Progress and Achievements of Fengyun Meteorological Satellite Program since 2022

Fengyun meteorological satellites have undergone a series of significant developments over the past 50 years.Two generations,four types,and 21 Fengyun satellites have been developed and launched,with 9 currently operational in orbit.The data obtained from Fengyun satellites is employed in a multitude of applications,including weather forecasting,meteorological disaster prevention and reduction,climate change,global environmental monitoring,and space weather.These data products and services are made available to the global community,resulting in tangible social and economic benefits.In 2023,two Fengyun meteorological satellites were successfully launched.This report presents an overview of the two recently launched Fengyun satellites and currently in orbit Fengyun satellites,including an evaluation of their remote sensing instruments since 2022.Additionally,it addresses the subject of Fengyun satellite data archiving,data services,application services,international cooperation,and supporting activities.Furthermore,the development prospects have been outlined.

Recent Progress of Fengyun Meteorology Satellites

After nearly 50 years of development, Fengyun(FY) satellite ushered in its best moment. China has become one of the three countries or units in the world(China, USA, and EU) that maintain both polar orbit and geostationary orbit satellites operationally. Up to now, there are 17 Fengyun(FY) satellites that have been launched successfully since 1988. There are two FY polar orbital satellites and four FY geostationary orbit satellites operate in the space to provide a huge amount of the earth observation data to the user communities. The FY satellite data has been applied not only in the meteorological but also in agriculture,hydraulic engineering, environmental, education, scientific research and other fields. More recently, three meteorological satellites have been launched within the past two years. They are FY-4 A on 11 December2016, FY-3 D on 15 November 2017 and FY-2 H on 5 June 2018. This paper introduces the current status of FY meteorological satellites and data service. The updates of the latest three satellites have been addressed.The characteristics of their payloads on-boarding have been specified in details and the benefit fields have been anticipated separately.

Fengyun Meteorological Satellite Products for Earth System Science Applications

Following the progress of satellite data assimilation in the 1990s, the combination of meteorological satellites and numerical models has changed the way scientists understand the earth. With the evolution of numerical weather prediction models and earth system models, meteorological satellites will play a more important role in earth sciences in the future. As part of the space-based infrastructure, the Fengyun (FY) meteorological satellites have contributed to earth science sustainability studies through an open data policy and stable data quality since the first launch of the FY-1A satellite in 1988. The capability of earth system monitoring was greatly enhanced after the second-generation polar orbiting FY-3 satellites and geostationary orbiting FY-4 satellites were developed. Meanwhile, the quality of the products generated from the FY-3 and FY-4 satellites is comparable to the well-known MODIS products. FY satellite data has been utilized broadly in weather forecasting, climate and climate change investigations, environmental disaster monitoring, etc. This article reviews the instruments mounted on the FY satellites. Sensor-dependent level 1 products (radiance data) and inversion algorithm-dependent level 2 products (geophysical parameters) are introduced. As an example, some typical geophysical parameters, such as wildfires, lightning, vegetation indices, aerosol products, soil moisture, and precipitation estimation have been demonstrated and validated by in-situ observations and other well-known satellite products. To help users access the FY products, a set of data sharing systems has been developed and operated. The newly developed data sharing system based on cloud technology has been illustrated to improve the efficiency of data delivery.

Update on Fengyun Meteorological Satellite Program and Development

China began to develop its meteorological satellite program since 1969.With 50-years’growing,there are 17 Fengyun(FY)meteorological satellites launched successfully.At present,seven of them are in orbit to provide the operational service,including three polar orbiting meteorological satellites and four geostationary meteorological satellites.Since last COSPAR report,no new Fengyun satellite has been launched.The information of the on-orbit FY-2 series,FY-3 series,and FY-4 series has been updated.FY-3D and FY-2H satellites accomplished the commission test and transitioned into operation in 2018.FY-2E satellite completed its service to decommission in 2019.The web-based users and Direct Broadcasting(DB)users keep growing worldwide to require the Fengyun satellite data and products.A new Mobile Application Service has been launched to Fengyun users based on the cloud technology in 2018.In this report,the international and regional co-operations to facilitate the Fengyun user community have been addressed especially.To strengthen the data service in the Belt and Road countries,the Emergency Support Mechanism of Fengyun satellite(FY_ESM)has been established since 2018.Meanwhile,a Recalibrating 30-years’archived Fengyun satellite data project has been founded since 2018.This project targets to generate the Fundamental Climate Data Record(FCDR)as a space agency response to the Global Climate Observation System(GCOS).At last,the future Fengyun program up to 2025 has been introduced as well.

