Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

The atmospheric motion vectors (AMV’s) derived from geostationary satellites are valuable tool in weather forecasting especially in data sparse region. This paper presents the results of an inter-comparison of AMVs assigned heights derived from Meteosat -7 & Kalpana -1, geostationary satellite data for both lower and upper levels by Infrared Window (IRW) and Water Vapour (H2O or IR/WV) intercept methods. The Kalpana -1 satellite data (different sensor and resolution than Meteosat -7) is being processed by similar algorithm as Cooperative Institute of Meteorological Science (CIMSS), USA. In this short study of inter-comparison, the utility of the IR/WV intercept method in assigning the height of derived wind vectors especially at upper level winds is shown graphically. It is observed that actual wind speed direction from radiosonde data at upper levels (300-150 hPa) is higher up to the order of 8-12 m/sec and 5-8 degree for Kalpana – 1 data after applying the semi-transparency correction.
Keywords: Meteosat-7, Kalpana-1, Atmospheric motion vectors, IRW, H2O intercept, Meteorological data