Course Guide 2024

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Who was this course designed for?

This online course has been designed for operational forecasters, who are early in their career or who need to return to the basics of how to use satellite imagery. Don't worry if you are not an operational meteorologist: most of the material here is suitable for anyone to learn about the use of satellite images. 

A very basic satellite meteorology knowledge is required to take this course. We will focus on the actual satellite images and their interpretation. We will not focus on remote sensing basics, such as radiance, radiative transfer, reflected or emitted radiation, atmospheric absorption, etc. 

If you like to refresh your knowledge of these basic principles before taking this course, you are welcome to check lesson on Basics of Visible and Infrared Remote Sensing.

What will the course cover?

We will cover some of the satellite enabling skills described more in detail in WMO Guidelines. Our course will cover parts of chapter 2,3 and 4 of that document.

- skills in understanding the standard satellite products used in operational meteorology;

- skills in identifying and interpreting atmospheric phenomena.

To achieve these skills, we will introduce seven most used satellite products at the beginning of the course, namely the individual Visible, Infrared and Water Vapour channels, as well as four widely used RGB products : Natural Colour, Dust, Convection and Night Microphysics RGB images. With these products, you are able to get a good overview of current atmospheric and surface conditions over your area of interest.

In addition, we will focus on new generation satellite MTG and how it can support operational meteorology capabilities in Africa.

What activities are planned for you?

ASMET/ MetEd lessons and exercises - MetEd lesson "Basic Satellite Imagery Interpretation" is the backbone of our course. We will go through some of the lesson sections stepwise during the course weeks.

ZOOM Sessions. We will have altogether four live webinars on Zoom, hosted by satellite experts. Each week we will show how satellite information can be used for better interpretation of current weather, using live weather examples as well as sharing their experience with you. You will find the Live session links at the course web site. 

Walls - the Introduce Yourself wall will allow you to introduce yourself to the other participants and to read about them. Add a Weather Event wall will be your task on week 2 to post one weather event satellite image and tell about it. Everyone will learn by reading the examples others have posted, and you may also get feedback for your post from your peers.

Quiz - At the end of the course, you will have a Final Quiz to fill. This will offer you a chance to test what you learned during the course. 

You are expected to reserve around 4–5 hours per week for the course.

To help you focus on actual week contents, we open the contents stepwise, week by week. The material for upcoming week will become available previous Friday. 

When are the live sessions scheduled?

What do you need to do to receive a certificate?

In order to receive a certificate, you need to complete the mandatory seven activities during the course. These include "Add a Weather Event" weather wall, read the three lessons, complete an MTG exercise, complete the final quiz and fill in the course evaluation. You can check your progress from Course completion status at course main page right panel.

The activity completion for "Add a Weather event" is to be manually marked as complete. Other activity completions are automatically recorded.

• Using the satellite images in identifying various weather phenomena;
  
• Be a competent user of virtual course technology and;
  
• Develop relationships with course participants via the discussion forums and online briefings.

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