Eventually, the satellites will have separate imaging and sounding instruments operating simultaneously. In all cases, the information sent from the satellite to a receiving station on earth is as a series of numeric codes. This digital information is assembled by computers at the receiving station on earth in a series of scan lines to form a picture. At this time, computer enhancements may be made to the product to highlight certain subtle features on the image. These enhancements are done on the infrared images where the temperature differences may be small, but meteorologically important.
Weather satellites provide an indirect measure of wind speed and direction.
An animated sequence of satellite images of identifiable clouds at various assumed levels are used as tracers of the wind motion at that level. The data that are sent from the satellites to the ground stations are processed to provide usable images. This operation involves a sequence that includes data acquisition, processing and display. The satellite images provide important information about the earth-atmosphere system. A survey of how to interpret some of these satellite images can be found in the Satellite Image Interpretation section .