The national oceanic and atmospheric administration (NOAA) / national environmental satellite data and information service (nesdis) operates a geostationary operational environmental satellite…

The national oceanic and atmospheric administration (NOAA) / national environmental satellite data and information service (nesdis) operates a geostationary operational environmental satellite (goes) constellation that serves as the real-time monitor of high impact environmental phenomena across the western hemisphere. For more than 40 years the goes system has enabled forecasters to provide critical life-saving information to the public. The newly developed goes-r series of four satellites for the first time carries a geostationary lightning mapper (GLM) unique in its capability to provide real-time lightning detection and mapping of high impact weather including severe storms and hurricanes and non-weather phenomena such as fires and meteorites. With the launch of the first two satellites in the series goes-16 now the operational goes-east located over the atlantic ocean basin with a view of the americas and goes-17 planned to become the operational goes-west over the pacific ocean basin in november 2018 there is much attention to the calibration validation and scientific exploitation of these new instruments and their products and a concerted effort to make users ready to make the best use of the data through goes-r program outreach training and education at national and international conferences and workshops and through demonstrations in the goes-r proving ground at the NOAA testbeds. The goes-r instruments are undergoing validation through concurrent measurements from other well calibrated ground-based instruments and networks instrumented airplanes and well characterized operational and research satellite missions. For GLM the lightning data sets are used alone and in conjunction with other measurements that characterize cloud and precipitation processes (e.g. NASA s global precipitation mission GPM) and high impact environmental phenomena (e.g. severe storms hurricanes fires). The calibration working group (CWG) and algorithm working group (AWG) teams conduct vigorous calibration/validation on the instruments including participation in national and international field campaigns and through international cooperation with the world meteorological organization (WMO) members space agencies and national meteorological and hydrological services (e.g. eumetsat inpe JMA CMA eccc). Research on lightning detection from space has been conducted and numerous papers published in the peer reviewed literature since the early 1980S.