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Acronyms are generally introduced and amplified the first time they are used in each individual topic sheet, so this list includes only the acronyms in fairly widespread use across the relevant fields. In the interests of brevity and relevance, it generally excludes those acronyms introduced and used on one page only, not referred to elsewhere.. |
| ADEOS | Advanced Earth Observing Satellite (of NASDA, Japan) |
| AIRS | Advanced Infrared Sounder |
| AMI | Active Microwave Instrument |
| AMSU-A | Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A |
| AMSU-B | Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-B |
| APT | Automatic Picture Transmission |
| ARGOS | The satellite-based data collection and localisation system of CNES/CLS |
| ASAP | Automated Shipboard Aerological Programme |
| ASCAT | Advanced Scatterometer |
| ASDAR | Aircraft to Satellite Data Relay |
| ASMET | African Satellite Meteorology Education and Training |
| ASOS | Automated Surface Observation System |
| ATLAS | Autonomous Temperature Line Acquisition System |
| ATOVS | Advanced TOVS suite of sounding instruments |
| ATN | Advanced TIROS-N satellite series |
| ATS | Applications Test Satellite |
| AVHRR | Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer |
| AWIPS | Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System |
| BoM | Bureau of Meteorology (of Australia) |
| C | Celsius |
| ca | circa |
| CAFE | Central Australian Fronts Experiment |
| C-band | Microwave band of the electromagnetic spectrum around 5 GHz |
| CCR | Cloud Cover Radiometer |
| CCRS | Canada Centre for Remote Sensing |
| CCSDS | Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems |
| CDAS | Command and Data Acquisition Station |
| CECANT | Cloud Elimination from Composites using Albedo and NDVI Trend |
| CEOS | Committee of Earth Observation Satellites |
| CERSAT | Centre ERS d'Archivage et de Traitement. Email: fpaf@ifremer.fr |
| CGMS | Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites |
| CIMSS | Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies |
| CIRA | Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere |
| CLS | Collecte Localisation Satellites |
| cm | centimetre |
| CMA | China Meteorological Agency |
| CMS | Centre de Météorologie Spatiale (of France) |
| CNES | Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (of France) |
| CSIRO | Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation (of Australia) |
| CZCS | Coastal Zone Colour Scanner |
| DCP | Data Collection Platform |
| DCS | Data Collection System |
| DMSP | Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (of the USA) |
| DSB | Direct Sounder Broadcast |
| DWD | Deutscher Wetterdienst (of Germany) |
| ECMWF | European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts |
| ENSO | El Nińo/Southern Oscillation |
| EPS | EUMETSAT Polar System |
| ERS | European Remote-Sensing satellite |
| ESA | European Space Agency |
| ESOC | European Space Operations Centre |
| ESRO | European Space Research Organisation |
| EUMETSAT | The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites |
| FASTEX | Fronts and Atlantic Storm Track Experiment |
| FGGE | First Global GARP Experiment |
| FMI | Finnish Meteorological Institute |
| FOV | Field Of View |
| FY-2 | Feng-Yun 2 (geostationary meteorological satellite of China, CMA) |
| GAC | Global Area Coverage |
| GARP | Global Atmospheric Research Programme |
| GEOCOMP | GEOcoding and COMPositing System |
| GEWEX | Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment |
| GHG | Greenhouse Gases |
| GHz | Giga-Hertz |
| GINI | GOES Ingest and NOAAPORT Interface |
| GSS | GOES Sectoriser System |
| GMS | Geostationary Meteorological Satellite (of Japan) |
| GNSS | Global Navigation Satellite System |
| GOES | Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (of the USA) |
| GOME | Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (an instrument on ERS-2 and Metop) |
| GOMS | Geostationary Operational Meteorological Satellite (of Russia) |
| GOS | Global Observing System (of the WMO) |
| GPC | Global Processing Centre |
| GPCC | Global Precipitation Climatology Centre |
| GPCP | Global Precipitation Climatology Project |
| GPS | Global Positioning System |
| GRAS | GNSS Receiver for Atmospheric Sounding |
| GSDPC | Geostationary Satellite Data Processing Centre |
| GSFC | Goddard Space Flight Center |
| GTS | Global Telecommunication System (of the WMO) |
| GTZ | Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (of Germany) |
| GVI | Global Vegetation Indices |
| HIRS | High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder |
| hPa | hecto-Pascal |
| HR | High Resolution |
| HRI | High Resolution Imagery |
| HRIT | High Rate Information Transmission |
| HRPT | High Rate Picture Transmission |
| HRV | High Resolution Visible |
| HSB | Humidity Sounder Brazil |
| IASI | Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer |
| IDCS | International Data Collection System |
| IFOV | Instantaneous Field of View |
| IFREMER | Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer |
| IGBP | International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme |
| IJPS | Initial Joint Polar System (of the USA and EUMETSAT) |
| INDOEX | Indian Ocean Experiment |
| INM | Instituto Nacional de Meteorología of Spain |
| INSAT | Indian geostationary multi-function Satellite |