Fengyun Satellites:Achievements and Future

Chinese meteorological satellite,Fengyun(FY) Satellite,has a polar-orbiting series and a geostationary series.Up to now,5 polar-orbiting(FY-1A/B/C/D and FY-3A) and 5 geostationary(FY-2A/B/C/D/E) satellites were launched.FY data has been being intensively applied not only to meteorological monitoring and prediction but also to many other fields regarding ecology,environment,disaster,space weather and so and.The FY data sharing system,FengyunCast,is now one of the three components of global meteorological satellite information dissemination system,GEONETCast.The first satellite of the new generation polar-orbiting series,FY-3A,was launched on 27 May,2008,demonstrating the FY polar-orbiting satellite and its application completed a great leap to realize threedimensional observations and quantitative application.The first of the next generation geostationary series(FY-4) is planned to launch in 2014.

Progress of Fengyun Meteorological Satellites Since 2020

China’s efforts to develop Fengyun meteorological satellites have made major strides over the past 50 years,with the polar and geostationary meteorological satellite series achieving continuously stable operation to persistently provide data and product services globally.By the end of 2021,19 Chinese self-developed Fengyun meteorological satellites have been launched successfully.Seven of them are in operation at present,the data and products are widely applied to weather analysis,numerical weather forecasting and climate prediction,as well as environment and disaster monitoring.Since the last COSPAR report,FY-4B,the first new-generation operational geostationary satellite,and FY-3E,the first early-morning orbit satellite in China’s polar-orbiting meteorological satellite family have been launched in 2021.The characteristics of the two latest satellites and the instruments onboard are addressed in this report.The status of current Fengyun Satellites,product and data service and international cooperation and supporting activities has been introduced as well.

FY-3 Meteorological Satellites and the Applications

FY-3 is the second generation polar-orbiting meteorological satellite of China. The first satellite named FY-3A of this series was launched on 27 May 2008. The first operational satellite named FY-3C of this series was launched on 23 September, 2013. The new generation satellites are to provide three-dimensional, quantitative, multi-spectral global remote sensing data under all weather conditions, which will greatly help the operational numerical weather prediction, global climate change research, climate diagnostics and prediction, and natural disaster monitoring. They will also provide help for many other fields such as agriculture, forestry, oceanography and hydrology. With the above-mentioned capability, the FY-3 satellites can make valuable contributions to improving weather forecasts, global natural-disaster and environmental monitoring.

FY-3A SATELLITE MICROWAVE DATA ASSIMILATION EXPERIMENTS IN TROPICAL CYCLONE FORECAST

China's new generation of polar-orbiting meteorological satellite FY-3A was successfully launched on May 26,2008,carrying microwave sounding devices which had similar performance to ATOVS of NOAA series.In order to study the application of microwave sounding data in numerical prediction of typhoons and to improve typhoon forecasting,we assimilated data directly for numerical forecasting of the track and intensity of the 2009 typhoon Morakot(0908)based on the WRF-3DVar system.Results showed that the initial fields of the numerical model due to direct assimilation of FY-3A microwave sounding data was improved much more than that due to assimilation of conventional observations alone,and the improvement was especially significant over the ocean,which is always without conventional observations.The model initial fields were more reasonable in reflecting the initial situation of typhoon circulation as well as temperature and humidity conditions,and typhoon central position at sea was also adjusted.Through direct 3DVar assimilation of FY-3A microwave data,the regional mesoscale model improves the forecasting of typhoon track.Therefore,the FY-3A microwave data could efficiently improve the numerical prediction of typhoons.

