While I am not an expert, I have been interested in the work done by satellites in orbit around the Earth since I was a kid. When I saw the post below from NOAA Satellites and Information Service I knew that I had to share this with you. I am delighted that all from the crashed airplane were rescued.
Direct link to May 14th Facebook post from NOAA Satellite and Information Service
Coming off of a busier than normal couple of days, so I am sharing three videos of NOAA Satellites looking at wildfires. All three videos are from four to six weeks ago.
Fires Across Europe
Fires Across Alaska
Fire near Yosemite
GOES-T, the third satellite of NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites had a successful launch yesterday. GOES-T joins GOES East and GOES West. After going through a testing period, GOES-T now known as GOES 18 will become GOES West. In May, GOES 18 will replace GOES 17, which has had some problems with its Advance Baseline Imager, as GOES West. GOES 17 will then become an in-orbit spare.
Direct link to abbreviated launch video on YouTube from SciNews
The Advance Baseline Imager (ABI) is new to the current series of GOES satellites in the GOES R series, currently GOES 16, GOES 17, and GOES 18. Here is a short description from NASA's GOES-T blog on what the Advance Baseline Imager does:
The Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) is the primary instrument on the GOES-R Series for imaging Earth’s weather, oceans, and environment. ABI is used for a wide range of applications related to severe weather, hurricanes, aviation, natural hazards, the atmosphere, oceans, and cryosphere. ABI scans Earth five times faster with four times the resolution and three times the number of channels than previous GOES for more accurate and reliable forecasts and severe weather warnings.
Natural hazards referred to above includes detecting wildfires.
Two recent articles from space dot com discuss a malfunction in the GOES 17 ABI due to a lack of coolant in the ABI system due to a debris getting into the coolant piping system (see this article from space dot com).The ABI systems in GOES-T now GOES 18, has some fixes in the ABI so that this malfunction does not reoccur. I hope that this fix works. Here is a second article on Space dot com describing the GOES-T launch and what the satellite will do in orbit.
There are a nice group of articles on NASA's GOES-T blog covering various aspects of GOES-T including the launch and first stage rocket separation, main engine restart, and separation from the rocket.
Wildfires continue to devastate the Western United States. As you can see from the NOAA Satellites video wildfires can create their own weather.
direct link to YouTube video from NOAASatellites
Speaking of weather affecting wildfires, when NWS Incident Meteorologists are deployed to wildfire they provide site specific forecasts so that wildland firefighters on the ground and in the air may be alert to how changing weather conditions will affect the fire. These specific forecasts help wildland firefighters stay safe.
I just checked the NWS Incident Meteorologist Office Facebook page, something I do almost daily, to take a look at IMET deployments from July 26 through August 1, 2021. By my count 20 NWS Incident Meteorologists, including two IMET trainees have been deployed to 18 wildfires in the Western United States. To summarize:
Montana: Alder Creek Fire (IMET and IMET trainee), Harris Fire, Burnt Peak Fire, Stateline Complex, Poverty Flats Fire, Granite Pass Complex, and Hay Creek Fire.
Oregon: Elbow Creek Fire, Jack Fire, Middle Fork Complex, Bootleg Fire
Washington: Cedar Creek Fire, (IMET and IMET trainee), Sherwood Fire
Idaho: Character Complex, Mud Lick Fire, Dixie Fire
Colorado: Morgan Creek Fire
California: Dixie Fire
Any errors in this listing are mine.
I try to keep an eye on videos and images shared by NOAA's National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NESDIS) in part because satellites fascinate and as I learn I want to share this with you. NESDIS shares videos in their Earth from Orbit page. Yesterday, July 15th, NESDIS shared a video (also available on their YouTube Channel) called "Wildfire Smoke Blankets the U.S." A fascinating two minute video where you learn how NOAA's different satellites (GOES and the polar orbitors) monitor smoke and how this data is fed into models used by wildland firefighters and others to monitor wildfire smoke conditions. The July 15th Earth from Orbit by NESDIS may be found here, you may want to go I would recommend taking a couple of minutes to read the text that goes with their video. They say in part
Wildfire activity amid extreme heat and drought has resulted in smoke blanketing much of the United States and Canada. As of July 14, 2021, 68 active large fires in 12 states have burned more than one million acres of land in the U.S. To date in 2021, more than 34,000 fires have burned more than two million acres. This is the most fires in the January to July time period since 2011. July is relatively early to see wildfire activity of this magnitude.
NOAA satellites are monitoring the fires, their smoke output, and air quality effects from the smoke. The fires are injecting smoke 40,000 feet into the atmosphere and compromising air quality.
When I wrote last week about how NOAA Satellites are used to detect wildfires, I knew that it was time for me to write a post introducing all of the satellites that NOAA owns and/or operates. Before I get to that, There are many countries that have satellites in orbit. NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) has an international and information service known as NOAA Satellite and Information Service International and Interagency Affairs Division. Their mission is to
build relationships with government organizations around the world. … NESDIS and NOAA could not accomplish all they do without the scientific and data exchange with our partners build on years of cooperation and collaboration.
Some of their important collaborations with other governments for the use of satellite data include but are not limited to Europe, Japan, Taiwan, India, Korea, China, Australia, and Canada. You may read more about these country’s satellites on the NOAA Satellite and Information Service International and Interagency Affairs Division webpage
NOAA currently owns and operates nine satellites. There are currently four GOES geostationary satellites, all are in geostationary orbit. GOES-16 (aka GOES-R is in orbit as GOES-East while GOES-17 (aka GOES-S) is in orbit as GOES-West. GOES-14 and 15 are spares. Polar orbiting satellites complete 14 orbits from north to south pole per day. The DSCOVR satellite is the Deep Space Climate Observatory, providing valuable information to forecasters for space weather such as solar winds and geomagnetic storms. For more information on these satellites (with some links you can follow for more information on individual satellites) go to NESDIS's currently flying page. You may also want to follow leads elsewhere on the NESDIS page and check out the videos on the NESDIS YouTube Channel (there are a lot of wonderful videos, some very short).
NOAA operates but does not own the following satellites:
I have written about NOAA's GOES satellites in this blog including but not limited to how GOES satellites can be used for wildfire detection (go here to read some of my posts). I just ran across a nice video, under two minutes from NOAA satellites about how NOAA's satellites, including but not limited to GOES 16 and 17 are used for wildfire detection. I knew that Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today would post this video on his website, and he did on June 17th, you will want to read about this technology in his post. Nonetheless, as I have been interested in satellite technology, this was too good to pass up. So, I am sharing this video with you. When I wrote this post I knew that it is time to write another post about NOAA's satellites, I did so on June 23rd.
Direct link to video from NOAA Satellites on YouTube
