SCENES AND CLOUD ANALYSIS FROM METEOSAT SECOND GENERATION ( MSG ) OBSERVATIONS

The cloud processing scheme of the Meteorological Product Extraction Facility (MPEF) for the new generation of geostationary Meteosat satellites (Meteosat Second Generation (MSG)) is introduced. The cloud-processing is split into two separate tasks the cloud detection (called scenes analysis (SCE)) and the cloud analysis (CLA). The scenes analysis derives a cloud mask (cloud/no cloud decision), while the cloud analysis derives detailed information on the cloud type. Both, the cloud mask and the cloud analysis are derived on a pixel basis. The MSG scenes and cloud analysis scheme has also been adopted by the processing scheme for the current Meteosat satellites. This scheme has become operational in June 2003 and improved the cloud detection and classification with the Meteosat-7 satellite. In this paper first results of the cloud processing scheme derived from MSG-1 data are shown. The results are compared to the cloud detection and cloud processing results derived from a reduced set of MSG image data simulating the three channels of Meteosat-7.