| IR | Infrared |
| ISCCP | International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project |
| ITCZ | Intertropical Convergence Zone |
| ITOS | Improved TIROS Observational System |
| JMA | Japan Meteorological Agency |
| K | (degrees) Kelvin |
| kHz | kilo-Hertz |
| km | kilometres |
| KNMI | Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute |
| ku-band | Microwave band of the electromagnetic spectrum around 14 GHz |
| LAC | Local Area Coverage |
| LAM | Local Area Model |
| LAMINM | Limited Area Model of the Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia |
| LI | Lifted Index |
| LRIT | Low Rate Information Transmission |
| LRPT | Low Rate Picture Transmission |
| LUT | Local User Terminals |
| m | metres |
| Mbps | Megabits per second |
| MCC | Mission Control Centre |
| MDD | Meteorological Data Distribution |
| MDUS | Medium-scale Data Utilisation Station (for GMS, Japan) |
| Meteor | Polar Meteorological satellite series of Russia |
| Meteosat | Geostationary meteorological satellites of EUMETSAT |
| Metop | Meteorological Operational polar satellites of EUMETSAT |
| MHS | Microwave Humidity Sounder |
| MHz | Mega-Hertz |
| MPED | Medium Energy Proton Electron Detector |
| MPEF | Meteorological Products Extraction Facility |
| mm | millimetres |
| MSG | Meteosat Second Generation, geostationary meteorological satellite of EUMETSAT |
| MSU | Microwave Sounding Unit |
| MTSAT | Multi-functional Transport Satellite of Japan |
| MVIRI | Meteosat Visible and Infrared Imager |
| NASA | National Aeronautics and Space Administration (of the USA) |
| NASDA | National Space Development Agency (of Japan) |
| NBIOME | Northern Biosphere Observation and Modelling Experiment |
| NCEP | National Centers for Environmental Prediction (of the USA) |
| NDVI | Normalised Difference Vegetation Index |
| NESDIS | National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (of the USA) |
| NHC | National Hurricane Center of the USA |
| NMHS | National Meteorological and Hydrographic Services |
| NIOZ | Netherlands Institute for Sea Research |
| NIR | Near-Infrared |
| nm | nanometre |
| NMC | National Meteorological Center (of the USA) |
| NOAA | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (of the USA) (and its polar satellite series) |
| NOAA-KLM | NOAA satellites. (User Guide) |
| NOAA-SEL | NOAA Software Engineering Laboratory |
| NPOESS | National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (of the USA) |
| NSCAT | NASA Scatterometer |
| NSMC | National Satellite Meteorological Center (of the PRC) |
| NWP | Numerical Weather Prediction |
| NWS | National Weather Service (of the USA) |
| OLR | Outgoing Longwave Radiation |
| PC | Personal computer |
| PCB | Polychlorinated Biphenyls |
| PDUS | Primary Data User Station |
| PGS | Primary Ground Station |
| pixel | picture element |
| PMEL | Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (of the USA) |
| POES | Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites (of the USA) |
| PRC | People's Republic of China |
| RAL | Rutherford Appleton Laboratory |
| RDCS | Regional Data Collection System |
| RND | Relative NDVI Differences |
| SAF | Satellite Application Facility |
| S&R | Search and Rescue |
| SARP | Search And Rescue Processor |
| SATOB | Satellite Observations (WMO data code for satellite cloud wind data) |
| S-band | Band of the electromagnetic spectrum between 1.6 and 2.1 GHz |
| SBUV | Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet instrument |
| SCAT | Scatterometer (satellite radar measuring winds over the oceans) |
| SCP | Satellite Cloud Product |
| SDUS | Small-scale Data Utilisation Station (for GMS WEFAX) |
| SDUS | Secondary Data User Station (for Meteosat WEFAX) |
| SEM | Space Environment Monitor |
| SEVIRI | Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager |
| SMI | Swiss Meteorological Institute |
| SMS | Synchronous Meteorological Satellite |
| SSEC | Space Science and Engineering Center (of the University of Wisconsin, USA) |
| SSM/I | Special Sensor Microwave/Imager |
| SSP | Sub-Satellite Point. |
| SST | Sea Surface Temperature |
| STR | Scanning Television Radiometer |
| S-VISSR | Stretched VISSR |
| SWE | Snow Water Equivalent |
| SWI | Soil Wetness Index |
| TAO | Tropical Atmosphere-Ocean array of moored buoys in the Pacific |
| TED | Total Energy Detector |
| TIROS | Television Infrared Observation Satellite |
| TOA | Top Of the Atmosphere |
| TOGA | Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere (programme of WCRP) |
| TOPEX/POSEIDON | Topography of the Ocean Experiment (satellite) |
| TOVS | TIROS Operational Vertical Sounding suite of instruments |
| TSM | Total Suspended Matter |
| UCAR | United States Center for Atmospheric Research |
| UK | United Kingdom |
| USA | United States of America |
| UHF | Ultra High Frequency |
| UTC | Universal Time Coordinated |
| UTC | Universal Time Coordinated |
| UTH | Upper Tropospheric Humidity |
| UV | Ultraviolet |
| VIS | Visible |
| VISSR | Visible and Infrared Spin Scan Radiometer |
| WCRP | World Climate Research Programme |
| WEFAX | Weather Facsimile (analogue images from weather satellites) |
| WMO | World Meteorological Organization |
| WSVI | Water Supplying Vegetation Index |
| WV | Water Vapour |
| WWW | World Weather Watch (of the WMO) |
| 1-D | One-dimensional |
| 4-D | Four-dimensional (space and time directions) |
| µm | micrometre |
