elevation (height) of 0-90 degrees.
To visualise this, your aerial’s view of the sky needs to be a
bit like a sphere cut in half. The aerial wants to be able tosee any point in this half-sphere. A directional aerial won’t
do here: you need something that is truly omnidirectional.
The weather satellites have this problem too, so they use a
specialised aerial called a quadrifilar helix (photo 1 below).
For your receiving station you want to use a similar aerial,
either home-constructed or commercially manufactured.
In earlier times I used a home-made aerial, but, due to myproximity to the sea, I use a commercially manufactured
aerial designed for marine environments (shown in photo 2
below).
In order to receive images as far north-south and east-west
as possible, its necessary to mount the aerial as high up as
possible, away from obstructions that will occlude the viewto the horizon. I’m fortunate to have a receiving location hereon the Rosslare peninsula where I’m on a bit of an elevation,with no real obstructions except Forth Mountain about 10 km

the west. My current aerial
is elevated just above thechimney line of the house.
This allows me to receive
usable images starting as
far south as Libya and as
far north as Greenland, east
to Uzbekistan and west to
Figure 2 - The R2FX APT Receiver
Newfoundland. To date I’ve
been quite satisfied with
this: Its the best reception coverage I’ve obtained anywhere
I’ve lived in Ireland. If you’re located in a valley with hills or
mountains around, such as Killarney or Clonmel, then you
won’t get as wide a coverage area to your images.
With the aerial in position and the coaxial cable run into
the house, it’s now time to focus on the receiver. For APT
satellite reception, you need a specialised receiver with awide bandwidth (approximately 30-40 kHz) in the 137 MHz
weather satellite band (just above the civil aircraft band). The
receiver needs to be sensitive (able to receive weak signals),
selective (able to reject strong adjacent signals) and able toreceive on several discrete channels. When the satellite is low
on the horizon, it’s furthest point away from you, the signal is
exceptionally weak.
The receiver needs to be able to 'hear' the satellite at these
low elevations which is why you need good sensitivity. All
the commercially available weather satellite receivers have
exceptional sensitivity. The receiver also needs to be selective
and reject interference from outside the 137 MHz frequency

Figure 1 - This is a typical NOAA-19 image, acquired at 14.33 UT on September 30, 2011, showing both the infrared (left) and visible light images.

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The Group for Earth Observation

band. This is especially important in the UK, where highpowered pocket pager transmitters use frequencies that are
adjacent to the weather satellite ones. Thankfully, we don’t
have to contend with this in Ireland.
The receiver also needs multiple channels as each satellite
transmits on a different frequency. Ideally, the channel
selection should be computer controlled, so that you
can switch channels via software control. Once all theserequirements are met you can form the basis of yourautomated receiving station.
I have used several receivers over the years, manufactured
by Hamtronics, TimeStep, and, most recently, the R2FX
receiver manufactured by Marius Rensen in Germany.
This receiver does meet all the above requirements andhas performed flawlessly in my location now for several
years. It’s small, about the size of a small transistor radio,of robust construction, and is powered by a 12 volt mains
adapter. The actual receiver is shown in figure 3 below.
Its not very exciting, just a few lamps on the front to show
which channel is selected, and the signal strength (whenreceiving). It also supports diversity (twin-aerial) reception,
but I’ve never used that feature. It is also capable ofpowering an aerial-mounted preamplifier for poor-signal
applications. I don’t use this feature either.
My processing workstation is a home-assembled Intel Atom
330 computer running Windows XP. I’m a self-confessed
low-power computer ‘nut’ so, since this is going to run
24/7, I wanted something that had adequate processing
power but wasn’t going to draw significant electric current
or create noticeable levels of noise. The Atom CPU with a‘shoebox’ style case fits the bill perfectly. It sits quietly on
the shelf, running day in and day out. I’ve no keyboard,mouse, or display connected to it but use remote desktop
control software to access it instead. As a lot of data isstored on this reception computer, I have an inexpensive
RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Discs) card installedwith two 500 GB hard discs for data storage. Its a simple
but effective setup for this application.
Now is a good time to talk about storage requirements.
There are three types of files that have to be stored onyour reception computer: WAV (audio) files of the actual
received satellite signal, PNG (image) files decoded from the
WAV file and JPG (JPEG) image files of the fully processed
image. This works out at around 30 MB of storage, required
per satellite pass, for all the files. Given that there are
multiple satellite passes per day, the storage budget needs
to accommodate several hundred MB of data growth perday. That works out at around a gigabyte a month for data
storage (if you wish to keep them all). With my current
hard drive that works out at less than one year of storage. I
haven’t reached that point yet with this computer but I plan
to delete old imagery on a scheduled basis to keep things
manageable. If the raw WAV and PNG files are retained,
they can be re-processed at a later date by the processing
software to reproduce the final images.
The reception/processing software is really the core of thesatellite receiving station. It has a lot of work to do: track
the satellites, control the receiver, record the image andprocess the raw image. I’ll cover each of these in depth
below.
The satellites that transmit APT are polar satellites (theycircumnavigate the Earth over the poles). To make it
more complicated, their orbit changes day by day. To
accommodate this, you have to prepare satellite predictions
that predict, via mathematical models, where the satellite
will be in the sky at a point in time relevant to yourreceiving location. This is done using Keplerian elements,
data files that the reception software uses to predict

