This article was accepted into the corpus but its outbound wikilinks were never NER-processed — typical at the deepest BFS hop or when the run's entity cap was reached. No expansion funnel to show.
| AVHRR/3 | |
|---|---|
| Name | AVHRR/3 |
| Type | Scanning radiometer |
| Operator | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites collaboratives |
| Mission | Earth observation; meteorology; climatology |
| Launched | 2002 (first flight on NOAA-17); subsequent on NOAA-18; Metop-A |
| Wavelength | visible, near-infrared, thermal infrared bands |
| Spatial resolution | ~1.1 km at nadir |
| Swath | ~2,500 km |
| Heritage | successor to AVHRR on NOAA satellites |
AVHRR/3 AVHRR/3 is a six-channel advanced visible and infrared radiometer designed for global surface and atmospheric monitoring on polar-orbiting platforms. It supports operational weather analysis, climate record continuity, and environmental surveillance by providing multispectral imagery for sea-surface temperature, cloud properties, vegetation indices, and cryosphere mapping. Major operators include National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, EUMETSAT, and international research groups affiliated with NASA, NOAA, and European Space Agency projects.
AVHRR/3 is the third-generation instrument in the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer family flown on polar-orbiting spacecraft such as NOAA-17, NOAA-18, and Metop-A. It extends the heritage of earth-observing sensors used in programs connected to Global Observing System, World Meteorological Organization archives, and long-term climate initiatives like the Global Climate Observing System. Users include national services such as UK Met Office, Japan Meteorological Agency, and research institutes like NOAA/NESDIS and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
The AVHRR/3 optical design comprises a scanning mirror assembly, shortwave and thermal detectors, and onboard electronics developed in collaboration with contractors associated with Raytheon, Thales Alenia Space, and national laboratories. Spectral channels cover visible, near-infrared, and thermal infrared bands tailored to applications used by European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, National Center for Atmospheric Research, and Met Office Hadley Centre. Spatial sampling is approximately 1.1 km at nadir with a swath near 2,500 km enabling twice-daily global coverage from sunsynchronous orbits such as those used by NOAA and EUMETSAT polar satellites. The instrument provides both high-resolution picture transmission and broadcast formats for assimilation into models run by ECMWF, JMA, and UK Met Office.
Calibration of AVHRR/3 uses on-board blackbody references and solar diffuser schemes coordinated with vicarious methods employed by NOAA/NESDIS, NASA Langley Research Center, and international laboratories. Cross-calibration campaigns align AVHRR/3 radiances with sensors like MODIS, VIIRS, and historic sensors such as AVHRR on legacy TIROS-series platforms. Processing chains are implemented in systems maintained by EUMETSAT, NOAA CLASS, and research centers including NOAA STAR and NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group, producing Level-1 radiances, Level-2 geophysical products, and reanalysis inputs for ERA-Interim and ERA5 projects. Quality control workflows reference standards from World Meteorological Organization and intercomparison efforts coordinated through CEOS.
AVHRR/3 products support sea-surface temperature monitoring used by NOAA Coral Reef Watch, fisheries management agencies such as National Marine Fisheries Service, and oceanographic institutes including Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Cryosphere applications inform assessments by National Snow and Ice Data Center and polar programs like British Antarctic Survey and Norwegian Polar Institute. Vegetation indices derived from AVHRR/3 feed drought monitoring systems employed by Food and Agriculture Organization and Famine Early Warning Systems Network. Meteorological uses include cloud detection for operational forecasting by National Weather Service and assimilation into numerical weather prediction at ECMWF and NCEP. Climate studies utilize AVHRR/3 time series in analyses by IPCC authors, long-term record projects at NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, and satellite climatology groups affiliated with University of Maryland and Columbia University.
AVHRR/3 delivers consistent multispectral radiometry but faces limitations common to heritage instruments: detector aging, calibration drift, and cross-track striping noted by teams at NOAA STAR and EUMETSAT. Spatial resolution (~1.1 km) and spectral sampling are coarser than modern imagers like VIIRS and Sentinel-3 OLCI, affecting fine-scale retrievals for urban heat islands studied by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and high-resolution coastal mapping by NOAA NOS. Radiative transfer uncertainties impact atmospheric correction efforts pursued by NASA Goddard and LSCE researchers. Orbital decay and spacecraft platform anomalies on satellites such as NOAA-17 and Metop-A have influenced completeness of time series used by Hadley Centre and academic consortia.
AVHRR/3 first flew in the early 2000s aboard polar platforms including NOAA-17 and later on NOAA-18 and European Metop-A under cooperative arrangements between NOAA and EUMETSAT. The instrument lineage traces back to the original AVHRR on TIROS-N series, with community uptake across programs like Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment and International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project. Data stewardship involves national archives such as NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information and international distributors including EUMETSAT and research consortia at NASA and universities like Rutgers University and University of Maryland. Continued scientific use has been supported by calibration intercomparisons with MODIS on Terra and Aqua, and successor integration paths to systems on Suomi NPP and JPSS platforms.
Category:Remote sensing instruments