Supporting Meteorological Field Experiment Missions and Postmission Analysis with Satellite Digital Data and Products
Atmospheric and oceanographic field experiments are an important part of research programs aimed at enhancing observational analyses of meteorological and oceanic phenomena, validating new datasets, and/or supporting hypotheses. The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) has chronicled many field programs, with a primary focus on the enhanced observational assets that were assembled to enable the projects' investigations. However, these field program summaries often overlook the multiple roles that satellite digital data, multispectral imagery, and derived products can play in premission planning, real-time forecasting and mission guidance, and extensive post–field phase analysis. In turn, these intensive observing periods often serve as crucial validation datasets for remotely sensed products and derived fields.