WEATHER SATELLITES Introduction

Introduction

The field of meteorology entered the space age on April 1, 1960 with the launch of TIROS 1 (TIROS stands for Television and Infra-Red Observation Satellite). Since that time, numerous satellites with ever increasing capablities and sophistication have been deployed.

Weather satellites provide valuable real-time cloud photographs. Most importantly, coverage includes the 70 percent of the earth's surface covered by water where few surface observations can be made. Before the deployment of weather satellites, many areas had no advance warning of impending severe storms. Today satellites can spot and accurately track hurricanes and typhoons while they are still far out in the ocean.

Modern satellites also carry many instruments used to measure various environmental variables, providing vital information to not only meteorologists, but farmers, geologists, fishermen, foresters and others. These measuring capabilites will be discussed in the next section.