Ground validation of Fengyun-4A and Global Precipitation Measurement satellite observations over an alpine and canyon basin of the southeastern Tibetan Plateau

Satellite-based precipitation observations with high spatiotemporal resolution are essential for studying rainfall-induced natural hazards,especially in alpine and canyon areas of the southeastern Tibetan Plateau,which are prone to such hazards yet sparsely gauged.Here,we evaluated precipitation estimated from the Chinese Fengyun-4A meteorological satellite(FY-4A AGRI)versus the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM(IMERG),by using rain gauge data collected in the Parlung Zangbo Basin from May through September in both 2018 and 2019.Our results showed that(1)FY-4A AGRI generated smaller values of RMSE(root mean square error)on hourly to daily scales,and larger correlation coefficients(R-values)and smaller RMSE values for both moderate and heavy rain,indicating its greater accuracy at rainfall estimation,which is most likely due to the denser rain gauge network at a finer temporal scale used when calibrating FY-4A AGRI;(2)Both satellite products underestimated the volume of moderate and heavy rain,with the larger degree of underestimation by FY-4A AGRI,which could lower their performance in flood monitoring and forecasting;(3)Worse performance and greater inconsistency between the two products were observed in high-elevation areas,perhaps because of orographic cloud effects in these mountainous areas;and(4)Both products revealed that the Gangrigabu Range blocked incoming water vapor from the southwest monsoon,with a better representation of the spatial pattern and spatial variability produced by IMERG.To improve precipitation estimation,the effects of complex terrain should be explicitly incorporated into the retrieval algorithms,with more gauged observations in a denser network and at a finer temporal scale needed to robustly calibrate the satellite-based estimates.

利用FY-4B地球静止气象卫星观测南海北部内孤立波及传播速度

本文利用中国新一代静止轨道气象卫星FY-4B数据开展了南海北部海域内孤立波观测及传播速度研究。首先使用500 m分辨率的全圆盘ARGI数据对FY-4B卫星可观测内波区域进行了讨论,确认了南海北部为研究区域。之后利用250 m分辨率的GHI数据使用多时相图像比较法(Multitemporal Image Comparison Method,MTI)计算了南海北部内孤立波的传播速度,其平均传播速度为1.78 m/s,东部深海区平均传播速度为3.02 m/s,向西传播至东沙群岛附近后平均速度减小至1.90 m/s,经过东沙群岛分裂后南部比北部传播速度更快,分别为2.08 m/s和1.54 m/s;最终在向西传播到近岸区域后内孤立波传播速度减小至0.42 m/s,直至最终消散。将MTI方法与两层模式下扩展KdV方程(extended Korteweg-de Vries,eKdV)计算得到的理论传播速度进行了对比,二者相关系数达到了0.89,证明eKdV理论方程对南海北部内孤立波传播速度反演的可行性,但仍具有一定的局限。最后将实测数据与遥感影像匹配计算内孤立波传播速度的结果与单一遥感影像计算内孤立波传播速度的结果进行了比较,两者相关性达到了0.93。本文验证了静止轨道卫星光学遥感数据的高时间分辨率特点对内孤立波传播速度研究具有的较大优势,对南海北部内孤立波参数反演等研究工作具有一定意义。

FY-4卫星高光谱大气探测驻留控制与定位精度分析

静止轨道干涉式大气垂直探测仪装载在中国新一代静止轨道气象卫星风云四号上,是世界上第一个运行在静止轨道上的高光谱垂直探测仪器。在高光谱探测过程中,使“驻留”观测的目标保持高精度稳定是静止轨道高光谱红外大气探测的关键。风云四号卫星是我国高轨气象卫星首次采用三轴稳定姿态控制平台的卫星,这给探测仪的高精度定位带来很大挑战。高精度的观测计划稳定性需要卫星平台、姿态控制、有效载荷和地面系统共同完成,过程非常复杂。本文在介绍探测仪的探测原理和工作模式设计的基础上,对探测仪星地一体化定位的关键技术进行研究,并利用仪器在轨获得的实测数据对驻留控制精度与定位精度开展检验及分析。结果表明,探测仪达到了1/10像元的驻留控制精度与1像元的定位精度。

