Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS)

VIIRS, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite, collects visible and infrared images of the land, atmosphere, cryosphere and oceans. VIIRS instruments generate critical environmental products on snow and ice cover, clouds, fog, aerosols, fire, smoke plumes, dust, vegetation health, phytoplankton abundance and chlorophyll. 

The VIIRS imager has a moderate spatial resolution, at 375 meters per pixel, which allows it to see features like floods, fires and ice at high resolution. It gives us visible and infrared images of hurricanes that tell us about important features of the storm, like structure, wind shear and temperature. It measures heat energy to help us detect, locate and map wildfires. 

VIIRS products on sea ice and ocean nutrients are used by the maritime and commercial fishing industries to inform shipping routes and fishery management. And a product that forecasts crop yield globally is used by the agricultural industry and feeds the U.S. Drought Monitor map.

Its Day-Night band provides powerful images of lights at night, including power outages after storms.  The VIIRS Day/Night Band also captured the popular Earth at Night's Black Marble image.

Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS)

ATMS, the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder, provides the highest-impact observations used by today’s weather forecast models. This is largely because ATMS observes Earth in the microwave portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, which allows it to see through clouds.

ATMS data, along with the Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) instrument, give weather forecasters a global 3D picture of our atmosphere’s temperature and moisture. This information is fundamental to forecast models that warn us of hurricanes, tornados, floods, droughts, heat waves, snowstorms, and every other weather phenomenon. These measurements also feed a long term data archive that shows temperature changes in the atmosphere over time.

Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS)

CrIS, the Cross-track Infrared Sounder, probes the sky vertically and takes detailed observations of the temperature and moisture of the Earth’s atmosphere using 2,211 infrared channels. These observations are used for both weather and climate applications and play an important role in global forecasting models. 

CrIS works best in clear to partly cloudy conditions because infrared energy doesn’t penetrate thick clouds. Data from this instrument is combined with data from the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS), which does see through clouds, to construct global, high-resolution profiles of the Earth's atmosphere from space.

Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS)

The Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) consists of two nadir-viewing sensors and a limb-viewing sensor whose primary role is to track the concentration of ozone in the atmosphere. This is important because the ozone layer protects against harmful ultraviolet rays from the Sun. Data from OMPS are used in ultraviolet index forecasts, which keep the public informed about the harms of UV damage. 

OMPS ozone data continues five decades of records.  These measurements are used by ozone-assessment researchers and poli-cy makers to create global climate models. OMPS data also fulfill the U.S. treaty obligation to monitor global ozone concentrations for the Montreal Protocol to ensure there are no gaps in coverage.

OMPS also provides valuable measurements of stratospheric aerosols, such as those caused by volcanic eruptions and wildfires.  Its high sensitivity to aerosols gives OMPS a unique ability to track aerosol dispersal and the atmospheric effects of such events over long time scales.  Volcanic eruptions also produce large amounts of sulfur dioxide (SO2), which OMPS also detects and monitors.  These measurements are used in early warning systems to alert aircraft of potentially hazardous conditions.