NIES GOSAT PROJECT NEWSLETTER ISSUE#10 OCT. 2010

ISSUE # 10
OCT.2010

NIES

GOSJ ATPRO ECT
NEWSL ETTER

Independent Administrative Institution
National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES)
A newsletter on the Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite(GOSAT, “IBUKI” ) project from the NIES GOSAT Project Oﬃce.

CONTENTS

Center for Global Environmental Researchis celebrating 20th Anniversary.

GOSAT PEOPLE
People of "IBUKI" - Masakatsu Nakajima
NEWS
Minister of State Banri Kaieda visits GOSAT Project Office
Change in the Observational Operation of TANSO-FTS
GOSAT Workshop Held at SPIE Europe Remote Sensing 2010
G-Spatial Expo - GOSATʼs Achievement Introduced at Exhibition Booth
IMAGES OF THE MONTHThe Glittering Plain - Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia
DATA PRODUCTS UPDATECALENDARPUBLISHED PAPERS

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http://www.gosat.nies.go.jp/
My Roll in GOSAT Project

GOSAT PEOPLE
People of "IBUKI"

Operation/Managementby

MASAKATSU NAKAJIMA

Photo by Yuki Tanaka

GOSAT Mission Manager
Satellite Applications and Promotion Center
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)GOSAT Project is a cooperative effort among the Japan Aerospace Exploration
Agency (JAXA), the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), and the Ministry of theEnvironment, and I represent JAXA as a mission manager.
Even though there are exceptions depending on the project, usually at JAXA, a project
team that developed a satellite checks the functional capability and monitors the conditionof the satellite for one year after the launch. After confirming that the stable operation can be
carried out, the team passes its operation onto a team led by a mission manager. In the casewith GOSAT, “IBUKI”, one year and two months after the launch, the project team passed on
the operation and I was appointed Mission Manager.
In order to acquiree data of concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), we
need to collect users’ requests for observational locations and other conditions for sensors(such as amplifier gain levels) , to mediate conﬂicting requests, then to create a schedule, andtransmit these requirement data to the satellite.
The satellite makes
observations according to theserequirements, and downlinks
the observational data to theground station in Svalbard,
N o r w a y, e v e r y t w o o r b i t saround the globe (and twice a
day to the Earth Observation
Ce n t e r i n S a i t a m a , J a p a n).
The data, just some list s ofnumbers at this point, are sent
to the Tsukuba Space Centerto b e p ro cess e d as Leve l 0(extraction of the data), Level 1A(conversion of the data to a form Figure 1. A flowchart of “IBUKI” observation from data acquisition toof interferogram1), and Level calculation of greenhouse gases concentrations.
1B(conversion of interferogram into spectra), then the data are sent to NIES. At NIES, theconcentrations of greenhouse gases and so on are calculated. Figure 1 is the flowchart of
1 Interferogram is a pattern of light intensity obtained as a result of the following steps: i) split incident light into
two beams using the beam splitter, ii) change one of the path lengths of the two split beams, and iii) merge thetwo beams of light by letting them interfere with each other.

DUE DATE EXTENDED TO :NOV. 8TH, 2010

G REENHOUSE GASES O BSERVING S A T ELLITE“IBUKI” (GOSAT)

THE THIRD RESEARCH ANNOUNCEMENT

For details on the Third Research Announcement, please visit "Research
Announcement" section on the NIES GOSAT Project website.
http://www.gosat.nies.go.jp/eng/proposal/proposal.htm

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国立環境研究所 GOSAT PROJECT NEWSLETTER ISSUE#10 OCT. 2010

this series of processes. The data of spectra and concentrations
are available to the public at NIES GOSAT Project website (http://
www.gosat.nies.go.jp/). JAXA also transmits all the data of spectra
and concentrations to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and theEuropean Space Agency (ESA) for the purpose of calibration,
validation, and easier access to the data for oversea users. JAXA
is also responsible for promotion of the data usage, in otherwords, sales and marketing of the data to broader users. Mission
Manager is the very position responsible for execution of thisseries of missions handled by JAXA.

