Polar Mapped Mosaic Composites

Mapped mosaics are daily images created from multiple satellites over the same region. The data are from the AVHRR instrument on NOAA/ESA's polar orbiting satellites (NOAA-16, 17, 18, 19, and METOP-A). Images are created in Polar stereographic project for North and South Polar regions and in Mercator project for tropical zone. The Infrared using composite AVHRR GAC data gathered onboard NOAA's polar orbiting satellites (NOAA-16, NOAA-17, NOAA-18, and NOAA-19) and AVHRR FRAC data gathered onboard METOP satellite. These images are created once per day, and there are two different projections: Mercator mosaics and polar stereographic mosaics. The images depict the digital counts for the image pixels, where the IR images are related to temperature (darker is warmer) and the visible images are related to brightness (darker is less bright).

These images are available below in three IR channels (bands 3, 4, and 5) and two visible channels (bands 1 and 2). For Mercator mapped mosaics (Tropical images), Coverage extends 360 degrees longitude and from 40 to -40 degrees latitude, and the resolution is about 16 km at the equator. For Polar stereographic mapped mosaics (hemispheric images), Coverage extends over the northern and southern hemispheres, and the resolution is about 15 km at the equator and 36 km at the poles. For RGB images, it is generated using band 1, 2, and 4 for red, green, and blue respectively.