Use of EUMETCast/GEONETCast at

Regional Branch Offices in Ethiopia

Kassa Fekadu

National Meteorological Agency of Ethiopia

NMA 25 March 2015

• Introduction and GEONETCast Toolbox

• EUMETCast Data Reception Systems in Ethiopia:• Some previous experiences

• Regional Meteorological Branch offices• Dedicated “Water and Food Security – Ethiopia

Toolbox” developed:• Design of toolbox

• Functionality examples

• Effective use of GEONETCast in Branch Offices:• Installation

• Insight training

• Conclusions

Overview of Presentation

Introduction• GEONETCast is a near real time, global network of

satellite based data dissemination systems in situ

data, metadata and products to diverse

communities

• Using GEONETCast large amounts of environmental

related information is currently operationally

disseminated over Africa and can be received

without internet connection;

• Complementary data contained in these data

streams is relevant for application domains related

to weather, atmosphere, oceans, land, vegetation,

water and environment;

• A ground receiving station can be established using

low cost and off-the-shelf equipment;

GEONETCast Toolbox: an ILWIS Open Plug-in

Ilwis Key-features:• Integrated raster and vector design

• Import and export of widely used data formats

• On-screen and tablet digitizing

• Comprehensive set of image processing tools

• Orthophoto, image geo referencing, transformation and mosaicing

• Advanced modeling and spatial data analysis

• 3D visualization with interactive editing for optimal view findings

• Rich projection and coordinate system library

• Geo-statistical analyses, with Krigingfor improved interpolation

• Production and visualization of stereo image pairs

• Spatial Multiple Criteria Evaluation

ILWIS is now open source RS/GIS Package; download at www.52North.org

• GEONETCast toolbox developed as ILWIS 3.7.2 Open Plug-in (@ ITC), incorporates the following routines:

– GEONETCast data reception File Manager

– MSG images: HRIT, LRIT and RSS import routines (user window-based)

– Real time visualization of MSG HRIT data

– Products: MPEF, SAFs, SPOT_VGT and Modis-fire import routines

– Open software routines, Java applets, batch files and automation scripts processing, included (samples);

– Coupling to other freeware tools: BUFR, GRIB2, Irfanview, BILKO, BEAM and BRAT.

– All other standard ILWIS functionality

GEONETCast Toolbox features

Open design: easy to change – modify or add routines

� Menu based on XML configuration file

� Can be easily modified according to preferences of user

� New functionality can be added without need for programming

Data Reception Systems in EthiopiaSome previous experiences

• National Meteorological Agency of Ethiopia (NMA) has been

receiving and using hard copies of satellite imageries in 1980s

• Since 1990 Meteorological satellite (METEOSAT) has been

installed in cooperation with the UK government. This system

called METEOSAT PRIMARY DATA USERS SYSTEM (PDUS).

• PUMA (Preparation for the Use of MSG in Africa), 2005 was the

first pan-African technology project focusing on Earth observation

funded by the European Union and has vastly enhanced weather

forecasting capabilities across the African continent.

• The African Monitoring of Environment for Sustainable

Development (AMESD) 2010 project is taking PUMA a stage

further by significantly extending the use of remote sensing data

for environmental and climate monitoring applications.

PUMA 2005

PUMA 2010

Reception Antenna

At HQ in Addis

Regional Meteorological Branch offices

Bahir Dar●

●Mekelle

●SemeraKombolcha●

Adama

Jijiga

Robe

Assossa

Gambella

Awassa

●

●

●

●

●

●

●Jimma

Some Activities of Regional Branch Offices

• The offices have structured organization provide

meteorological services at their respective areas

• Represent the Agency in all meteorological matters in

the regional states

• Provision of weather and climate information to

regional states

• Administer conventional and Automatic weather

stations as well as collect and archive data from

stations

• Issuing short and medium range weather forecast for

their respective regional state

• NMA is working, with support

of the UN World Food Program,

under the framework of a

dedicated project in which a

toolbox was developed by ITC,

University of Twente;

• The toolbox should also contain

meteorological information so it

can be effectively used by the

branch offices and should be

freely available.

Dedicated “Water and Food Security –

Ethiopia Toolbox” developed

The WFS-Ethiopia Toolbox main and sub

menu structure under ILWIS 3.7.2

About 130 processing routines and EUMETCast Data Manager

Configure input & output folders and

import the data

After input and output folder are defined only the

product time stamp is required to import the product

Info on temporal

resolution

Simple in use!

MSG Data Retriever and METEOSAT 7

import

Import of MSG (time series) images according to user needs and import

routines for MET-7 for the whole field of view and resampled to the

Ethiopia Window.

Real Time MSG Visualization routines

Automated day time and night time animation capability, every 15 minutes

For the IGAD Region and

including HRV channel for

Ethiopia Window (resolution

merge and pseudo natural

colour transformation) for

more detailed assessment

Thermal channel using

inverted gray scale and

applying thresholds for

color coding (orange

to pink – representing

clouds from 235K to

less than 190K)

Ethiopian Window: some selected High

Resolution MPEF examples

Atmospheric motion vectors, cloud analysis image,

cloud top height and cloud mask

Ethiopian Window: some selected Low

Resolution MPEF examples

MSG derived Daily and Dekadal Minimum, Maximum and

Mean NDVI

Ethiopian Window: some selected SAF

examples• Surface Radiation Budget parameters

Albedo (daily), Land Surface

Temperature (15 minutes) and Down-

welling Surface Short-wave Radiation

Flux (30 minutes)

