A 4,000-year old board game, goes has a rich history in China, Korea and Japan. It then slowly spread to Europe, Britain and America. Now Go is played to a high standard in the Western world, although it still hasn’t caught on with as many people as it does in the three oriental countries.
GOES (Geosynchronous Observing System) satellites have been a critical element of National Weather Service operations since the first geostationary satellite was launched in 1974. These satellites are positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 22,300 miles above the Earth’s surface and continuously view the entire Western Hemisphere. Their sensors measure reflected solar energy, atmospheric temperature and moisture from which weather information can be derived.
In addition to the Imager and Sounder instruments, GOES has two other important sensor packages: the Solar X-ray Imaging Spectrometer (SXI) and the Radiation Budget Instrument (RBI). SXI is providing space weather forecasters with valuable information about solar activity, such as sunspots and flares. This information can help NOAA/Space Environment Center (SEC) staff issue timely warnings when the explosive Sun’s atmosphere might affect communications, satellites and high altitude aircraft.
RBI is a unique and critical tool for NOAA’s weather and climate research, monitoring the changing Earth’s water cycle, carbon cycling, and ecosystem dynamics. It provides global coverage of the Earth’s surface and atmosphere, with a spatial resolution up to 10 km. It also has the ability to detect changes in ocean color and water properties that could be related to biogeochemical processes. RBI has the capacity to provide real-time data for operational use.
During SRSO operations, GOES can scan the entire Western Hemisphere at a rate of about one-minute per sector. This is much faster than the normal half hour cycle of GOES. Ten-minute full disk imagery will be critical to NOAA weather forecast offices and National Weather Service National Centers, especially for monitoring hazardous weather conditions, tracking volcanic ash plumes for aviation safety, and other situations where the normal observational cadence may not catch some events.
The GOES-R satellite is scheduled to operate for at least 14 years, providing regional environmental imagery and specialized meteorological, oceanographic and climatological data. The GOES-R design includes the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI), which will have more channels, better resolution and faster scanning than previous GOES satellites; and the Extreme Ultraviolet and X-ray Irradiance Sensor (EXIS).
The ABI is expected to deliver more reliable and accurate observations of Earth’s weather and oceans by reducing calibration errors and by integrating data from other instruments. This new capability will enable the development of sophisticated forecast models that are capable of anticipating a wide range of meteorological and environmental phenomena. These models will be used to improve the nation’s weather, marine and aviation forecasts. They will also be valuable in assessing long-term changes in our climate. In particular, they will be critical to future efforts to understand the causes and impacts of global warming. For example, the seasonality of Amazon rainforest canopy cover has not yet been incorporated into climate models.