The 3MI Level-1C geoprojected product – definition and processing description

Abstract The Multi-viewing, Multi-channel and Multi-polarisation Imager (3MI) on board the Metop-SG satellites will observe polarised multi-spectral radiances of a single target within a very short time period from the visible to the shortwave infrared region with daily global coverage. In order to provide the users of 3MI data with an easy to use and well characterised radiance product EUMETSAT will make a geoprojected and regridded 3MI level-1C product available to users within 70 min of sensing. The paper describes the methodologies of geoprojection and regridding used for the processing of such a product. In addition, the colocation of ancillary information, in particular from the METimage 20-channel imager providing subpixel information of the radiance field and of clouds is described in detail. The latter information is provided as colocated geometric average values in the product and is also used to provide a realistic scene-dependent error introduced by the radiance regridding. Initial estimates, using a synthetic test dataset of top-of-atmosphere radiances of 3MI and METimage at native instrument resolution, provide an upper limit for the additional radiance error contribution depending on the scene homogeneity. Colocated METimage cloud-top height information is also used for parallax correction of the coregistered radiance data either to the cloud height or to the surface elevation, depending on the origin of the dominant radiance signal within the line-of-sight.