Use of satellite observations in tropical cyclone studies

Abstract

The launch of first meteorological satellite, TIROS-1 on 1st April, 1960 started a new era of space-based observations, and the capability of meteorological satellites has come a long way since then. Monitoring of tropical cyclones is a major application of weather satellites and almost all the operational centres worldwide depend on satellite observations for monitoring and prediction of tropical cyclone movements. Factors which determine the usefulness of a satellite observation for cyclone monitoring are the sensor characteristics, spatial resolution of observations, and the orbital parameters, e.g. orbit type (geostationary, polar, etc.), orbital altitude and inclination, and swath. In general the satellite observations can be classified according to sensor characteristics. Meteorological satellites make use of visible (0.4 to 0.7 µm), infrared (1 to 100 µm) and microwave (0.3 to 30 cm) region of electromagnetic spectrum for obtaining observations of different atmospheric and terrestrial parameters. The following subsections briefly describe the usefulness of these satellite sensors for the study of tropical cyclones.