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So our primary mission here is

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satellite validation.

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So we just launched this next
generation system and in order

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to validate its performance
independently we've got our

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aircraft sensor with well
calibrated instruments and we

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use that to give us high
confidence--we're flying very

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high in the atmosphere--and
it gives us very good
comparisons to what

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the satellite is seeing.

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Today we're doing a mission,
uh....wheels up...from Warner
Robins

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Georgia...Air Force Base
at seventeen hundred...

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...we do have another long wave
trough beginning to approach the

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West Coast later in the period
by day 7, indicating that the

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wave train is back.

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So, the "go, no-go" decision is
100% dependent, of course, from

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day to day on each mission.

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Today, the reason we decided
on a "go" is because we're in

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Huntsville and we have a
very long loiter time over this

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location.

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And we have an "LMA" and a
pretty intense instrument

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network here.

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Even though the case itself is
not great--we're not expecting a

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ton of lightning with these
systems-- we can still get some

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really good data out of it.

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So it looks like
the mission's a go.

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Any instrument teams
have any...questions?

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(music)

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We've coordinated ABI, special
scans, 30 second imagery, uh, 17

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Zulu to 2230 Zulu today.

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We're getting a little bit of
what's called potential
energy--we call it 

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convective potential energy,
and it's helping fire up these

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storms.

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And so this is what the models
were kind of picking up on 

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earlier.

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We call it
convective initiation.

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That's what today's
mission is really geared toward.

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Yeah, yeah, so I got the
satellite, the visible, and then

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I got CPL...

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The GLM--the Geostationary
Lightning Mapper--is an optical

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instrument and we have virtually
no other optical measurement to

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corroborate what the GLM is
seeing except for an instrument

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that we've
developed for the airplane.

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So we're looking down on
cloud top at lightning.

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Some things that we've
shown is that if you're able to

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incorporate lightning into a
forecasting environment we can

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do things like increase lead
time before severe weather hits,

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decrease false alarm rates we're
able to forecast severe weather

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a lot better, which of course
means time and, maybe more

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importantly, saving lives.

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So we don't know where
the lightning originated.

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So the GLM gives us where the
flashes are beginning, where

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they're propagating, and then
with the ground based you can

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tell where they
went to ground, 

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so if you're, say, at an
airport, baggage handling,

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fueling, you're outdoors,
you may not realize you have a

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non-zero risk above you of the
lightning propagating overhead

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or coming from some distance
away, and so the GLM can help us

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depict that and improve
your situational awareness.

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(off mic voices) 

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The data coming from this system
is just phenomenal.

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We're seeing data at three
times the data rate, double the

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resolution typically, and it's
just meteorologically, we're

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seeing features that we have
never, necessarily, noticed

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before from the longer lag
data from the previous satellite

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systems.

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The advantage of having a high
altitude aircraft is that we can

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make, as best we can, a
measurement that mimics what the

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satellite is seeing.

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(music) 

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We're at seventy
thousand feet, your typical

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airliner is down around
thirty-five thousand feet.

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If we sit here on the ground and
we see an airliner way up high

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making a contrail, we look down
from the U2 almost from the same

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distance and see that airliner
well below us making contrails

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So we're twice as
high as an airliner.

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(music)

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So what this is going
to enable people to do is see

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mesoscale features that we
really didn't have a good handle

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on.

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And that's why having the
aircraft in place, it allows us

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to get deeper insights into this
phenomenology that's kind of new

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to us because we've never been
able to stare at the Earth with

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this kind of resolution.

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(jet engine)

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Pogo clear!

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(music) 

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Flying really high in
the stratosphere, at twenty

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kilometers--what that enables
us to do is overfly a target of

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interest and match the view
geometry of the satellite and

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that gives us very high
confidence that we're collecting

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what the satellite is seeing.

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(music)