NOAA-NASA GOES Pathfinder Products available from the University of Wisconsin's Space Science Engineering Center

The GOES Pathfinder products were developed through a
NOAA-NASA grant at the University of Wisconsin's Space Science
Engineering Center. Pathfinder processed data streams from the
VISSR/VAS sensors aboard the GOES-7 satellite. Pathfinder
products are 8-km images and 70-km statistics.

Ongoing research recommended by the GOES Pathfinder Scientific
Working Group is working to develop an improved method for
calibrating the GOES VISSR (Visible Infrared Spin Scan
Radiometer) solar channels. Proper VISSR calibration is
essential for this data to be used in quantitative climate
change analyses, such as cloud physics and radiation budgets.

The GOES archive contains over 169 TB of reconstructed,
unprocessed data dating back to 1978 These data are managed
through a NOAA contract with the University of
Wisconsin-Madison.

Products

The 8-km and 70-km GOES Pathfinder products are no longer
available on-line.

8-km Resolution Sounding and Multispectral Images Water vapor
and infrared image data are sampled, and true averaging applied
to the visible measurements to produce an 8-km product (created
from full-resolution GOES imagery at 1-hour temporal
resolution).

70-km Resolution Equal-Area Statistics
An equal-area statistical product set at approximately 70-km
resolution also is generated. The 70-km statistical package
allows a first-level analysis of the 8-km imagery.

MERLIN: Freeware for Pathfinder data

MERLIN is a free software package for use with the NOAA-NASA
Pathfinder dataset. For more information, see the MERLIN Web
page. "http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/software/merlin.html"

The GOES Pathfinder datasets are all available from SSEC:

"http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/research/pathfinder/PFHomepage.html"

GOES Pathfinder Operations can be reached at [e-mail]

[Summary extracted from the University of Wisconsin's Space Science
Engineering Center home page]