Ethiopian Window: some selected SAF

examples• Bio-Geophysical Area parameters

Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetic

ActiveRadiation (FAPAR), Fraction of

Vegetation Cover (FVC) and Leaf Area

Index (LAI), all daily products

Ethiopian Window: SAF ET Daily example

Aggregated Daily ET from 48 half- hourly

ET products in an automated manner and

creation of status map showing number of

valid observation (to evaluate if the

aggregated ET might be underestimated

due to “no data values” in some of the

half hourly products)

ET distribution

over the day –

time in UTC

Ethiopian Window: some selected

TAMSAT examples

TAMSAT Dekadal and Monthly Rainfall Estimates

and Anomalies

Ethiopian Window: some selected SPOT

VGT and PROBA-V examples

Current PROBA-Vegetation products: NDVI, LAI and FVC

Ethiopian Window: some selected other

products

MSG based Automated Burned Biomass Algorithm Fire product, FIR-C

and MODIS Aqua – Terra Fire Product with attribute tables, ASCAT

(Metop A/B) and Copernicus Soil Moisture products

NWC-SAF Cloud Products

• Cloud mask, type, cloud top temperature, height and

pressure and cloudiness at full MSG spatial and temporal

resolution, resampled to Ethiopia window

• Based upon requirements from NMA

• First find MDD-3 Product codes from different messages

Meteorological Data Dissemination Service:

MDD-3

Meteorological Data Dissemination Service:

MDD-3• Example of Mean Sea Level Pressure at 980hPa and

Winds at 850hPa

Products are at different resolution (1 and 2.5 degree), if available both are

processed

MeteoFrance NWP model output at 15

isobaric levels

• Example of temperature profile over a selected location, from

100 to 975 hPa, from 3 hr forecast

-100

-80

-60

-40

-20

0

20

40

100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000

Tem

pe

ratu

re º

C

Pressure level

MDD-4 (ACMAD) visualisation of

rainfall and temperature forecasts

• Creating animations of latest ECMWF forecasts

Precipitation Temperature (at 2 mtr)

• Automatically create mapviews, showing latest images /

products received

Viewer MSG-Day MSG-Night MPEF NWC-SAF Image/products

imported All MSG SEVIRI channels, converted to reflectance and temperature. Images are stretched and gamma function is applied.

All IR MSG SEVIRI channels, converted to temperature. Images are stretched and gamma function is applied.

Cloud Mask (CLM), Multi Sensor Precipitation Estimate (MPEG), Atmospheric Motion Vectors (AMV), Optimal Cloud Analysis (OCAE)

Cloud Mask (CMa), Cloud Type (CT), Cloud Temperature-Height (CTTH)

Layers added to MapView

visualization

IR_10.8 (K) WV_6.2 (K) Enhanced IR_10.8 Airmass RGB Dust RGB Microphysics RGB Severe Storm RGB Natural RGB HighRes RGB

IR_10.8 (K) WV_6.2 (K) Enhanced IR_10.8 Airmass RGB Dust RGB Microphysics RGB

CLM Cloud Mask MPEG Precipitation (mm/hr) OCAE Pixel Scene Type AMV Direction, Speed, Pressure, Temperature, approx. Elevation, Scaling for speed

CMa Cloud Mask CT Cloud Type and Phase CTTH Cloudiness (%), Temperature (K), Pressure (hPa), Height (m)

Background layers used / at disposal

Layers used: land/water mask, water bodies and main roads Ethiopia, country boundaries, Other layers available: (colour shaded) DEM and satellite image background, Ethiopia (admin) regions and cities

Automated processing and visualization

Automated processing and visualization

• Automatically create mapviews of latest information received

• Layers can be turned on /off by operator, no further

interaction required!

MSG-Day Visualisation MPEF Visualisation

Automated processing and visualization

• Automatically create animation of latest 2 hr MSG-10.8

channel information received

• Colour coding of temperatures below 240 K

MSG- 10.8 Channel Animation

Temperature class (K) Colour>240 Inverted gray scale

240-235 Dark blue234-230 Blue229-225 Cyan224-220 Green219-215 Yellow214-210 Orange209-205 Red

< 205 Brown

Effective use of GEONETCast

at the Branch Offices

• Installation

• Consequently, NMA planned to establishing 11 low

cost GEONETCast stations for 11 branch offices.

• Prioterized three GEONETCast stations, located at

Bahir Dar, Awassa and Adama

• Currently all branch offices equipped with low cost

GEONETCast reception stations

System layout

• Two PCs are recommended - one for the DVB acquisition and a second for

processing applications.

• Digital Video Broadcasting Board

• EUMETCast Client Software

• EUMETCast Key Unit (EKU)

• Antenna, with universal V/H LNB in C-band

Ground receiving components

GEONETCast Reception Stations at 11

Branch offices

Adama

Awassa

Bahir Dar

Effective use of GEONETCast data in

Branch Offices

• Insight Training sessions

Concluding remarks

• In Ethiopia, weather and climate risks are major determinants

for water and food security of the livelihood of the population;

• Hence, timely and reliable weather and climate monitoring

and forecasting are very crucial;

• In order to have reliable weather and climate monitoring as

well as prediction the role of satellite data received by

GEONETCast stations is indispensable;

• Low cost data reception system, in conjunction with free

toolbox is a good alternative for weather and climate

monitoring and forecasting to provide trustworthy information

to various Ethiopian regional user communities.

Thank you very much

for your attention !