Observations from Fengyun Satellites

Fengyun(FY) Satellite has a polar-orbiting series and a geostationary series.Up to now,7 polar-orbiting(FY-1A/B/C/D and FY-3A/B/C) and 7 geostationary(FY-2A/B/C/D/E/F/G)satellites were launched.FY data has been being intensively applied not only to meteorological monitoring and prediction but also to many other fields regarding ecology,environment,disaster and so on.

Quantitative Characteristics Analysis of FY4A Satellite Products during a Thunderstorm Weather Process

Based on the lightning monitoring and FY4A satellite data in 12 periods during a thunderstorm,the relationship between lightning activity and four satellite digital products:blackbody radiation brightness temperature(TBB),cloud top temperature(CTT),cloud top height(CTH)and cloud top pressure(CTP)was quantitatively analyzed.The following conclusions were obtained:(1)at lightning location,90.5%of TBB values were less than 214.1 K;88.5%of CTT values were less than 207.7 K;88.5%of CTP values were less than 137.7 hPa,and 88.5%of CTH values were greater than 14872 m.At location without lightning,92.5%of TBB values were greater than 214.1 K;90.4%of CTT values were greater than 207.7 K;89%of CTP values were greater than 137.7 hPa,and 92%of CTH values were less than 14872 m.(2)Lightning activity was concentrated in the cloud area with TBB between 190-210 K,CTT between 185-210 K,CTP between 50-150 hPa and CTH between 12-18 km.Lightning intensity was roughly positively correlated with TBB,CTT and CTP,and negatively correlated with CTH.With the increase of CTH,lightning intensity decreased.(3)TBB,CTT,CTP and CTH can well indicate the location and activity frequency of lightning in thunderstorm weather.

基于FY-4A卫星数据的短时强降水监测预警指标

选取2018—2021年汛期短时强降水天气过程,利用相关性分析、箱线图法和极值统计法,尝试研究FY-4A卫星产品在短时强降水天气过程中的监测预警指标。研究表明:(1)FY-4A卫星多通道数据可以作为短时强降水监测预警的定量化指标予以应用。(2)筛选出相关性较好的13项产品统计出短时强降水的监测预警指标,其中赋值类指标4项,数值判别类指标9项(含辅助指标3项);初步设定13项指标中有9项达标时,短时强降水会发生。(3)在评估基础上完善了指标,监测预警效果有所提高,TS评分提高5.4%,空报率降低2.7%,漏报率降低1.9%。

Algorithm for the Sea Surface Wind Imaging Products of Fengyun-3C Meteorological Satellite MWRI

This paper analyzes the sea surface backward thermal radiation data in the China Sea observed by the mmwave channel of FY3 MWRI, explains the reason for which the analysis method combined with multiple mmwave channels is conducive to wind inversion, uses the complex model of the two-scale randomly rough surface with foam scattering layer to calculate the backward heat emission, analyzes the different response characteristics of the thermal radiation characteristics of each channel with the change of the sea surface wind speed, and establishes the wind speed inversion model applying to the microwave radiometer, achieving better results than in previous studies. The sea surface medium-low wind speed precision standard deviation of new model reaches 1.2 m/s (0 - 15 m/s);the inversion strong wind data are consistent with the island fixed buoys data, and the global sea surface wind speed image schematic diagram is given.

FY-4 Satellite Delivered to Customer

On September 25,the on-orbit delivery ceremony for China’s new generation geostationary meteorological satellite FY-4 was held in Beijing.China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation（CASC）,the manufacturer of the satellite officially delivered FY-4 to the customer,the China Meteorological Administration（CMA）for operation.

