What is a Sounding

A sounding, for our use, is a vertical atmospheric temperature or moisture profile derived from radiances measurements. The radiance measurements are from a variety of instruments flown on weather satellites. NESDIS currently generates soundings from geostationary and polar weather satellites.

The OSPO currently generates sounding products from four operational systems ATOVS, MIRS, IASI and GOES systems. Each polar orbiting satellite provides full global coverage each day, hence data from polar satellites are useful for anybody requiring global coverage. Each sounding product generated by the OSPO has its own section in the web site.