The signature of a cooperation agreement on the exchange of oceanographic satellite data between EUMETSAT and the China State Oceanic Administration’s (SOA’s) National Satellite Ocean Application Service (NSOAS) will further increase cooperation with China and create new opportunities for the oceanography user community.
The agreement was signed in Beijing by the EUMETSAT Director-General, Alain Ratier, and the Director of NSOAS, Jiang Xingwei, in the presence of the Administrator of SOA, Cigui Liu.
Under the agreement, EUMETSAT will provide data from the Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) instruments flying on the Metop satellites as well as from the Jason-2 and Jason-3 ocean topography missions. In return, NSOAS/SOA will provide data from the HY-1 and HY-2 satellites, adding Chinese altimeter, radiometer, and scatterometer data to EUMETSAT’s portfolio of third party data. The cooperation will consolidate the position of EUMETSAT as a key data provider for the oceanography user community. The agreement also covers cooperation on data processing, scientific activities, calibration and validation.
SOA is the second Chinese agency with which EUMETSAT has a cooperation agreement. EUMETSAT has been cooperating with the China Meteorological Administration since 1998.
About EUMETSAT
The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites is an intergovernmental organisation based in Darmstadt, Germany, currently with 26 European Member States (Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom) and five Cooperating States (Bulgaria, Estonia, Iceland, Lithuania, and Serbia).
EUMETSAT operates the geostationary satellites Meteosat-8 and -9 over Europe and Africa, and Meteosat-7 over the Indian Ocean. The third Meteosat Second Generation satellite, MSG-3, was launched on 5 July 2012 and will be renamed Meteosat-10 after commissioning is complete. Metop-A, the first European polar-orbiting meteorological satellite, was launched in October 2006 and has been delivering operational data since 15 May 2007.
The Jason-2 ocean altimetry satellite, launched on 20 June 2008, added monitoring of sea state, ocean currents and sea level change to the missions EUMETSAT conducts.
The data and products from EUMETSAT’s satellites are vital to weather forecasting and make a significant contribution to the monitoring of environment and the global climate.