How I Became Involved in GOSAT Project
I have had an interest in the space since childhood. I used tostare at the pictures of solar system and the photographs ofthe moon in illustrated encyclopedia for children, and would
go to my friend’s house to watch stars or lunar eclipses with histelescope. It was the heyday of Apollo’s moon landing when I wasin elementary school, but I wasn’t thinking about the space formy career (dream) option. I wanted to become a pilot. After myeyesight deteriorated and gave up my dream to become a pilot
in my junior high school years, I became interested in subatomic
particles and nuclear fusion, and went to university to pursue thestudy of what was then called “dream energy,” nuclear fusion.
Then again, my interest came back to the space (astronomy) andstudied infrared astronomy in my senior year. Finally, this time,
my interest shifted from astronomy to rockets, and landed a job
at JAXA (then National Space Development Agency, NASDA).
However, two and half years later I was transferred to a division
where the sensors for Earth observation are developed. That was
the start of how I was drawn deep into Earth observation. The first2
thing I handled was a design study of AVNIR , a visible and near
2 Advanced Visible and Near Infrared Radiometer (AVNIR) is a high spatial
resolution optical sensor aboard ADEOS satellite for observing the visible andnear-infrared regions of solar radiation reflected by land and coastal zones.
The objective of the sensor was to monitor desertification, destruction oftropical forests, and pollution of coastal zones as well as to be used for resource
exploration and understanding of land use.

infrared imaging sensor aboard ADEOS3. It was more like learning
rather than handling, and I was able to learn about optical sensors
through the design study for AVNIR, my benefactor. After AVNIR
became a part of the ADEOS project, I started to work on studies
on various kinds of optical sensors including GLI4, a successor of
OCTS5, LIDAR, and Fourier Transform Spectrometers. I becamea part of the ADEOS-II project at its launch with GLI sensor, andI was responsible for it until I handed it to the satellite system.
After handling several other optical sensors for Earth observation
satellites, I was transferred to the GOSAT project. Years before
that, I remember saying to a rookie colleague who was assigned
a position in GOSAT project, “Good thing your position ischallenging, their observation method is really extraordinary.” I
never imagined I would be in the same project in a few years. As
I have been handling the project, I am realizing what I said to therookie was true. Fourier Transform Spectrometer is a sensor of“artisanal technology.” Now, as “IBUKI” continues to acquire data,
I would like to continue my efforts to promote “IBUKI” data to be
used by more people and institutions.

3 Advanced Earth Observing Satellite (ADEOS) is a Japanese satellite withan objective to acquire data of worldwide environmental changes such as
the greenhouse effect, ozone layer depletion, tropical rain deforestation,
and abnormal climatic conditions. Launched in August 1996 and stopped its
operation in June 1997.
4 Global Imager (GLI) is an optical sensor that observes the reflectedsolar radiation from the Earth surface including land and ocean, and theatmosphere including aerosols and clouds as well as infrared radiation globallyand frequently. The GLI data were aimed to be used for grasping the global
circulation of carbon, monitoring cloud, snow, ice, and sea surface temperature,and grasping the primary marine production.
5 Ocean Color and Temperature Scanner (OCTS) is an optical radiometer tomeasure the color and surface temperature of ocean. The OCTS data were
aimed to be used mainly for determination of ocean primary production andcarbon cycle, and be used for getting information of ocean conditions forfishery and environment monitoring.