GEO Quarterly No 32

exactly when the satellite comes into view of your stationand can change to the proper channel to receive it. Thisis a core requirement of any automated receiving station.
The Keplerian elements are constantly updated and thereception software can download them on a regular (~2 day)basis over the Internet.
As each satellite transmits on a different frequency, youneed some sort of automatic channel selection. This is aby-product of the satellite predictions mentioned above. If
you know which satellite is in view and what frequency it’stransmitting on, you can set the channel on the receiverto the one corresponding with that satellite. My R2FX
receiver has an RS-232 serial port on the back for just thispurpose. It’s connected to the processing computer with astandard RS-232 cable. The software ‘knows’ which satellite
is in view and, via a serial command, sets the appropriate
frequency in preparation of a pass. Almost all but the mostbasic weather satellite receivers support computer channel
selection. Needless to say, this feature is essential if you
want to create composite images from multiple satellite
passes.
Once the appropriate channel has been selected, andeverything is set up for recording a pass, the process ofactually recording the satellite transmission can begin.
What you want to accomplish here is to record the audio
transmitted from the satellite and then post-process it.
The receiving software takes the audio from the receiver
and, through the built-in computer sound card, digitises it,
and saves it to the hard disc as a WAV file. This contains
the raw satellite data from which all your processing will
be done. In order to do this, you need to decode the WAV
file and build an image file from it (the PNG file mentioned
earlier). But this is the first step in producing humanmeaningful images.
The APT image consists of two frames, usually a visible
light frame and an infrared or near-infrared frame. These
images are transmitted as grey scale (black and white)
images. By combining the information in these two frames
and processing it through algorithms, you can produce
false-colour images representing more of what you would
expect to see.
Before moving on to processing the raw image, there is
one other consideration that needs to be accommodated.
You must set your computer clock accurately. Somewhere,
you have to obtain accurate time information to discipline
the receiving PC’s clock. An NTP (Network Time Protocol)
client does this job nicely. While Windows XP has a builtin time client, it isn’t really designed for, or suitable for,high-precision timekeeping. In my receiving system I’ve
disabled this client in favour of a Windows XP build of
ntpd, the network time daemon. This provides much better
time discipline of the PC’s internal clock and helps tominimise some other image processing problems. The ntpd
daemon quietly works in the background, comparing the
local PC’s clock with reference clocks out on the Internet.
Timekeeping accuracy improves to the order of single-digit
milliseconds. This is especially important for positioning
the map overlays which you may later apply to yourprocessed images.
Once you have your raw satellite image in PNG format, you
can process it using a number of algorithms. These takethe grey scale images and process them into false-colour
images which lend themselves to human visualisation. Thisis a complete topic all in itself which I’ll save for instalment
3 of this series.
I have an up-to-date web page that has current satellite
imagery at

www.geo-web.org.uk

HTTP://www.ei2jp.com

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December 2011

Here is a picture of my ‘shack’ (actually mystudy). Four PCs are visible in this picture.
On the left, under the bench against thewall, is a Dell Dimension 8300 which runs
solely to receive EUMETCast data. The PC
itself is probably above the specificationneeded for this task. It has no monitor or
keyboard because I communicate with it
via UltraVNC from my main processing
computer, located at the left hand end of thetable on the right.
The main processing PC is a Dell
Optiplex 745 which, when purchased, wasa fairly high-end piece of kit. The Optiplex
computers are designed to be capable ofrunning continuously and have appropriately
designed cooling arrangements. The
processing PC handles all the data fromthe receiver PC and also serves as mydaily workstation, with software for dataprocessing, Geographical Information
System, Photoshop and, of course, writing.
This is where I do my day job of research
and writing. I also have software forprogramming radios and processing radio
data, although I now do very little of either.
I also have the full array of David Taylor’s
software and some others.
Two flat screens can be seen on the table.
The left-hand screen is the working one
but the 590 mm wide screen on the rightgives me extra space for opening a range
of applications simultaneously (very useful,for example, for viewing two or more
documents at the same time). This screen
also enables me to view very large—andsometimes spectacular—satellite images.
I often have MSG Animator running an
Atlantic IR animation on this screen while
I’m working on the other one. I find thisuseful for making my own local mediumrange weather forecasts. I also have paidfor access to UK rain radar on this PC.
There is nearly always somethinginteresting offshore and often visible fromthe window. Thus, I have the COAA ShipPlotter on this PC and occasionally use it
to identify some of the very wide varietyof ships in the Mersey and the Irish Sea,
which range from monster container ships
to dredgers, cranes, tugs and the specialist
vessels serving the gas platforms orbuilding the wind farms. A large, tripodmounted telescope in another room
supplements this highly distracting facility
Two further PCs can be seen under thetable: the larger is a Dell Optiplex 740
and the smaller is an Optiplex 320. I use
Windows Remote Desktop Connection to36

enable me to use a common keyboard
and monitor for these two computers: themonitor can be seen on the edge of theright hand table. The Optiplex 320 runs
two programs: firstly Timestep’s WinHRPT
software for the reception of HRPT datafrom polar orbiting satellites (NOAA16 andNOAA19 at present) and secondly a very
old version of Mscan Meteo to receive
radio fax charts. These come through the
HF-150 receiver which is just visible atthe top of the radio stack on the left of thephotograph. This radio is quite old: myfather used it until the early 90s and I havebeen running it 24/7 ever since, receiving
Admiralty data from Northwood.
The Optiplex 740 receives data via a
UHF link from my weather station in thegarden. These data are used to preparemonthly weather reports for the local
secondary school and quarterly reports withcommentary for our community newspaper.
They are also reported on my weather
station web site
http://www.robertsmoore.co.uk/
carmel_ weather.html