FY-4A资料在2023年7月1日宁安极端冰雹天气过程中的应用分析

在冷涡背景下,2023年7月1日牡丹江宁安出现最大直径达9 cm左右冰雹、10级大风等强对流天气。利用MICAPS资料、雷达资料、FY-4A资料,选取FY-4A卫星云类型CLT、云相态CLP、云顶高度CTH和云顶温度CTT等4类产品进行可用性分析。结果表明:(1)FY-4A数据接收率、时间分辨率和数据接收及时性,可以支持实际预报中实时监测预警业务;(2)4类产品在此次天气过程中有不同的表现,其中CLT、CLP具有较好的可用性,可以较好的判断云的类别;CTH和CTT两种产品与极端冰雹天气的对应关系较为明显,但不是出现极端冰雹天气的必要条件;(3)FY-4A短波红外通道1.58~1.64μm,尤其是2.1~2.35μm在较强对流天气发生前的0~1 h内,对大粒子冰晶云团识别具有一定的指示作用,对提高短临预警实效具有一定的指示意义。

基于Attention-Unet网络的FY-4A卫星降水估计

准确的卫星降水估计是开展天气、气候、水文、生态等研究的重要基础,并且可以降低由降水直接导致的洪水等自然灾害造成的损失。目前业务运行的卫星降水产品主要使用物理反演方法,存在反演过程中降水特征信息较为片面等缺点。近年来随着深度学习技术不断发展,其挖掘隐藏特征信息的能力也逐渐被引入到各种非线性过程研究。以Attention-Unet为核心搭建具备处理卫星多通道数据能力的卫星降水估计网络框架,利用风云4A卫星(FY-4A)多通道扫描辐射计9—14通道数据构建数据集进行降水估计模型训练。为评估该模型的效果,将Attention-Unet模型的降水估计结果与业务运行的卫星降水产品以及其他成熟深度学习网络模型进行对比。结果表明,Attention-Unet模型的降水估计效果优于使用传统物理反演方法的卫星降水产品FY4A-QPE和CMORPH,也优于作为对比的Unet模型和PERSIANN-CNN模型。在FY-4A多通道数据基础上,在模型训练中加入与降水有较大相关的地形数据,结果表明模型在保持降水区域识别能力的基础上降水量估计误差更小。

利用FY-2C静止卫星资料反演云粒子有效半径的试验研究

为充分发挥FY-2C静止卫星在人工影响天气和气候领域的重要作用,基于SBDART辐射传输模式,利用该卫星通道4(3.5～4.0μm)的探测数据,反演了云粒子有效半径,并与TERRA上MODIS的相应产品做了比较。结果表明,FY-2C和MODIS资料能一致地反映云粒子有效半径分布的主要特征,但反演的粒子大小存在差异。反演算法、卫星分辨率及选取通道的不同可能是造成两种资料间差异的主要原因。

基于敦煌场地定标的FY-3MERSI反射太阳波段在轨响应变化分析

鉴于中分辨率光谱成像仪不能实现反射太阳波段的星上绝对辐射定标,提出了基于地表方向模型、矢量辐射传输模型6SV并联合MODTRAN吸收透过率校正的敦煌场替代定标新方法,4年的同步定标结果表明,除了水汽吸收中心波段之外,定标不确定度小于5%,而多数波段优于3%。以Aqua MODIS为辐射基准的大气顶辐射计算试验表明,正演与卫星观测间的平均偏差在波长<1μm的窗区波段小于3%,波长>1μm的小于5%(除了2.1μm波段);此外,经场地定标的MERSI表观反射率与MODIS具有很好的一致性。基于多年的场地定标结果发现:可采用二次多项式拟合定标系数的时间变化,进而实现逐天的定标更新;波长<0.6μm的波段衰变较大,波段8(0.41μm)入轨第一年的衰变率约为14%;在轨初期衰变最大,一年后趋缓,两年后部分波长>0.6μm的波段出现响应增加现象。