Current Status of the EUMETSAT MTG-FCI AMV Prototype
The launch of the first Meteosat Third Generation Imaging (MTG-I) satellite is currently scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2021. It will be followed by subsequent MTG-I launches in 2025, 2028 and 2032, with the aim at providing operational services for over 20 years. The Flexible Combined Imager (FCI) instrument on board the MTG-I satellites is the evolution of the very successful Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) instrument on board the MSG satellites, and it will be used to derive Atmospheric Motion Vectors (AMVs) in a wide range of frequencies, from visible to infrared.
The MTG-FCI AMV prototype has been developed at EUMETSAT based on the current operational MSG AMV processor, with a few significant changes and improvements. Thorough technical and scientific verifications of the MTG-FCI AMV prototype have been carried out using MSG data. In the framework of the L2PF activities, the algorithm has been adapted to simulated MTG-FCI data. During the two upcoming years, AMVs extracted with the prototype code will serve as reference data to validate the outputs of the operational AMV code developed by the industry and to be integrated in the future MTG ground segment.
The algorithm has also been successfully adapted in order to process Himawari-8 and GEO-Kompsat-2A data for a more scientific validation. Indeed, the data these satellites provide have spatial and temporal resolutions comparable to those of the FCI instrument, and then constitute very good proxy data to estimate the future MTG-FCI capabilities. It is intended to further adapt the prototype to data from the GOES-R series of satellites, thus making it capable of processing data from most imaging instruments in the new generation of geostationary satellites.
In this paper, the latest changes in the MTG-FCI AMV prototype will be presented. The first results using simulated MTG data will also be shown, as well as results using Himawari-8 and GEO-Kompsat-2A data.