I recently deposited ten years of weather
reports, illustrated with satellite images,
with our county archives. The Optiplex 740
PC is a bit of a sledgehammer to crack
a nut so I also run Basestation and the
COAA Planeplotter with an SBS-1 receiver.
Planeplotter enables me to share data andwww.geo-web.org.uk

I hope this is useful to the more avid plane
enthusiasts because my geographicalposition in North Wales gives me coveragenortheast of a line from Belfast to the Wash
(and sometimes beyond).
All the PCs can talk to each another. Thus,
interesting HRPT images from my TimeStep
setup, for example, can be examined with
HRPT Reader on my main PC and may bedisplayed on the wide screen.
Readers will appreciate that all these PCs,
radios and other equipment, plus aerial andPC cables, make for a lot of wiring - withthe potential for tangling and tripping. I havetherefore installed trunking around the wall,
just above table level, to carry wires andcables tidily and safely around the room.
How I ever do a day’s work remains amystery to me. The view out of the window
can be very striking, especially when one
can see Blackpool Tower and the Lake
District hills. The bird-feeder outside mywindow is visited non-stop by a quite
remarkable variety of birds. To add to these
distractions, two cats compete for my chair
and the loser usually tries to sleep on the
keyboard.
In the next issue of GEO Quarterly I hopeto tell you what I do with the satellite data I
receive.

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GEO Quarterly No 32

Esko Patäjä
I have always been keen to have my own lightning detection
system. I have been looking at available systems on the market
and almost purchased one, only for another with higher priorities tocome along.
This spring, the local radio amateur club (Teemu OH6HGN)
undertook activities to make a group order for lightning detection
kits. The selection was for devices from Blitzortung. Thirty kits
were ordered in total at a cost of €71 each. Additionally, of course,
was the cost of station equipment like antennas, cables and soon. Today totally fifteen of these stations are on-line with the rest
expected to follow next season (figure 1).
This article discusses lightning, four different hardware andsoftware options available for displaying lightning on your own PC,
how one of the groups went about implementing this, and how you
can relate this lightning data to satellite images. My own system is
described in detail.
Different Lightning Sensing Devices
While working with system I have been studying different lightning
detection system and how they works. I have studied following
systems.
• Blitzortung (my own station)• Lightning Radar (invented by Frank Kooiman)• Boltek• Vaisala (a commercial system).
It is worth noting that some systems built by amateurs, like
Blizortung, in conjunction with MyBlitzortung software, are evenmore comprehensive than commercial systems.
Blitzortung
A lightning discharge emits energy over a wide range of radio
frequencies. The most powerful emissions occur in the Very Low
Frequency (VLF) range. VLF refers to radio frequencies in therange of 3 kHz to 30 kHz. In the case of Blitzortung, the lightning is
detected by multiple stations and accuracy timing of stations. The
system is based Time off Arrival, where the location of the lightning
is based on the time differences between reception at each station
as illustrated in figure 2.

Figure 1 - Station locations in Finland

My own station consists of the following elements: antenna, GPS,preamplifier and processor board. The antenna can be either a loop
or ferrite rod type. The preamplifier amplifiers the antenna signal,
which is transmitted to the processor boards where data are send
to the server for the calculation of strike positions.

Figure 2 - The Principle of Lightning Detection(c) BlitzortungLightning data from each station is uploaded to a server where
the exact location of each strike is calculated. Users can view the
combined data from each lightning station on a web-based Google
Map or by making their own services by PHP and showing data intheir own web pages. In the latter case, raw data is downloaded
from Blitzortung. Figure 4 shows a plot of lightning strikes overnorthern Germany and southern Sweden.
Lightning RadarJohn Silver has written an article in GEOQ 17 about this system,
which was based on loop antennas angled at 90° (figure 5) and a
VLF amplifier.
Output from the VLP amplifier was connected to a PC sound card.

Figure 3 - Station Components: VLF Amplifier and Processor Board

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Figure 5 - Daniel Verschueren's loop antenna

December 2011

Figure 6 - The Boltek strike sensing system

Figure 4 - Strikes over Germany and Sweden

Strike positions were calculated according
to multiple station bearings to the signal.
The GEO Shop sells these devices but,unfortunately there are no other stations
available in Finland. Due to this reason thisselection was not possible for me.
The Boltek Corporation System
The Boltek system is a factory
manufactured product from Canada. It is
widely used by amateurs specially in northAmerica. It has also wide range of options
and software, which is why it is also widelyused commercially. The price for thissystem is around €1000, more expensive
than a system built by an amateur.
The LD-250 uses a small active antenna
to receive the radio signals from lightning
strikes. These signals are the crackling you
hear on an AM radio during a thunderstorm.
This direction-finding antenna is able totell which direction the signal is coming
from. The software then measures thestrength of the received signals to estimate
the distance to the strike. Special signal
processing in software reduces the effectsof strike-to-strike energy variations,thus providing more accurate distanceinformation. There have been manyquestions on how one station detection
system could work accurately, based on
signal strength measurement. Detectedsignal strength can vary according toatmospheric conditions but Boltek claim that
this has been solved by advanced signal
processing (figures 6). Figure 7 shows the
Boltek software in action
The measuring accuracy of a Boltek
station is not very
good when using
a single station.
In real life, station
measuring accuracy
is improved because
almost all stations
share their dataover the European
Strike Star network,
Figure 8
which provides moreaccurate, recalculated data to the users.

38

Figure 7 - Boltek strike sensing software display

Additionally to strike detection, Boltek also
has atmospheric electric field measuring
devices which are able to measure electricfields (kV/m) and display them on thecomputer screen. The Atmospheric Electric
Field measuring device antenna from Boltek
is shown in figure 8.

