Introduction » About the Lesson

This lesson uses EUMETSAT’s Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) imagery. The satellite interpretation techniques presented are general enough to also be applied elsewhere.

Herein you will learn about the three most common satellite channels: visible, long-wave infrared (IR), and water vapour. You will also learn about RGBs, which combine Red-Green-Blue data from multiple channels to better highlight features like dust, low clouds/fog, and severe convection.

The lesson begins by describing single channel and RGB products and showing you how to interpret them in a practice section. Next, you will learn how clouds and surface features appear in satellite products and the information that can be gleaned from them, such as relative cloud heights and thickness. The final section contains more practice satellite interpretation exercises.

By the end of the lesson, you should be able to:

  • Describe what visible, infrared, and water vapour channels measure
  • Identify the relative heights of clouds and their thicknesses in visible, infrared, and water vapour imagery and selected RGBs
  • Identify dust in visible and infrared imagery and in the dust RGB
  • Differentiate land and water surface features in visible and infrared imagery and selected RGBs
  • Identify whether a given image is from the water vapour, infrared or visible channel
  • Briefly describe what RGBs are and their usefulness in highlighting specific features
  • Identify features in selected RGBs
  • Briefly describe what derived products are and how they can be useful