NEWS

Minister of State Banri Kaieda visits
GOSAT Project Office- Yuki Tanaka, Specialist, NIES GOSAT Project Office

Japan’s Minister of State for Science and Technology Policy Banri Kaieda visited
NIES and paid a visit to the GOSAT Project Office on October 10, 2010. At the office, NIES
Executive Director (Research) Yoshifumi Yasuoka, GOSAT Project Leader Tatsuya Yokota,
and Chief of the Office for Global Environmental Database Tsuneo Matsunaga gave theminister a 20-minute presentation on the current status of GOSAT project. Minister Kaieda
made comments about his expectations for the project to produce the data that willkeep world’s trust, and for this to lead to a possible infrastructure that will serve useful
purposes for Japan’s 25 percent reduction of green house gas emission.
Banri Kaieda, Minister of State for Science and Technology Policy on October
10, 2010 at the GOSAT Project Office. Photograph by Yuki Tanaka.

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NEWS

国立環境研究所 GOSAT PROJECT NEWSLETTER ISSUE#10 OCT. 2010

Change in the Observational Operation of TANSO-FTS- Nobuyuki Kikuchi, Specialist, NIES GOSAT Project Office

The nominal observation of the TANSO-FTS sensor aboard“IBUKI” was changed from 5 lattice-point pattern (Figure 1 left) to 3
lattice-point pattern (Figure 1 right) starting August 1st, 2010. WithTANSO-FTS’s two axis pointing mechanism, the sensor’s fields-of-view
can be moved ± 20 degrees angle in along-track direction and ± 35
degrees angle in cross-track direction. The observation is operatedusing 3 lattice-point pattern because the errors detected during the 5
point observation rarely happen in 3 lattice-point observation.
Information on differences between 5 lattice-point pattern and 3
lattice-point pattern is summarized in Table 1. Because of the change,
the intervals between neighboring observational points are wider,and the number of global observation points is now decreased to
1/3. However, a total number of data is still the same because now
the satellite observes three times at each point. For Level 2 data

products, at each point, three observational data are processed, and at
maximum of three data products are produced.
For further details on observational points, please refer to thefollowing documents.
( 1 ) I n f o r m a t i o n o n t h e G O S AT TA N S O - F T S : C h a n g e i n t h e
Observational Operation
http://data.gosat.nies.go.jp/GosatUserInterfaceGateway/guig/
doc/20101014en.pdf(2) GOSAT Level 1 Product Description Document
http://data.gosat.nies.go.jp/GosatWebDds/productorder/distribution/user/NEB-080035D_GOSAT_Level_1_Product_Format_eng.pdf(3) Thermal And Near infrared Sensor for carbon Observation on
board the Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT), Research
Announcement, Appendix C, Operation Policies of GOSAT and Basic
Observation Plan of the TANSO Sensor
http://www.gosat.nies.go.jp/eng/proposal/download/GOSAT_
RA_3rd_C_en.pdf

Table 1. Scanning patterns in cross-track direction.
Number of
Observation Points
in cross-track
direction

Figure 1. The diﬀerence of scanning patterns in cross-track direction near Japan. The
left image is 5 lattice-points pattern and the right is 3 lattice-points pattern. However,
the actual patterns around Japan are not necessarily the same as shown in the figure
because of the frequent observation requests in the area.

Duration of Each
Observation

Number of
Observations at

Horizontal Interval

Vertical Interval

Each Point

3 points

4.0 seconds

3 times262.9 km283.1 km

5 points

4.0 seconds

1time

157.8 km152.2 km

NEWS

GoSaT WorKShoP helD
aT SPie eUroPe reMoTe SenSinG 2010
- Hiroshi Watanabe, NIES GOSAT Project Office Manager

