Visualized Information of Himawari-8 Satellite Observation on Occurrence of Meteorological Phenomena Leading to Aircraft Operational Constraints

Abstract

Study Group for the Future Air Traffic Systems in Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, Japan compiled the ``Long-term Vision for the Future Air Traffic Systems'' and named CARATS. The CARATS pointed out that, weather information is not fully utilized for predicting air traffic capacity in current air traffic systems. In the CARATS Roadmap, conversion of weather information into air traffic operational constraints is listed as a measure. For the purpose of discussing what kind of phenomena can be visualized by Himawari-8 satellite data, the meteorological phenomena that lead to air traffic constraints were analyzed. In this paper, as for the meteorological phenomena that lead to aircraft operational constraints, the cases of typhoons, thunderstorms, fog and volcanic plume have examined. Furthermore, for the cases of typhoons and convective clouds, the differences in information obtained by Himawari-8 satellite data and meteorological radar were also investigated by overlapping the flight path data on the meteorological observation data.