Figure 9a
The Increasing electric field asa thundercloud approaches

www.geo-web.org.uk

Figure 9a shows a typical atmosphericelectric field when a thunderstorm isapproaching: figure 9b shows the electricfield pattern when the thunderstorm isdirectly overhead.

Figure 9b
The electric field changes polarity
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GEO Quarterly No 32

Figure 10 - TTL level connections to the Sure GPS Board

Figure 11 - Schematic of the Author's combined EUMETCast and Lightning Detection Station

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December 2011

The Vaisala System
Vaisala is a multinational company which has its background in
Finland. The company started out by building radiosondes forweather balloons and today has wide product range from simple
measuring devices to weather radars.
Vaisala has a product range that is geared mainly towards largeorganisations rather than the amateur. Vaisala operates weather
services in many countries and also has a wide range of lightning
detection devices.
Vaisala produces a similar VLF-antenna based lightning detection
system to Blitzortung, based on time of arrival. They also have an
atmospheric electric field measuring system similar to Boltek. These
kinds of device are widely used for protecting hazardous chemicalfactories and oil distribution areas. You can learn more at
http://www.vaisala.com

My Station
I'll now describe in detail the antenna, GPS, hardware and software
used in my own lightning detection station.

Figure 12 - Meteosat 9 Channel with superimposed lightning data

The Antenna
My antenna is based on a design by Daniel
Verschueren. It is built from four lengths of
16 mm aluminium tube, each 142 mm long.
Once constructed, each circular loop has adiameter of 900 mm (figure 9). There are twosimilar loops installed at 90° to each other,each containing eight turns of wire which areconnected to the preamplifier. The preamplifier
in installed in a plastic box painted with
conductive graphite paint to offer protection
from noise. The connecting cable carries bothsignals and power to the preamplifier.
The Author's AntennaGPS
A Sure GPS board is connected to the processor board. David
Taylor described the operation of this board in GEOQ 30 for NTP. I
use the same board in my station. The TTL level signals are used
for lightning detection in the following way.
The TTL level connection could be used for making a controller
board connection. It also provides a PPS signal (figure 10).
Reconfiguring the GPS Board
The board must be reconfigured so that only GPRMC, GPGGA
sentences and the PPS signal are active. Serial rate is the default
9600 baud. Reconfiguration can be done using a simple commandline program (nmea-mtk.exe) provided by Terje Mathisen. You haveto email him at
terje.mathisen@tmsw.nofor a copy of this program.
nmea-mtk -c $PMTK314,0,1,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0This command sets both GPRMC and GPGGA sentences to
1-second intervals. The sequence of numbers following the'$PMTK314,x' part of this command refers to a set of supported
NMEA commands. Their functions are explained in detail in the
manual.
Lightning Detection Unit and Data Flow
Figure 11 shows my station diagram including the EUMETSAT
receiving system and GeoSatsignal for remapping weather data.
Data from detection board are transmitted to the Blitzortung server
and, after every scan, I copy Global data into my local server(MyBlitzortung). The user interface for this data is a web-basedclient.
Detecting severe weather
I have been combining lightning data into weather data and also
been learning how I could detect and see sever weather conditions

40

Figure 13
Metop channel-3 withsuperimposed lightning datausing data from weather satellites, both geostationary and polar.
This can be achieved in several ways:• using HRV visible data
• using 2 different type of colour look up tables• using RGB with different channels• combining 2 RGB:s together• using data from polar orbiting satellites (Metop).
Above are two examples. Figure 12 shows severe weather plottedon a channel-9 Meteosat 9 image using the BlackClouds colour
look-up table (CLUT). This LUT is non-linear and shows the coldest
temperatures as black. Figure 13 is a similar example, this timeusing channel-3 data from Metop. The best detection method isoften to use a non-linear or visible CLUT to highlight rising cloudtops.
Software Implementation at my Station
I use two core software packages in my station:• Weather satellite software from SatSignal• The lightning data server from MyBlitzortung
I will describe briefly the MyBlitzortung application.
MyBlitzortung is a database application based on the MySQL serverand Apache web server. The application is written using PHP and
I am running it in Windows XP on an Intel Atom unit. Installation of
the environment to XP was done using the WAMP server package.
The application stores data from each lightning event in a local
server (data must be fetched from the Blitzortung server using Wget

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December 2011

The Group for Earth Observation

GEO Quarterly No 32

Figure 15
A log of strike ratio as a function of distance

Figure 14 - The main MyBlitzortung screen(a free command line tool for retrieving files using HTTP, HTTPS and FTP, themost widely-used Internet protocols).
MyBlitzortung now offers multiple options for displaying this data, such as
showing the lightning in local maps, in weather maps, making a lightning strikeanimation or listing station and signal statistics.

Figure 14 shows the main screen of the MyBlitzortung software, which has
menus for accessing the different map and station statistic displays.
Figure 15 shows statistics from the detection range, which is amazingly
large—several thousand kilometres. Figure 16 shows the lightning strikes asa function of direction. In figure 17, the deviation (accuracy) of the detectedsignals is shown. Deviation relates to the time difference between different
stations detecting a lightning strike. The accuracy is remarkably good.
Figure 18 is a log of strike activity over a 24 hour period.

Figure 16
A log of strike ratio as a function of bearing

I would like to thank the following for helping me to work on this project.
• Teemu (OH6HNG) for organising activities to get a group order for kits
• Petri (OH6FUB) who helped me to set up the WAMP server• Terje Matisen and David J Taylor for helping me to configure Sure GPS board• David J Taylor for helping me with software• Tobias Volgnandt for extending MyBlitzortung for weather animations.