SPIE Europe Remote Sensing 2010 was held in Toulouse,
France from September 20 to September 24, 2010. In one of theconferences named “Sensors, Systems, and Next-Generation
Satellites”, a session called “Japanese Missions” (Chairperson:
Professor Haruhisa Shimoda of Tokai University) was set up alongwith the U.S. and European satellite observation missions. Threepresentations related to GOSAT were made during the session, and I
gave a presentation on the current status of higher-level products of
GOSAT data. On the third day, NIES Post-doctoral Fellow Andrey Bril of
NIES GOSAT Project gave a presentation on the retrieval method (andGOSAT Workshop at SPIE Europe Remote Sensing 2010
its results) based on PPDF (Photon Pathlength Distribution Function).
Besides the presentations, we set up a special event, GOSAT
Workshop, on the second day of the event to promote GOSAT data
products to a body of potential users. This is reflecting the current
situation that the GOSAT Level 1 and 2 data products have been
publicly available and Level 3 were just released to the collaborating
researchers of Research Announcement. With the cooperation ofProfessor Haruhisa Shimoda, a chairperson of the GOSAT Research
Announcement Selection and Evaluation Committee, and the Earth
Observation Research Center of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency,
the details on GOSAT sensors, the current status of data products,
and the Third Research Announcement was explained. Other things
introduced at the workshop were basic operation of the GOSAT User
Interface Gateway (GUIG): http://data.gosat.nies.go.jp including
user registration, how to search and order data products, and how
to download the ordered products. The number of participants was
An example of GUIG SWIR L2 Global Distribution Map. A map shows the results ofaround 10, but it was a good opportunity for in-depth discussions.
FTS L2 SWIR CO2, the background is the CAI L3 global reflectance distribution image.

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国立環境研究所 GOSAT PROJECT NEWSLETTER ISSUE#10 OCT. 2010NEWS

G-spatial EXPO "When &Where”-Information Changes our Lives, Now and in the Future
GOSAT’s Achievement Introduced at Exhibition Booth- Soushi Kato, NIES Postdoctoral Fellow, Office for Global Environmental Database, CGER, NIESGOSAT’s achievement was introduced at an exhibitionbooth at the G-spatial EXPO held at PACIFICO YOKOHAMA from
September 19, 2010 to September 21, 2010. G-spatial EXPO is an
event started this year targeting the general public, and hosted anumber of lectures and symposiums on new industries such as map
distribution and navigation systems, exhibitions on new products
and services, and communication meetings for the purpose ofcollaborations among industry, academia, and government. It wasreported that 36,819 people attended the exhibition space during
the three-day event.
The National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) in
collaboration with the Biodiversity Center of Japan, Ministry of
the Environment (MOE) of Japan, hosted an exhibition booth,and the Office for Global Environmental Database exhibitedand introduced the achievement of GOSAT project. The exhibit
included poster panels that showed the theoretical explanationof GOSAT observation and the spherical display that showed theobservational data and simulation results.
Since the device itself of spherical display was eye catching, many Displaying GOSAT projects research achievement at the booth hosted
people especially families and students stopped by at the booth. by NIES/Biodiversity Center of Japan, MOE at during the G-spatial EXPO.
However, the most visitors seemed interested in the subject matter Photographed on September 20, 2010 by NIES Fellow Jiye Zeng (Office forafter listening to the explanation on the satellite measurement Global Environmental Database, CGER, NIES).
of carbon in the global atmosphere. I believe that the research achievement had as much impact as the way it was exhibited.
Participating in an expo in the field of geographical information system was a good opportunity to introduce GOSAT project topeople who are not professionally involved in the environmental studies or enterprises.

IMAGES OF THE MONTHThe Glittering Plain
Salar De Uyuni, Bolivia- Nobuyuki Kikuchi
Specialist, NIES GOSAT Proejct Office

Image 1. A false color image of the clear-sky reflectancedata of South America for the month of August 2010.
Red = Band 2, Green = Band 3, Blue = Band 1.

