MSG: RGB 'False Colour' 321 product daytime images over the West Africa and the Azores

The Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellites, operated by EUMETSAT (The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites), provide almost continuous imagery to meteorologists and researchers in Europe and around the world. These include visible, infra-red, water vapour, High Resolution Visible (HRV) images and derived cloud top height, cloud top temperature, fog, snow detection and volcanic ash products. These images are available for a range of geographical areas.

This dataset contains RGB 'False Colour' 321 Product images from MSG satellites over West Africa and the Azores. Imagery available from March 2005 onwards at a frequency of 15 minutes (some are hourly) and are at least 24 hours old.

RGB images are composite images generated by combining two or more channels and displaying in colour. The naming convention describes which channel is assigned to the red, green and blue colours. For example RGB 321 means that channel 3 (1.6 micron) is on the red, channel 2 (0.8 micron) is on the green and channel 1 (0.6 micron) is on the blue. This combination can then highlight different physical features through the differing amounts of red, green and blue and hence give a unique colour to that feature. In this case, turquoise clouds contain ice crystals, whilst white clouds are water clouds (inc. fog). Vegetation creates a green signal and sandy areas are pink. Snow covered ground is turquoise.

Note: a change in product can be seen from a change to software implemented on 25/11/2013 where the scaling and gamma correction of the R, G, and B channels were tuned to give an improved image, in effect lightening the brighter colours in the image image.

The geographic extent for images within this datasets is available via the linked documentation 'MSG satellite imagery product geographic area details'. Each MSG imagery product area can be referenced from the third and fourth character of the image product name giving in the filename. E.g. for EEAO11 the corresponding geographic details can be found under the entry for area code 'AO' (i.e West Africa).

Date (Publication): 2007-02-20T10:35:41

Date (Creation): 2007-02-20T10:35:41

Citation identifier: https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/b3c79c99b4eb43b4a95c25469291b55d

Citation identifier: NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis / b3c79c99b4eb43b4a95c25469291b55d

Point of contact

Organisation name	Electronic mail address	Role
Met Office	enquiries@metoffice.gov.uk	Author
EUMETSAT	unknown	Author
NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis	support@ceda.ac.uk	Custodian
NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis	support@ceda.ac.uk	Distributor
unknown	unknown	Principal investigator
NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis	support@ceda.ac.uk	pointofContact
NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis	support@ceda.ac.uk	Publisher

Maintenance and update frequency: Daily

Update scope: Dataset

Keywords

MSG
Snow
Satellites
Azores

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

atmospheric conditions

Access constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: Restricted data: please submit an application using the REQUEST ACCESS link for access.

Use constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: Under the following licence https://artefacts.ceda.ac.uk/licences/specific_licences/msg.pdf, appropriate use of these data may fall under academic use. This message is intended as guidance, always read the full licence. When using these data you must cite them correctly using the citation given on the CEDA Data Catalogue record.

Spatial representation type: Grid

Language: English

Topic category

Climatology, meteorology, atmosphere

Begin date: 2005-05-17T23:00:00

Unique resource identifier: WGS 84

Distribution format

Name	Version
Images are GIF formatted

Distributor contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis		support@ceda.ac.uk	Distributor

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/b3c79c99b4eb43b4a95c25469291b55d	CEDA Data Catalogue Page

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	http://data.ceda.ac.uk/badc/msg/data/hritimages/EEAO11	DOWNLOAD

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Meteosat_Second_Generation/How_MSG_works	Meteosat Second Generation

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://artefacts.ceda.ac.uk/badc_datadocs/msg/MetOffice_SatImagery_AreaCodes_CEDA_v2.pdf	MSG satellite imagery geographic area codes and bounding box information.

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Conformance result

Title: Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services

Date (Publication): 2010-12-08

Statement: Data obtained by satellite from March 2005, prepared by the Met Office and stored in the BADC archive.

Metadata

File identifier: b3c79c99b4eb43b4a95c25469291b55d XML

Metadata language: English

Character set: UTF8

Parent identifier: Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) Geostationnary Satellites: Visible, Infra-Red and Water Vapour Images and Derived Data Products over the world
5fa2529b973e47ae38ab3557f2018ef4

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Date stamp: 2025-06-11T02:07:04

Metadata standard name: UK GEMINI

Metadata standard version: 2.3

Metadata author

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis		support@ceda.ac.uk	Point of contact

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