Equipping Japan’s satellites to predict extreme weather
Web Story
5min
2025-05-12
Tsunamis, flooding, cyclones and the devastation that follows in their wake are an increasingly common phenomenon across the Asia-Pacific region.
The Himawari-10 weather-monitoring satellite is due to launch in 2028 - Credit: Mitsubishi
According to the World Meteorological Organization¹, Asia remained the world’s most disaster-hit region² from weather, climate and water-related hazards in 2023, the year for which the most-up-to-date figures are available. A total of 79 disasters associated with hydro-meteorological hazard events were reported in Asia in ’23 – more than 80 percent related to flooding and storms – resulting in more than 2000 deaths and nine million people directly affected.
Flood damage caused by 2019 typhoon “Hagabis” in Japan - Adobe Stock
In purely financial terms, the cost of catastrophic weather events can also be massive: between 2013-2023, Japan’s bill for climate-related damage totalled $90.8 billion³, behind only the United States, China and India – all three of which have far greater land masses and populations.
Tracking weather patterns and helping to predict extreme meteorological events, in the hope of mitigating their impact, has become an increasingly important role for the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), which relies on satellite technology to maximise the accuracy of its forecasts.
ABB in space: taking global technology leadership out of this world
From satellite monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions, to helping predict shifts in global weather patterns, to searching for the existence of other planets via space telescopes, ABB technology is at the forefront of space science at global space agencies.
ABB’s involvement is to develop and build a high-resolution infrared interferometer system, which will power L3Harris’ next-generation atmospheric sounder.
The interferometric system onboard Himawari-10, being built by Mitsubishi Electric, will map in 3D the temperature and humidity over the Asia-Pacific region over a 10-year period.
An ABB technician works with one of our interferometers
Information more than 100 times richer
It's anticipated that the information gained by fitting Himawari-10 with the latest technology will be more than 100 times richer than legacy sensors currently available in geostationary orbit over Asia. The satellite will be positioned at an altitude of 36,000km, helping JMA to improve predictions of the trajectory and intensity of extreme weather events, as well as extend its long-term forecast.
It will be able to do this thanks in part to the equipment’s ability to capture images of the same location on Earth every 30 minutes, thus providing rapid updates of evolving weather conditions.
Atmospheric sounders are high-end optical instruments able to probe the physical properties of air mass – such as temperature, humidity and movement.
Approaching 50 years of satellite weather research in Japan
Japan’s Himawari (sunflower) satellite programme began in 1977, operated by JMA to support weather tracking and meteorological research across Asia. Himawari-10 will be the latest in the line and the first to fly a hyperspectral IR sounder, thanks to ABB’s technology.
“Himawari-10 is expected to bring another level of improvement in weather forecasting accuracy for Japan and the Asia Pacific region, and the rest of the globe, as long-term 14-day forecasts have global dependencies.”
- Frederic Grandmont, Space Technology and Business Development Manager, ABB Measurement & Analytics
ABB’s partnerships with Japan’s satellite program
ABB analysis technology is also supporting Japan’s GOSAT program, for which the first two satellites were launched in 2009 and 2018.
Unlike Himawari-10, the GOSATs orbit the earth – 15 times a day at a much closer height of 613km. Their mission is to monitor global distribution of greenhouse gas emissions on earth, using an ABB interferometer similar to the one used on Himawari to help make more than 100,000 precise measurements of carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, water vapor, carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere over a 6-day period.
Its data is transferred to Japan’s National Institute for Environmental Study (NIES), which then creates maps showing GHG concentration around the planet.
One notable satellite observation is that plant growth during spring removes most of the GHGs which have accumulated over the winter. The injection of GHGs from densely industrialized areas can also be seen from orbit.
Japan’s GOSAT-2 GHG-monitoring satellite, launched in 2018 - Credit: Mitsubishi
“ABB has provided technologies for the Japanese space program for almost 30 years and contributed to several other high-profile space missions like JPSS, NPP, Meteosat, IASI, SciSat, MetImage and more. All these contribute to a better understanding of our planet and help overcome climate change challenges.”
- Marc-Andre Soucy, Space and Defense Systems Director at ABB Measurement & Analytics Business Unit