Meteosat Third Generation sounding services

Infrared spectrum

Applications benefiting from the Infrared Sounder (IRS) instrument:

• The 30-minute repeat cycle over Europe will fill large spatial and temporal voids in the 12-hour standard radiosonde observations
• The mission will provide time and space interpolation of moisture and temperature observations taken from the polar-orbiting satellites
• Better depiction of the hydrological cycle in models through information on tropospheric moisture structures and their variation in time
• Four-dimensional information on humidity, temperature, and wind (the “4D weather cube”) will support nowcasting applications by detecting pre-convective situations and convective initiation, giving rise to improved warnings on location and intensity of convective storms
• Information on vertically resolved atmospheric motion vectors with improved height assignment will benefit tropical areas
• Forecasting pollution and monitoring of atmospheric minor constituents will be helped by estimates of diurnal variations of tropospheric contributions of atmospheric trace gases such as O₃ and CO
• Improved volcanic ash prediction through information about the composition and density of the ash cloud
• Potentially significant impact on numerical weather prediction through rapid repeat cycle atmospheric soundings in temperature and humidity-sensitive parts of the infrared spectrum

Solar spectrum

Applications benefitting from the Copernicus Sentinel-4 sounding mission on MTG, provided by the Ultraviolet, Visible and Near-Infrared Sounder (UVN) instrument, include:

• Enhanced air quality monitoring on an hourly basis over Europe
• Estimates of the daily variation of trace gases such as ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, formaldehyde, and aerosols

The primary objective of the Copernicus Sentinel-4 mission is to support air quality monitoring and forecasting over Europe with a revisit time of approximately an hour.

The Sentinel-4 mission is one component of the joint Copernicus Sentinel-4 and Sentinel-5 concept for air quality applications and climate protocol monitoring. Copernicus Sentinel-5 is the UV-VIS-NIR-SWIR (UVNS) instrument to be flown on Metop Second Generation A satellites.

The primary data products derived from the Sentinel-4 instrument readings will be ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, formaldehyde and aerosol optical depth.