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.

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.

FY-3E:The First Operational Meteorological Satellite Mission in an Early Morning Orbit

Fengyun-3 E(FY-3E),the world’s first early-morning-orbit meteorological satellite for civil use,was launched successfully at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on 5 July 2021.The FY-3E satellite will fill the vacancy of the global early-morning-orbit satellite observation,working together with the FY-3C and FY-3D satellites to achieve the data coverage of early morning,morning,and afternoon orbits.The combination of these three satellites will provide global data coverage for numerical weather prediction(NWP)at 6-hour intervals,effectively improving the accuracy and time efficiency of global NWP,which is of great significance to perfect the global earth observing system.In this article,the background and meteorological requirements for the early-morning-orbit satellite are reviewed,and the specifications of the FY-3E satellite,as well as the characteristics of the onboard instrumentation for earth observations,are also introduced.In addition,the ground segment and the retrieved geophysical products are also presented.It is believed that the NWP communities will significantly benefit from an optimal temporal distribution of observations provided by the early morning,mid-morning,and afternoon satellite missions.Further benefits are expected in numerous applications such as the monitoring of severe weather/climate events,the development of improved sampling designs of the diurnal cycle for accurate climate data records,more efficient monitoring of air quality by thermal infrared remote sensing,and the quasicontinuous monitoring of the sun for space weather and climate.

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.

A new type of Shipboard Meteorological Satellite Receiving-processing System

The Shipboard Meteorological Satellite Receiving-processing System (SMSRPS) is specially developed for the navigation meteorological safeguard of the Antarctic exploration ship over the sea ice area of the forth Ocean. This system can suit to the climate environment of very high temperature high moisture and very low temperature - supersaturation; it has a self-protection ability to against the hurricane - force wind over force 12 and the strong vibration during icebreaking, as well as strong magnetic disturbance. It has two sets of receiving-imagery processing systems for polar orbit low-resolution and quasi-stationary high-solution satellites. The key creation Points of this system are as follows: 1. the active gyro-control stabilization platform and a mixed mounting system of three rotating a - B and x -- y axes are used. It solved the tracing difficulties both in the low elevation angle and very high elevation angle of polar-orbit satellite, even in the status of ship moving with continuously changing its poition, direction and ship roll and pitch. 2. Imagery processing subsystem. The newest BORLAND-- DELPHI language and PASCAL language pro gramming software are used under WINDOWS 95 environment. It has a dynamic positioning nested-grid system and electric mapping grid data system. It can show the latitude-longitude of any point on the map, and marks any object such as ship, station or island, and draws the route. It can monitor cloud and temperature, forest fire, anomalous change of ocean and land. It can output satellite cloud maps of 24 bit with very high clarity. This system is very advanced in technique for the whole structure with the features of small volume, light weight and very low cost. It suits to very bad climate and ocean environment. Its imagery process ing system has complete functions with high resolution and being very easy to operate. It is not only suit to land use, but also and specially to all kinds of ship over the sea. It can be extended to domestic and international use. This system played a very important role in the 14th Chinese Antarctic Exploration Navigation, and was introduced a broad attention paid by Chinese newspapers and TV Stations.

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.

Meteorological satellite stakeholder relationship network based on social network analysis

The meteorological satellite service range is extensive,and science and technology and related industries have become beneficiaries of it.The complex meteorological satellite stakeholder relationship warrants quantitative evaluation.This study investigates the meteorological satellite stakeholder relationship network to provide a new research perspective for meteorological satellites in the field of management.For literature analysis,16 meteorological satellite stakeholders are identified through keyword screening,classified,and coded.A meteorological satellite stakeholder relationship network model is then constructed through social network analysis(SNA).Ego,local,and overall networks are analyzed from three perspectives to measure the network principle and to form a relationship network coordination degree evaluation system.The improved analytic hierarchy process(AHP)-fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method is then used to determine index weights and evaluate the relationship network coordination process design comprehensively.In empirical analysis,data for the meteorological satellite Fengyun-4 are obtained through questionnaire survey and literature analysis.Ucinet6 is used to generate relationship networks and analyze various stakeholder roles and status,stakeholder relationship network coordination degree,and evaluation results.The results demonstrate that the competent meteorological satellite department,the meteorological administration,the National Meteorological Centre,and the government are in the center of the Fengyun-4 stakeholder relationship network,with coordination degree in an“average”state.Thus,establishing a stakeholder coordination mechanism may strengthen connection and promote the development of meteorological undertakings.