Further plans
The lightning season locally in Finland is over and I can only do further
testing with data from the network. It is also amazing how I can still get somedata from lightning from as far away as southern Italy. The distance is 25003000 km and the deviation, confirmed by other stations, is less than 3 km.

Figure 17
A log of detections per deviation
during the previous 24 hours

For the future, I will automate reception from polar orbiting satellites to
update the latest images. There are good command line tools available from
SatSignal, and I need to write some small additions to make that ready. I
have also started collecting parts for an atmospheric electrical field strength
measuring device. This will be excellent for local thunderstorms. The systemthat I plan to build is similar to the Boltek system, with a rotating wheel.
References
http://www.astrogenic.com/index.html
http://www.blitzortung.org/Webpages/
index.php
http://www.wetter-rosstal.de/
myblitzortung
http://www.oh6ac.net/

http://users.edpnet.be/DanielV37/
Detecteur3/
http://members.home.nl/fkooiman/
lightning/
http://www.boltek.com/
http://www.satsignal.eu/
www.geo-web.org.uk

Figure 18
A log of strike rate over the previous 24 hours

41

GEO Quarterly No 32

The Group for Earth Observation

December 2011

Francis Breame
Many readers use EUMETCast to receive an impressive varietyof images and other meteorological data, some of which deal withvegetation coverage. Now I discover I can also use the service todetermine how well my garden is growing!
Have a look at figure 1. This shows my received signal level overa few weeks, with a gradual decline followed by a sharp recovery,
happening twice. In fact, this is caused by my buddleja shrub,
which is very close to the line of sight of my EUMETCast dish.
As gardeners will know, this plant grows very vigourously in all
directions, so that I have regularly to prune a gap for the signal
to get through (figure 2). Actually, it’s suprising just how little
vegetation is needed to produce substantial attenuation at Ku band.
I wonder if there’s scope to replace the buddleja with somethingwith much smaller leaves? The buddleja is also known as the
Butterfly Bush, so I suppose any rapid fluctuations in signal strength
could be explained!

Figure 1 - Received EUMETCast signal level

Figure 3 - A peacock burrrerfly feeding upon a buddleja bushFrancis Breame forwarded us the photograph below, which wastaken by his friend, David Salter, while on a visit to RHS Wisley.
Although no aeroplane was seen at the time, the corridor throughthe cloud does seem to tie in well with the fallstreak hole concept(see article on page 9), and a query to the Met Office elicitedthe response that the trail through the cloud could have been
‘dissipated by an aircraft, probably in a stack, waiting to land at
Heathrow‘.

Figure 2 - The author’s EUMETCast dish42

www.geo-web.org.uk

December 2011

The Group for Earth Observation

GEO Quarterly No 32

Ed MurashieThis story is about the NPOESS Preparatory
Project, its NPP weather satellite, it’s mascot
NiPPy and the rocket called ‘the Workhorse’.
It begins with the technical details of eachpiece of the mission and ends with a tour of
the rocket and satellite that is filled with little
known facts. So feel free to skip ahead tothe tour if the facts become overwhelming.
NPP [1] is the latest Earth observation
satellite and should have already gained
orbit as you read this. The acronym evenhas another within it (NASA loves thoseacronyms). NPOESS stands for the National
Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental
Satellite. Breaking the name down tells youwhat the satellite does. National comesfrom the original idea of combining theseparate Defense Department’s Defense
Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP)
weather satellite, the National Oceanicand Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA)
Advanced TIROS-N (ATN) satellite andNASA’s Earth resources satellites.
If you have seen a picture of city lightsfrom space, it was probably taken from a
DMSP satellite. You may not have seen
ATN’s pictures but you have seen picturesfrom NOAA’s other weather satellite, theGeostationary Operational Environmental
Satellite (GOES), on nightly news weather
reports. GOES does not let you see thepolar regions or areas like Asia, Europe,
Africa and Australia because it is ingeostationary orbit around the equator
whereas ATN is in an orbit that goesaround the North and South Poles. NPP
will be in a similar polar orbit, thus the word
Polar‑orbiting in the name. Operationalcomes from the data actually being used
to predict the weather on a daily basis,
as opposed to an experimental satellite.
Environmental comes from the fact thatthe satellite not only takes pictures of the
Earth, but also measures other factors like
temperature, ozone, rain/snow and humidity,
which help predict the weather. Preparatory
Project comes from the original plan to use
this satellite to test some of the new onboard
instruments before deciding on their use in
the follow on series, simply called NPOESS.
The U.S. Government wanted to savemoney by combining the DMSP and NOAAATN satellite systems but it was decided
in 2009 that they could not create a setof instruments that would cost effectively
satisfy each organization’s requirements
and other political factors. Therefore, theNPOESS mission no longer exists and isbeing replaced with the Joint Polar Satellite
System or JPSS. JPSS-1 is expected tolaunch in November 2016. Meanwhile, NPP

will fill the gap between the ATN satellites
and JPSS-1. NPP is not just a weather
satellite: its new mission is also to bridge
between the ATN satellite and past Earthresource satellites like Aqua and Terra,
which study even more environmental
factors. Therefore, NPP is a NASA satellite
although NOAA will make use of its
operational data. Approximately six months
after launch and checkout, NASA will turnthe satellite over to NOAA for operations.

