Inter-sensor LST Comparison: GOES-18 vs. GOES-17

Note: some GOES-17 results may be degraded due to overheating of its ABI sensor.

GOES-18 completed its westward drifting and stayed at 136.8º W on June 7th, 2022. Its view geometry at the new location is very similar to that of the GOES-17 (located at 137.2º W). Products from both platforms are operationally projected to the same GOES-WEST localtion at 137º W, and thus share the same coordinate system. The following shows a direct comparison of their land surface temperature products for the most recent week including both CONUS and Full Disk coverages.

Three indices are provided:

• Mean difference: the average of LST difference over all matchups with valid retrievals to show the bias between two products;
• Standard deviation: the standard deviation of LST difference over all matchups with valid retrievals to show the scattering of the difference;
• FPM Temperature: the longwave infrared focal plane temperature of ABI onboard GOES-17. A high FPM temperature induces noises in infrared signals with long wavelengths, and thus degrades the LST quality and its agreement with the corresponding GOES-18 LST.