We present a CMOS image sensor dedicated to lightning detection and imaging. The detector has been designed to evaluate the potentiality of an on-chip lightning detection solution based on a smart sensor. This evaluation is performed in the frame of the predevelopment phase of the lightning detector that will be implemented in the Meteosat Third Generation Imager satellite for the European Spac...

We focus on the retrieval of cloud properties appropriate for trace gas retrieval from sun-normalized UV/VIS backscatter spectra obtained from the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) on-board ERS-2. A data fusion technique is applied to calculate the fractional cloud cover of GOME footprints from GOME’s Polarization Measurement Devices (PMDs). Furthermore, cloudtop albedo and cloud-top he...

Solar UV radiation reaching the Earth’s surface is monitored by means of two quantities: the clear-sky UV index at local solar noon and the daily UV dose. Each quantity is determined on the basis of two action spectra, describing wavelength dependent biological effects of UV radiation, namely erythema (sunburn) and DNA-damage. The quantities are derived from total ozone column measurements by t...

This study presents a fully automated system based on Meteosat multispectral imagery to detect and forecast cloud storms. The first accuracy assessment results are considered satisfactory, allowing this system to be able to operate in real-time basis and providing realistic and accurate forecasts for the storm activity as well as for dangerous phenomena accompany convective clouds like lightnin...

The Satellite Application Facility for Land Surface Analysis hosted by the Portuguese Meteorological Institute in Lisbon generates and distributes value added satellite products for numerical weather prediction and environmental applications in near-real time. Within the project consortium Météo-France is responsible for the land surface albedo and down-welling short-wave radiation flux product...

In this work a back propagation neural network (BPNN) is used for the segmentation of Meteosat images covering the Iberian Peninsula. The images are segmented in the classes land (L), sea (S), fog (F), low clouds (CL), middle clouds (CM), high clouds (CH) and clouds with vertical growth (CV). The classification is performed from an initial set of several statistical textural features based on t...

The SEVIRI instrument on the Meteosat Second Generation satellite with both fine spatial and temporal resolution allows to detect and follow the dynamics of fast developing meteorological events like spreading smoke plumes and the lifecycles of convective clouds. Smoke plumes have the ability to change the atmospheric heat content due to absorption and reduced reflection of solar radiation. By ...

CMOS APS technology allows including signal processing in the sensor array. Inclusion of functionality however will come at a cost both financially and in the field of limited applicability. Based on two real world examples (micro digital sunsensor core and lightning flash detector for Meteosat Third Generation (MTG)) it will be demonstrated that large system gains can be obtained by devising s...

Meteosat satellite images are processed to yield values of the incoming surface solar irradiance (SSI), one of the Essential Climate Variables. Two HelioClim databases, HC-1 and HC-3, were constructed covering Europe, Africa and the Atlantic Ocean, and contain daily and monthly means of SSI. The HC-1 database spans from 1985 to 2005; HC-3 began in 2004 and is updated daily. Their quality and li...