Meteorology, Meteorological, History

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HISTORY OF EUMETSAT, p16.

HISTORY OF EUMETSAT, p14.

p15

meteorological satellites in Europe and behind the formation of EUMETSAT.

Yet ESA and EUMETSAT had and have two different remits. ESA's responsibility and justification for spending the public's money is to keep Europe at the cutting edge of space science and space technology. It is not an operational organisation. EUMETSAT's justification was and is operational meteorology (in 2000, EUMETSAT formally added operational monitoring of climate and the detection of global climatic changes to its remit). Operational means providing a routine, uninterrupted service. Yet the innovative technology, which ESA is obliged to develop, is inevitably risky and likely to cause interruptions. It was not always easy to reconcile this difference, and it is a recurring theme in the early history of EUMETSAT.

There were also difficulties to be ironed out within the meteorological community itself. Space-based meteorology is only one branch of this science. EUMETSAT feeds its data and meteorological products to the National Meteorological Services of its Member States as well as other national and international meteorological services. The Member State services are - for the most part - the public bodies responsible for allocating part of their own budgets to EUMETSAT. To these services, satellite meteorology is only one of many tools, and there has, at times, been tension about paying for expensive satellite services. The National Meteorological Services also have considerable scientific and technical expertise of their own and they were not always happy to see tasks centralised.

EUMETSAT, ESA and the National Meteorological Services have therefore had to work hard at developing acceptable working practices and boundaries. Further, EUMETSAT exists on a world stage. This is the nature of meteorology. It is a truism, but needs repeating, that weather systems do not respect national boundaries nor continental, political sensitivities. It is notable that even during the Cold War, global cooperation in meteorology was routine. So EUMETSAT cooperates with other meteorological satellite agencies, especially NOAA. The two have a common cause in meteorology, but in recent years have had difficult discussions - now resolved - about access to one another's data. These debates took place after the critical early days of EUMETSAT's development, and so are not covered in this account. The events that are covered, however, gave EUMETSAT the maturity to deal with its international responsibilities.

EUMETSAT: the Organisation and its history
EUMETSAT is governed by a Council comprising delegates from the National Meteorological Services of 17 European nations. It also has three Cooperating States - the Slovak Republic, Hungary and Poland. A number of subsidiary groups of delegates advise the Council on policy, science, technology, finance etc. The Secretariat provides support for these activities and additionally is responsible for the operation of EUMETSAT's satellites. The Secretariat has grown in 15 years from ten people to just over 160, with about the same number again of contractors. That growth reflects the increasing responsibility EUMETSAT has assumed in the conduct of its own affairs and the fact that the

SEE ALSO| |

1. Meteorologists shed political shackles, a review of Declan Murphy's history of the first 25 years of EUMETSAT (2011), by Helen Gavaghan.

2. An interview in 2010 with Dr Tillman Mohr, a special advisor to the secretary general of the World Meteorological Organisation, in Science, People & Politics.

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Contents

Preface

Foreword

Introduction

Ch.1

Ch.2

Ch.3

Ch.4

Ch.5

Ch.6

Ch.7

Ch.8

The History of EUMETSAT is available in English and French from EUMETSAT©.
First printed 2001. ISBN 92-9110-040-4

Eumetsat meteorology meteorological artificial satellites
European Space Agency weather climate policy politics history