An artist’s impression of NPP in orbit
Photo: NASA/GSFC

NPP’s spacecraft bus is a modified version
of Ball Aerospace and Technologies
Corporation’s BCP2000 bus [2] that has
been used in other missions, including
the environmental CloudSat and ICEsat.
The bus is designed for a five-year lifeand provides the propulsion, electrical
power, communications, thermal control
and mounting surfaces for the instruments.
Propulsion and 3-axis attitude control keep
the instruments pointed in the right direction
and the satellite in its correct orbit. Poweris provided by a single solar panel thatgenerates 2700 watts. High-speed 300/10
Mbps X­‑band communication channels and
343 Gbit of storage provide links for boththe on-board instruments and spacecraft.
Attached to the surface of the BCP2000 bus
are the five Earth science instruments [3]:VIIRS, CrIS, CERES, ATMS and OMPS.
VIIRSThe Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer
Suite is built by Raytheon and measures theenergy radiated from the Earth at infrared
through visible light wavelengths. Infrared
provides the thermal images during the day
and night periods and visible during the
day only. Its 22 channels provides 12-bit
quantization (4096 shades of gray), twolevels of gain and 750 metres resolution
across the full scan line. This compares with
ATN’s AVHRR instrument with 5 channels,
10­‑bit quantization (1024 shades of gray)and 1.1 kilometre resolution (but only
directly under the satellite).
CrIS
The Cross-track Infrared Sounder isbuilt by ITT and provides high-resolution
three-dimensional measurements of theatmosphere’s temperature and moisture thatwill be used in weather forecasting. CrIS
picks up and improves on the Atmospheric
Infrared Sounder on the Aqua satellite.
CERES
The Clouds and the Earth’s RadiantEnergy System instrument built by
Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems
measures the reflected sunlight and Earth’s
thermal radiation to determine the planet’s

www.geo-web.org.uk

The Earth facing (Nadir) deck with the instruments.
The stored data black antenna is on the bottom
and the user data black antenna on the top
Photo credit Ball Aerospaceenergy budget. The data will help in theunderstanding of periodic and long-termchanges like El Nino. CERES is alreadyflown on both the Terra and Aqua satellites.
ATMS
The Advanced Technology Microwave
Sounder built by Northrop Grumman
measures the atmospheric temperature andmoisture using passive microwave energy.
Microwaves can pass through clouds more
readily than infrared energy and, therefore,
the ATMS complements the CrIS. The ATMS
is an improved instrument that combinesseveral instruments that make up the AMSU
flown on the ATN satellite.

43

GEO Quarterly No 32

OMPSThis is the Ozone Mapper Profiler Suite
built by Ball Aerospace and Technologies
Corporation, and measures the ozone layer
at higher resolution than the SBUV/2s flying
on ATNs. The cost of improvements in thesatellite is manifested in a new data format[4] and a higher transmission frequency anddata rate. A larger antenna and new receiverare required to receive the direct broadcast
from the satellite. The new transmission
frequency for the satellite is 7812 MHz
and the combined data rate is 15 Mbps.
This compares to ATN’s 1698-1707 MHz
frequency and 665 kbps data rate.
NiPPY
NPP is unique because it has its own
mascot [5] . NiPPy is NPP’s animated mascot
who has his own video, in which he talks
about the climate change which effects
many species, including polar bears. He
also talks about what he learned in school
about the NPP satellite. You can help NiPPy
spread the word by photographing him invarious states and countries and posting
your pictures on the NASA website.

The Delta II Launcher
In 2006, Boeing, with its Delta rockets andLockheed Martin with their Atlas rockets,
combined their launch vehicle businessto form United Launch Alliance (ULA) sothat they could compete better in the world
launch services market. NPP gets a ride into
space on board ULA’s
rocket [6].

The Group for Earth Observation‘9’ refer to the number of graphite-epoxy
motors (GEMs) attached to the first stage
body. Each GEM is a metre in diameter,
about 11 metres long, has a mass of
13 000 kg at launch and provides 500 kilo
newtons (kN) of thrust; 63 seconds later, atburnout, the launcher’s mass has fallen tojust 1134 kg.
For the NPP mission, a Delta II poweredby nine GEMs will be used, six of which
are ground lit and three lit after the firstsix burn out. Because the latter three are
air lit in a thinner atmosphere, the nozzles
and overall length are slightly larger. The
mass and orbit of the satellite are two of thefactors that determine how much thrust isrequired and therefore how many GEMs areused. The 2.13 tonne NPP will be placedin a 824 kilometre orbit and therefore will
be launched with a 7920-10 configuration
where 9 GEMS will be used. The ‘2’ in theconfiguration number refers to the use of
an Aerojet AJ10-119K second stage andthe ‘-10’ refers to using a 10 foot diameterby 29.1 foot fairing to cover the satellite(3 x 8.9 metres). For complete informationon the Delta II, please refer to the Delta II
Payload Planners Guide [7].
The 1.5 billion dollar NPP satellite was
successfully launched from Space LaunchComplex 2 West (SLC-2W) at 2:48 am
PDT on October 28, 2011. Just under one
hour later, it separated from the Delta II [8].
NPP and now circles the Earth once every
102 minutes in a 824 km sun-synchronous
circular orbit at a 98° inclination over thepoles. Ultimately, it will replace NOAA-19
as the primary afternoon satellite. Several
spectacular videos showing the launch froma camera on board a Delta II can be foundon You Tube [9].
Riding along as secondary payloads
were cubesats, small satellites usually,
10-centimetre cubes weighting less than
1.5 kg, built using commercial parts.
These included AubieSat-1 from Auburn
University [10], DICE from the Universityof Utah [11], Explorer-1[Prime] [12] from

