CONTRAST MTSAT-2 Satellite Data (AREA format)

1.0 Data Set Overview:

This data set contains data from the JMA MTSAT-2 satellite during the CONTRAST field phase.  
Data are included from both the northern hemisphere and full disk scans.  The 4km data are
included for all five channels as is the 1km data from the visible channel.  The data are 
in McIDAS AREA file format and were made available by NOAA/NESDIS.

2.0 Instrument Description:

The Multi-Functional Transport Satellite (MTSAT-2) was launched 18 February 2006 and is 
positioned at 145E longitude and has been the operational Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) 
satellite for most of the period after 2010.  Further information is available at the JMA 
Meteorological Satellites web page: http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/jma-eng/satellite/

3.0 Data Collection and Processing:

These data were collected from the NOAA/NESDIS ADDE server.  NCAR/EOL has done no additional
processing to these data.

4.0 Data Format:

These data are in the McIDAS AREA file format.

http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/mcidas/doc/prog_man/current/formats-1.html

5.0 Data Remarks:

The data are in hourly tar files that contain all data for that UTC hour.

The tar file naming convention is:

mtsat2.yyyymmdd_hh00.tar

where yyyy = year
        mm = month
        dd = day of month
        hh = UTC hour

The naming convention for the AREA files is:
mtsat-2.yyyymmddhhnn.sector.channel.area.gz

where yyyymmddhhnn is the UTC date and time of the start of the scan.
      sector is the sector of the scan and can be either nhem (northern hemisphere) or glob (full disk).
      channel is the channel contained within the file and can be either ch1 (1km visible) or chALL
          (4km all channels)

The northern hemisphere sector stops at approximately 2S latitude.

The complete set of channels contained with the chALL files is:

Ch 1- Visible
Ch 2 - Infrared (IR1) - 10.8 um
Ch 3 - Infrared (IR2) - 12.0 um
Ch 4 - Water Vapor (IR3) - 6.75 um
Ch 5 - Near Infrared (IR4) - 3.75 um

6.0 References:

None.