RESEARCH ON AUTOMATIC FOG IDENTIFICATION TECHNOLOGY BY METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITE REMOTE SENSING

There is an urgent need for the development of a method that can undertake rapid, effective, and accurate monitoring and identification of fog by satellite remote sensing, since heavy fog can cause enormous disasters to China’s national economy and people's lives and property in the urban and coastal areas. In this paper, the correlative relationship between the reflectivity of land surface and clouds in different time phases is found, based on the analysis of the radiative and satellite-based spectral characteristics of fog. Through calculation and analyses of the relative variability of the reflectivity in the images, the threshold to identify quasi-fog areas is generated automatically. Furthermore, using the technique of quick image run-length encoding, and in combination with such practical methods as analyzing texture and shape fractures, smoothness, and template characteristics, the automatic identification of fog and fog-cloud separation using meteorological satellite remote sensing images are studied, with good results in application.

FY-2F Meteorological Satellite and Its Applications

China is one of the countries in the world claiming the most occurrences of severe natural disasters. The natural disasters occurring in this country, diversify in type, wide in geographic distribution, high frequency of occurrence, and bring heavy losses in terms of people's lives and properties.

FY-4 Meteorological Satellite

FY-4 is the second generation of Chinese geostationary satellite for quantitative remote sensing meteorological application. The detection efficiency, spectral bands, spatial and time resolution have been greatly improved with respect to those of first generation, as well as the radiometric calibration and sensitivity. The combination of multichannel detection and vertical sounding was first realized on FY-4, because both the Advanced Geostationary Radiation Imager(AGRI) and Geostationary Interferometric Infrared Sounder(GIIRS) are on the same spacecraft. The main performance of the payloads including AGRI, GIIRS and Lightning Mapping Imager, and the spacecraft bus are presented, the performance being equivalent to the level of the third generation meteorological satellites in Europe and USA. The acquiring methods of remote sensing data including multichannel and high precision quantitative observing, imaging collection of the ground and cloud, vertical observation of atmospheric temperature and moisture, lightning imaging observation and space environment detection are shown. Several innovative technologies including high accuracy rotation angle detection and scanning control, high precision calibration, micro vibration suppression, unified reference of platform and payload and on-orbit measurement, real-time image navigation and registration on-orbit were applied in FY-4.

FY-2F Meteorological Satellite Successfully Launched

At 08:56 on January 13,a LM-3A launch vehicle launched into space FY-2F,the fourth operational geostationary meteorological satellite independently developed by China,from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center.24 minutes after the lift-off,data received from the Xi'an Satellite TT&C Center and the

Prospects for China's New Generation Polar Orbit Meteorological Satellite Application

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Developing the Science Product Algorithm Testbed for Chinese Next-Generation Geostationary Meteorological Satellites：Fengyun-4 Series