Image 1 is a clear-sky reflectance data of South America composed of the
CAI data acquired in the month of August 2010. By gathering the data of minimum
reflectance, it is possible to eliminate clouds in the image and monitor the groundsurface condition over a large area. A little trace of clouds are left near the equator, but
you can see the clear shape of the Amazon River and the snow-capped mountains thatstretch in the Andes. The white spot that stands out in the Bolivian Plateau is not cloudor snow, but it is Salar de Uyuni, a salt flat left behind by dried up lake.
Image 2 is an enlarged image of Salar de Uyuni taken by CAI sensor on August 7,
2010. A large lake in the northern top is Lake Titicaca, Salar de Uyuni is in the middle,
and there are several
other lakes different
in size are in the area.
Lakes that are in theprocess of drying up
appear in wine red.
This is because the redcolor is assigned to thelight detected in band
2 (670 nm). The light inband 1 (380 nm) andband 3 (870 nm) are
more easily-absorbed
by water comparedto the light in band 2.
Of the light reflectedby the white salt at
the bottom of lake,
only the light in band
Image 2. An enlarged image of Salar de Uyuni photographed
2 is emphasized andon August 7, 2010. Color assignment is the same as Photo 1.
appears as red.

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国立環境研究所 GOSAT PROJECT NEWSLETTER ISSUE#10 OCT. 2010DATA PRODUCTS UPDATE

Data Processing Status Update from GOSAT Project Office - Fumie Kawazoe, Specialist, NIES GOSAT Project Office

Here we report an update on data processing status fordata products from the months of June, August, September,releacing the V100100 of the FTS L1B data products, V00.90 of thewere released to the public. Please have a look at the updated

late September and early October 2010. We are processing and
CAI L1B, L1B+, and L2 cloud ﬂag data products. Continued from theNovember, December of 2009 and February and March of 2010
Remarks on monthly FTS SWIR L2 Product and Gallery section.

previous month, FTS L2 SWIR CO2 and CH4 column amount data The number of registered users reached 904 as of October 12, 2010.
products are processed and available to the general users as V01.xx.

On September 30, the FTS L2 SWIR CO2 and CH4 column amounts

PUBLISHED PAPERSCALENDAR

Field of Research: Validation

2010/11/17-19

Name of Journal : Atmospheric Measurement Techniques ( Volume 3, Number 5, October 2010, pages
1351-1362)
Title : Calibration of the Total Carbon Column Observing Network using aircraft proﬁle data
Authors: D. Wunch, G. C. Toon, P. O. Wennberg, S. C. Wofsy, B. B. Stephens, M. L. Fischer, O. Uchino, J. B.
Abshire, P. Bernath, S. C. Biraud, J.-F. L. Blavier, C. Boone, K. P. Bowman, E. V. Browell, T. Campos, B. J. Connor, B. C. Daube, N. M. Deutscher, M. Diao, J. W. Elkins, C. Gerbig, E. Gottlieb, D. W. T. Griffith, D. F. Hurst, R.
Jiménez, G. Keppel-Aleks, E. A. Kort, R. Macatangay, T. Machida, H. Matsueda, F. Moore, I. Morino, S. Park,

Participation at the the 54th

Symposium on Space Science andTechnology held in Shizuoka, Japan.
2010/11/17-19
Participation at the 16th
Atmospheric Chemistry
Conference held in Tokyo, Japan.

J. Robinson, C. M. Roehl, Y. Sawa, V. Sherlock, C. Sweeney, T. Tanaka, and M. A. Zondlo

DUE DATE EXTENDED TO :Field of Research: Carbon balance estimation / Atmospheric transport modeling

NOV. 8TH, 2010

Name of Journal: Tellus B (Volume 62, Issue 5, November 2010, pages 821-840)

Title: Simulation and assimilation of global ocean pCO2 and air-sea CO2 ﬂuxes using ship observations ofsurface ocean pCO2 in a simplified biogeochemical oﬄine model.

G REENHOUSE GASES O BSERVING S A T ELLITE“IBUKI” (GOSAT)

THE THIRD RESEARCH ANNOUNCEMENT

Authors: V. Valsala and S. Maksyutov

NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONSNIES GOSAT PROJECT NEWSLETTERISSUE #10 OCT. 2010

Issued On : 2010.11.01
Revised On : 2011.02.08

edited and published by : NIES GOSAT Project Oﬃce

NIES

GOSJ ATPRO ECT
NEWSL ETTER

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