More impressive than the Delta II’s height(39 metres) and mass (231 872kg) is its
tremendous success rate of 98.7% after
150 launches. The Grail mission, launchedfrom Cape Canaveral Air Station in Florida
in September of this year, was the 96th
consecutive successful—and also the final—
launch of a Delta II from Cape Canaveral(the first launch was on February 14, 1989).
The NPP mission will be the last scheduled
launch of a Delta II from Vandenberg
Air Force Station in California, although
there are parts for five more (but without
contracted launches). The first launch at
Vandenberg was on November 4, 1995.
The Delta II also is called the ‘Workhorse’and the larger Delta-IV completes the Delta
family.
Within the Delta II family are the 7300,
7400 and 7900 series, where the ‘3’, ‘4’ and44

December 2011

P-POD on the left and two cubesats on the right.
Credit: NASA/KSC

www.geo-web.org.uk

Gravity Probe B at SLC 2-W is a Delta II 7920-10.
The mobile service tower is to the left and the fixedumbilical tower is to the right of the rocket.
Credit: NASA/KSC

Montana State University, M-Cubed [13] andRAX‑2 [14] from the University of Michigan.
The format was started and standardized
by Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Stanford
University in 1999 [15]. These make forwonderful educational experiences at highschools and universities, and are also
built by private companies. These left their
P-POD launch tubes, in different orbits fortheir own specific purposes, approximately
39 minutes after NPP separation.
So as you can see the NPP mission
involves many government facilities, private
corporations and universities and will extend
our Earth science data set as well as supply
the data for future weather forecasts.
References
1 http://npp.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.html
2 http://www.ballaerospace.com/
page.jsp?page=73
3 http://npp.gsfc.nasa.gov/
spacecraft_inst.html
4 http://directreadout.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/links/
rsd_eosdb/PDF/NPP_IRD_DB.pdf
5 http://npp.gsfc.nasa.gov/nppy.html
6 http://www.ulalaunch.com/site/docs/
missionbooklets/DII/dii_npp_mob.PDF
7 http://www.ulalaunch.com/site/
docs/product_cards/guides/
DeltaIIPayloadPlannersGuide2007.pdf
8 http://npp.gsfc.nasa.gov/
images/NPP_PressKit_Color.pdf
9 http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=IvB-8CWw9eU
10 http://mstl.atl.calpoly.edu/~bklofas/
Presentations/DevelopersWorkshop2009/5_
Missions_1/9_Wilson-AubieSat.pdf
11 http://www.sdl.usu.edu/downloads/dice.pdf
12 http://ssel.montana.edu/e1p/media/
13 http://umcubed.org/
14 http://rax.engin.umich.edu/?page_id=1388
15 http://www.cubesat.org/
images/developers/cds_rev12.pdf

December
December 2011
2011

The
The GroupGroup forfor Earth
Earth Observation
Observation

www.geo-web.org.uk
www.geo-web.org.uk

GEO
GEO Quarterly
Quarterly No
No 32
32

45
45

GEO Quarterly No 32

46

The Group for Earth Observation

Blue Marble
image of Antarctice courtesy NASA
www.geo-web.org.uk

December 2011

December 2011

The Group for Earth Observation

GEO Quarterly No 32

John Tellick
For the majority of GEO Quarterly readers, winter isfast approaching and it’s time to dig out those woolly
hats and gloves. But in the southern hemispherethe sun is returning, it’s springtime, and the ice isstarting to melt.
Antarctica is Earth’s southernmost continent,
encapsulating the South Pole. It is situated almost
entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, surrounded by
the Southern Ocean. With a surface area of fourteen
million km2, it is the fifth-largest continent in area.
Only Europe and Australia are smaller. Indeed,
Antarctica is nearly twice the size of Australia.
Some 98% of Antarctica is permanently coveredby ice that averages at least 1.6 kilometres in
depth. Overall, Antarctica is the coldest, driest, andwindiest place on Earth and has the highest mean
land elevation of all the continents. Antarctica isconsidered a desert, with an annual precipitation of
only 200 mm along the coast and far less inland.
The temperature in Antarctica has been recorded tofall as low as −89 °C. Here, although there are no
permanent human residents, between one and five
thousand personnel from many countries may bepresent throughout the year manning the researchstations scattered across the continent.
Only cold-adapted organisms survive in Antarctica.
These include many types of algae, bacteria, fungi
and a few plants and also a few animal species
such as mites, nematodes, penguins, seals andtardigrades (microscopic, water-dwelling, segmented
animals with eight legs).
As many as 45 species of birds are known in
Antarctica, including the Antarctic Skua, Giant
Antarctic Petrel, Storm Petrel (which migrates here
from the Arctic), Snow Petrel and Antarctic Fulmar.
Only the seven species of penguin, however, areendemic.
Vegetation, where it occurs, includes about
150 lichens, 30 mosses, a few fungi and one
liverwort. There are only two native vascular plants,
the Antarctic hair grass and a cushion-forming
pearlwort, which are found in small clumps near thewestern shore of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Although myths and speculation about a Terra
Australis date back to antiquity, the first confirmedsighting of the continent is accepted to haveoccurred in 1820 by the Russian expedition of
Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail
Lazarev. Antarctica remained largely neglected forthe rest of the 19th century because of its hostileenvironment, lack of resources, and isolation. The
Antarctic Treaty was signed in 1959 by 12 countries
and to date, 47 nations are signatories. The treaty
prohibits military activities, mineral mining andnuclear testing, but supports scientific research andprotects the continent’s ecozone.
Source: Wikipedea

