The European Space Agency (ESA) this Monday presented the first series of images from the lightning detector of the Meteosat Third Generation Imager (MTG-I1) meteorological satellite, which can warn of strong storms, improving bad weather forecasts. time.
Created by the Italian group Leonardo and owned by ESA and the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (Eumetsat), it is the first instrument of its kind in Europe capable of detecting a single flash of light, both day and night ‘at night. The satellite operates in geostationary orbit at an altitude of 36,000 kilometers from Earth.
“Lightning gives a solid indication of where the most extreme weather is occurring. Where the rain is heaviest there is always lightning, so it will help with storm tracking and forecasting,” Phil Evans, director general of Eumetsat, told the press.
He added that “in a world where climate change is exacerbating the intensity of climate phenomena, tools like these will become increasingly important”.
According to Evans, these phenomena have caused damage worth €500 billion in Europe over the past 40 years and cost the lives of up to 250,000 people.
The project coordinator at Leonardo, Guia Pastorini, explained that the so-called “ray hunter” has four cameras capable of shooting 1,000 images per second, which will cover Europe, Africa, the Middle East and part of South America.
Some of the one-minute sequences of images were presented this Monday, showing the first results from MTG-I1.
The images showed active storms at various points on Earth, allowing us to see, for example, how in Southwestern Europe, especially Mediterranean Spain, more lightning occurs as the heat increases during the day.
“They demonstrate the instrument’s ability to effectively and accurately detect lightning activity across the entire field of view of the cameras, which cover approximately 84% of the Earth’s disk,” said Simonetta Cheli, director of ESA’s Earth observation programs.
The images will help meteorologists make more accurate forecasts of severe storms, particularly in remote areas and over the ocean, where lightning detection capabilities are currently limited.
The data will be processed directly on board the satellite and will be provided to meteorological services in 30 Eumetsat member states, as well as partners in Africa and other regions of the world “with limited capabilities for terrestrial observation of lightning”.
Source: DN