Fengyun-4A（FY-4A）, the first of the Chinese next-generation geostationary meteorological satellites, launched in2016, offers several advances over the FY-2： more spectral bands, faster imaging, and infrared hyperspectral measurements. To support the major objective of developing the prototypes of FY-4 science algorithms, two science product algorithm testbeds for imagers and sounders have been developed by the scientists in the FY-4 Algorithm Working Group（AWG）. Both testbeds, written in FORTRAN and C programming languages for Linux or UNIX systems, have been tested successfully by using Intel/g compilers. Some important FY-4 science products, including cloud mask, cloud properties, and temperature profiles, have been retrieved successfully through using a proxy imager, Himawari-8/Advanced Himawari Imager（AHI）, and sounder data, obtained from the Atmospheric Infra Red Sounder, thus demonstrating their robustness. In addition, in early 2016, the FY-4 AWG was developed based on the imager testbed—a near real-time processing system for Himawari-8/AHI data for use by Chinese weather forecasters.Consequently, robust and flexible science product algorithm testbeds have provided essential and productive tools for popularizing FY-4 data and developing substantial improvements in FY-4 products.

Review and Development on the Studies of Chinese Meteorological Satellite and Satellite Meteorology

Meteorological satellite and satellite meteorology are the fastest developing new branches in the atmospheric sciences. Today the meteorological satellite has become a key element in the global atmospheric sounding system while the satellite meteorology is covering the main components of earth＇s system science. This article describes the major achievements that China has made in these fields in the past 30 years. The following contents are involved： （1） History and present status of China＇s meteorological satellites. It covers the development, launch, operation, technical parameters of China＇s polar and geostationary meteorological satellites. （2） Major achievements on remote sensing principle and method. It describes the retrieval of atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles, cloud character retrieval, aerosol character retrieval, precipitation retrieval as well as meteorological satellite data application. weather analysis and forecast, numerical change. Besides, the new results on data the generation of cloud wind. （3） Achievement on the studies of This part covers the applications of meteorological satellite data to forecast, climate monitoring, and prediction of short-term climate assimilation, climate monitoring, and forecast are also included.

DETECTION OF FOREST FIRE IN DA HINGGAN LING REGION BY METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITE

From May 6 to June 2,1987,a huge forest fire broke out and raged for 28 days in Da Hinggan Ling region in far Northeast China,causing heavy loss of life and property,which claims the biggest forest fire disaster in Chinese history.The fire drew attention of the whole of China and was also concerned by many other countries.How were the meteorological satellites used in the detection of the forest fire?This paper elaborates the principles and methods of the fire detection using meteorological satellites,so that to sum up the experience and to increase the ability of forest fire detection.

Innovations in the Data Processing Algorithm for Chinese FY Meteorological Satellites

This study introduces some innovations in the data processing algorithm for Chinese FY meteorological satellites. Issues about satellite image navigation, radiation calibration, and data assimilation are discussed. A time series of the earth＇s disk center-line count provides information on the orientation of the satellite spin axis. With this information, the altitude parameters of the satellite and then the earth disk location in the south-north direction may be solved. In each spin cycle, the satellite views the sun and the earth. Given the satellite position and altitude, the angle （β） subtended at the satellite by the sun and the earth can be calculated and predicted. Thus, the earth＇s disk location in the east-west direction is fixed. Based on this principle, we derived an automatic image navigation algorithm for FY2 geosynchronous meteorological satellites with an accuracy approaching pixel level. The FY2 meteorological satellite traveling in a geostationary orbit suffers a large amount of radiation from the sun. The radiation varies on both diurnal and annual scales, which causes radiation responses in the thermal infrared （IR） bands wherein the wavelengths greater than 3.5 μm vibrate periodically on scales of hours to years. These vibrations must be precisely calibrated. First, based on the accurate estimation of the radiant contribution from the front-optics, the variation characteristics of the calibration parameters are obtained on a temporal scale of hours from the space-borne inner-blackbody （IBB） measurement results. Second, the in-orbit measured radiation of the lunar surface is referenced and utilized to correct the sys- tematic bias of the IBB calibration from daily to annual scales. By using such algorithms, we achieved a calibration accuracy of the FY2 satellite＇s IR imagery of less than 1 K. The on-orbit satellite instrument parameters play an important role in data quality; however, they may be mis-measured due to limitations in the measurement conditions or may be changed due to the space environment after launch. A satellite instrument parameters on-orbit optimizer （SIPOn-Opt） for a polar orbit meteorological satellite was developed to optimize the true state of the instrument parameters on-orbit with regard to the observation constraints. When applying the SIPOn-Opt to FY3 sounding instruments, the FY3 data quality was much improved, compared to its European and the U.S. polar orbit meteorological satellite counterparts, leading to improved forecast skill of numerical weather prediction.