Blue Marble
image of Antarctice courtesy NASA
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47

GEO Quarterly No 32

The Group for Earth Observation

A NASA Earth Observatory Report

Dear Mr BellI am writing on behalf of Midhurst, Universityof the Third Age (U3A) group to thank you forthe talk you gave us yesterday on ‘Viewing
the Weather from Space’.
It was no wonder that you replied in answer
to my enquiry that you weren’t at all nervous
before you started. You knew your subject
inside out and just so obviously loved it,thus your knowledge and enthusiasm were
infectious. I have to say that I left schoolat 16 having never studied science of any
sort, so I didn’t understand everything you
said, but I was sitting near a lady who waslistening to your every word with muchappreciation—it was good to see.
What an interest for you to be able todownload all those images and photographs,
and how interesting to learn of the different
ways it can be done. There was much foodfor thought during the afternoon. I’ve met
several U3A members today and we alltalked about what we learned from your talk:we all had different perspectives of course
but good discussions have taken place andI’m sure that’s what the U3A is all about—to liven up our thinking and broaden our
horizons. That you did so on behalf of theCommittee and all who were at the meeting
yesterday, may I thank you very much forcoming to talk to us and for sharing yourknowledge with us.
Yours sincerely,
Sara Dodds, Secretary Midhurst U3A.
It’s great to read this sort of letter. It’s
feedback like this that really makes
everyone on the GEO Management Teamfeel that their efforts are worthwhile.
Perhaps this will encourage more of
our members to give talks to their local
community groups and spread the word
about GEO - (Editor).

Dear Francis,
I would be grateful if you would send me a
copy of the EUMETSAT Presentation discand I enclose postage stamps accordingly.
Once again, I enjoyed the latest edition of
GEO. I am afraid that I cannot get to theshows anymore because of weakness in myarms and legs but I am still receiving APT.
I hope that you are well. Following GEO
over the years I am aware of the enormous
amount of work you have done to ensure its
success.
Please give my best wishes to John Tellick,48

December 2011

Les Hamilton and others who mightremember me
Kind regards.
Yours sincerely,
Roland White.
Northampton.

(Continued from page 28)

loss of electricity in Connecticut thatwas worse than the outages caused by
Hurricane Irene.
From Maryland to Maine, it took several
days to restore electricity after thesnowfall ceased. The storm, dubbed
Snowtober by news organisations,smashed record snowfall totals for
October and worsened as it moved north.
Communities in western Massachusetts
were among the hardest hit with snowfall
totals topping 68 cm in Plainfield, and66 cm in nearby Windsor.
The storm was blamed for at least 11
deaths, and states of emergency were
declared in New Jersey, Connecticut,
Massachusetts and parts of New York.
There were flight delays in the region
over the weekend, and commuter trains inConnecticut and New York were delayedor suspended because of downed trees
and signal problems.
Roads, railways and airline flights were
knocked out, and passengers on a
JetBlue flight were stuck on a plane inHartford, Connecticut, for more thanseven hours on Saturday. Thirty-two
shelters were open around the state, andvolunteer fire departments were asked toallow people in for warmth and showers.
At least four hospitals were relying on
generators for power.
According to the Weather Service, thissnowstorm crushed previous records,
some dating back more than 100 years.
October 29 was only the fourth snowy
October day in New York’s Central Park
since record-keeping began 135 years
ago.
Erratum
The top right image on page 21
of GEOQ 31 should have been
captioned:’European ATV Craft’, and not‘Progress’.

www.geo-web.org.uk

The typical satellite view of eastern
Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula tends tobe either white or green depending on
the season. But on October 16, 2011,
the Moderate Resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer (MODIS) carried by
NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image(right) of a landscape in transition. The
green of spring and summer has been
replaced with the orange and tan tonesof autumn: the high volcanic summits are
already coated with fresh snow, presaging
the winter to come. The autumn couloirs in
the image serve to highlight the volcanic
activity of this region.
Forming the northwestern segment of the
Pacific Ring of Fire, Kamchatka contains
more than 300 volcanoes, 29 of which areactive. Vulcanism shaped Kamchatka, andits circular volcanic peaks are the mostdistinctive features in the image. Five
active volcanoes are visible: Sheveluch,
Ushkovsky, Kliuchevskoi, Bezymeanny,and Plosky Tolbackik.
Shiveluch can be seen at top centre in
the image with the other four volcanoes
clustered in the lower left corner. Ranked
amongst Kamchatka’s largest and mostactive volcanoes, Shiveluch is the only
one of these five showing obvious
activity. A plume of ash and gas blows
east from the summit, and recent lava
flows cover the snow on the mountain’s
southeastern flank. On October 16, theKamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response
Team (KVERT) reported that a plume of
volcanic gas and ash rose three kilometresabove the volcano and drifted about 35
kilometres southeast. There were also
reports hot avalanches at the volcano.
Both the plume and the volcanic debris
on the ground are visible because of theseason. If the image had been taken
earlier in the year, before snow coatedthe volcano’s slopes, the debris on thesoutheastern slope would have blended
with older flows and it would have beendifficult to identify new activity. If the image
had been taken later in the year, whensnow covers the entire peninsula, the ash
plume would be difficult to see against awhite background.
The snow also provides a clue that theother four volcanoes shown in the image
have been quiet since it fell: the snow
around them is pristine. KVERT reported
lava flows at Bezymianny, but the othervolcanoes had no activity in mid-October.
The feature that resembles a plume eastof the peaks is probably a cloud.