Updated: 09 October 2007

NOAA - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the USA operate the series of NOAA satellites which each carry the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) sensor. These sensors collect global data on a daily basis for a variety of land, ocean, and atmospheric applications. Specific applications include forest fire detection, vegetation analysis, weather analysis and forecasting, climate research and prediction, global sea surface temperature measurements, ocean dynamics research and search and rescue.

The first operational NOAA satellite (NOAA-6) was launched in 1979. This was followed by a series of additional NOAA satellites with the latest launch being NOAA-18 in May 2005.

The AVHRR sensor is a five or six channel (depending on the model) scanner, sensing the visible, near-infrared, and thermal infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. It provides global on board collection of data over a 2399 km swath. The sensor orbits the earth 14 times each day from an altitude of 833 km.

ACRES collect direct broadcast AVHRR data (ie. not recorded data) from within our acquisition circle several times every day. A dedicated NOAA antenna in Alice Springs permits acquisition of day and night-time passes. There are normally about 2 day-time passes per satellite and 2 night-time passes per satellite.

[back to top]

Spacecraft Parameters

AVHRR Sensor Characteristics

Swath width	2399km
Resolution at nadir	1.1km approx.
Altitude	833km
Quantisation	10 bit
Orbit type	Sun synchronous
Number of orbits per day	14.1 (approx.)

AVHRR Spectral Characteristics

Channel No.	Wavelength	Typical use
Channel No.	NOAA-15, 16, 17, 18	Typical use
1	0.58 - 0.68	Daytime cloud and surface mapping
2	0.725 - 1.00	Land-water boundaries
3	N/A	Night cloud mapping, sea surface temperature
3A	1.58 - 1.64	Snow and ice detection
3B	3.55 - 3.93	Night cloud mapping, sea surface temperature
4	10.30 - 11.30	Night cloud mapping, sea surface temperature
5	11.50 - 12.50	Sea surface temperature

[back to top]

Accessing NOAA data

Details on NOAA product specifications are available from NOAA Product and Download Information. Recent data (less than one week old) is available free of charge from the ACRES FTP site. Archived data is available from CSIRO Earth Observation Centre.

Enquiries

For further information, please contact ACRES Satellite Operation Services on (02) 6249 9779.

Trading conditions

Special copyright conditions apply to the sale of satellite data. In order to purchase satellite data products, users must agree to the licence conditions covering its use. See ACRES End-User Licence Agreements.