Image Processing and Analysis: Temporal Resolution, Part 1

If the time difference between images covering the same geographical area is too great, the possibility exists that some phenomena may be "missed."

The temporal resolution of a satellite like Landsat is 16 days, while for a NOAA satellite it is four hours. So the NOAA satellite has a higher temporal resolution than Landsat, but a lower spatial resolution (1.1 km versus 30 meters).

This relationship is generally the case - there is a tradeoff between having high spatial resolution for an instrument versus having high temporal resolution. There are exceptions - for example, geosynchronous satellites are sometimes put in Rapid Scan Mode, where instead of imaging a large geographic area infrequently, they image a small geographic area at a much higher temporal resolution (possibly every minute). One reason for doing this might be to more closely monitor an unusually intense storm.

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