The world’s environmental satellites provide an international network of global weather
o b s e rvations. Satellites of many countries provide data and services similar to those con-
tributed by the United States, such as operational weather data, cloud cover, tempera-
t u re profiles, real-time storm monitoring, and severe storm warnings. Their data con-
tributes to the study of climate and the environment on both regional and global scales.
eostationary satellites include:
Geostationary Meteorological Satellite (GMS), Japan
INSAT, India
Indian national satellite, satellite data not available.
METEOrological SATellite (METEOSAT), Europe
launched by the European Space Agency (sixteen member countries) and operated
by Eumetsat (European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological
Satellites), they send data on the same frequency as GOES (1691 MHz), as well as
at 1694.5 MHz
olar-orbiting satellites include:
METEOR Satellites, Russia
METEOR 2 satellites send a single picture (visible images at a rate of 120 lines/
minute) as compared to the two (visible and infrared) that NOAA satellites send.
The satellites are near-polar (not sun-synchronous) at an altitude of 900 km, with
an inclination of 81.2 degre e s.
The black and white bars that are visible along the edge of the Russian direct read-
out imagery are created by sync pulses and can be used to identify the particular
satellite providing the imagery. The bars may also contain data on instrument char-
acteristics and gray scale calibration. Images may display clouds in great detail, but
land and water boundaries are difficult to distinguish without extreme video pro-
cessing. Newer, METEOR 3-series satellites have an infrared imaging system.
EN V I R O N M E N TA L SAT E L L I T E S
O F OT H E R NAT I O N S
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