ESC seminar No. 16

FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC Science Mission and Collaboration Opportunity

Date
May 16(Tue.), 2006, 15:00 - 16:00
Place
Conference room(Meeting room506) , 5F Information Technology building, YES
Speaker
Prof. C. Z. Frank Cheng (Chief Scientist, National Space Organization)
Language
English

Abstract

Six identical micro-satellites comprising the FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC mission were successfully launched on April 14, 2006 US Time. The FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC mission provides the first satellite constellation for monitoring global weather using the Global Positioning System (GPS) radio occultation (RO) technique. The mission is a Taiwan-US collaborative project jointly carried out by the National Space Organization (NSPO) in Taiwan and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) in the United States. The mission’s science goal is to obtain in near-real time of temperature, pressure and water vapor in the neutral atmosphere and electron density in the ionosphere. The observations will be used to support operational global weather prediction, climate monitoring and research, space weather forecasting, and ionosphere and gravity research.

During the next few months the FORMOSAT-3 satellites will stay relatively close to each other in longitude and the GPS radio occultation soundings would be very dense. It is an excellent and rare opportunity for performing cross validation of the radio occultation data with other observations (ground based radiosonde, weather satellite, and balloons, etc.). NSPO will conduct an Intense Observation Period (IOP) campaign to carry out the data validation and to assess the impact of FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC data on typhoon intensity and track prediction and forecasts of heavy rainfall events over East Asia. The IOP campaign will be held during May-October, 2006. Two field campaigns will be conducted in the vicinity of Taiwan, one to study the Mei-Yu front and associated disturbances during May and June and the other to study typhoons during July-October. Researchers around the world are invited to participate and collaborate in the IOP campaign. Other collaboration opportunities are open for discussuion.

Contact

Dr. Akira Kageyama
Group Leader
Solid Earth Simulation Research Group
Advanced Perception Research Group
Earth Simulator Center
TEL: 045-778-5856
e-mail: kage