Global observation by Global Change Observation Mission-Climate (GCOM-C)

Abstract

The “Global Change Observation Mission-Climate”(GCOM-C) is a project of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) for the global and long-term observation of the Earth environment. The GCOM-C is expected to play an important role in monitoring and understanding global climate change. The GCOM-C is a part of the JAXA's GCOM mission which consists of two satellite series, GCOM-C and GCOM-W (Water). Whereas GCOM-W carries a multi-frequency, dual-polarized, passive microwave radiometer named Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) to observe water-related targets such as precipitation, sea surface temperature, soil moisture, and snow depth, GCOM-C carries a multi-spectral optical radiometer named Second Generation Global Imager (SGLI), which has special features of wide spectral coverage from 380nm to 12μm, a high spatial resolution of 250m, a swath width exceeding 1000km, two-direction simultaneous observation, and polarization observation. The GCOM-C mission aims to contribute to improving our knowledge and prediction of the global carbon cycle and radiation budget through high-accuracy observation of global vegetation, ocean color, temperature, cloud, aerosol, and snow and ice through the SGLI observations.