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Limitations Of Infrared Satellites

By Doug Peters
July 22, 2010 Updated Jan 14, 2010 at 11:33 PM EDT

Occasionally you might hear one of us say clouds aren’t showing up on the Infrared Satellite imagery. Is there a problem with the satellite? Well there is no problem, just a limitation of the satellite imagery.



What causes the lack of clouds on the satellite when there indeed are clouds? Well, it’s pretty simple really. Infrared satellite takes pictures of the temperatures of the clouds. We then “color” the clouds according to the temperature. Sometimes the ground temperature or temperatures near the earth’s surface are the same as the cloud’s temperatures. When this occurs no “colors” appear and the map looks free of clouds.



Here’s a nice little tutorial (click on the green tutorial button on the website… see link below) and website that offers up different satellite images that do detect clouds much better… especially at night.



Nexsat Website

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