MONITORING OF 1991 EASTERN CHINA FLOODING WITH POLAR ORBITING METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITES FY-1 AND NOAA

With polar orbiting meteorological satellites FY-1 and NOAA,flooding was monitored in the areas of the Huaihe River basin and the Taihu Lake region during June and July 1991. All satellite images from FY-1 and NOAA for concerned areas before and during flooding were examined.Those of cloud-free,with small amount of cumulus or thin cirrus were selected to exam the situation.Navigation and projec- tion were carefully performed,to ensure the projected images at different time overlap accurately with each other in 1—2 pixels. Channel 1 (CH1) and Channel 2 (CH2) data of FY-1 and NOAA satellites with wavelength of 0.58—0.68μm and 0.725—1.1μm were used to monitor the flooding.Albedo of Channel 2 and normalized vegetation index (NDVI) were adopted as indicators to identify water body from land.With histogram and man-machine interactive methods,analysis was done.In cloud-free condition,the two indicators identified the same area and scope of the water body. Totally cloud-free image in a large area is quite rare.To understand flood process,it is necessary to use more fre- quent images.It was investigated to distinguish water from land in partly cloudy condition.The result showed that when there is small amount of cumulus or thin cirrus,satellite images are still valuable in monitoring water body.In case of monitoring area covered with cirrus,vegetation index is useful,and while there is small amount of cumulus on land, albedo of Channel 2 can be used. Ten images from May 16 to August 18 of 1991 were examined.The results show that in the Lixiahe area,Jiangsu Province,the area submerged in total was the largest;along main stream of the Huaihe River,the Chuhe River,and around the Chaohu Lake,a large percentage of area submerged;while in the Taihu Lake area,less field submerged. Flood monitoring was performed for 87 counties in the region concerned.These counties were put in order accord- ing to the percentage of submerged area in total.This order showed the extent of disaster at one view point.

FY-1 METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITE DATA RECEIVING, PROCESSING AND APPLICATION

This paper summarizes the characteristics of Fengyun satellite and the properties of the data transmission, and also gives a brief introduction to the data acquisition and processing system. At last, it describes the products derived from satellite data produced by this system and their applications in particular.

Vigorously Developed China's Satellite Meteorological Cause

This article describes the development of the meteorological satellite,its data applications in China and the problems in the further development of China’s satellite meteorological cause.

Estimating the Retrievability of Temperature Profiles from Satellite Infrared Measurements

A method is developed to assess retrievability, namely the retrieval potential for atmospheric temperature profiles, from satellite infrared measurements in clear-sky conditions. This technique is based upon generalized linear inverse theory and empirical orthogonal function analysis. Utilizing the NCEP global temperature reanalysis data in January and July from 1999 to 2003, the retrievabilities obtained with the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder （AIRS） and the High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder/3 （HIRS/3） sounding channel data are derived respectively for each standard pressure level on a global scale. As an incidental result of this study, the optimum truncation number in the method of generalized linear inverse is deduced too. The results show that the retrievabilities of temperature obtained with the two datasets are similar in spatial distribution and seasonal change characteristics. As for the vertical distribution, the retrievabilities are low in the upper and lower atmosphere, and high between 400 hPa and 850 hPa. For the geographical distribution, the retrievabilities are low in the low-latitude oceanic regions and in some regions in Antarctica, and relatively high in mid-high latitudes and continental regions. Compared with the HIRS/3 data, the retrievability obtained with the AIRS data can be improved by an amount between 0.15 and 0.40.