Meteorology, Meteorological, History

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HISTORY OF EUMETSAT, p21.

HISTORY OF EUMETSAT, p19.

p20.

EUMETSAT held its first Council meeting at ESA headquarters in Paris on 19 June 1986. Mohr was then Chairman of the Programme Board established by the Agency's Executive to run the MOP whilst EUMETSAT's Member States went through their ratification procedures. With the entry into force of the Convention, this board's role was coming to an end.

Mohr welcomed the new Council and senior staff from ESA. All had cause to feel celebratory given the tensions, passions and struggles of the past decade and a half. Battle would begin again soon, but on this occasion and during this speech, those at the meeting could contemplate what they had achieved: the establishment, first, of a European satellite system to deepen understanding of meteorology and complement international systems and, secondly, the creation of a new intergovernmental organisation of 16 nations (Austria acceded in 1993, bringing membership up to the current total of 17) to manage those satellites.

Mohr recalled when in the Autumn of 1971, he and four meteorologists and one expert in Earth observation from ESRO had evaluated the French Meteosat programme for adoption as a European project. They had recommended Meteosat's "Europeanisation", with only small modifications.

Mohr's speech went on to recall, "I am very happy to note the presence here today of four former members under the Chairmanship of Dr. Stewart from the UK...It is with some pride that...I recall the names of those persons: Dr. Bizzarri from Italy, Mr. Pastre from France, Mr. Tessier from the Agency and myself."

From the beginning

The story of European satellite meteorology starts a few years before Stewart's committee evaluated the French Meteosat satellites. ⁴ The historian, John Krige, gives a detailed account of events in an ESA publication entitled, The European Meteorological Satellite Programme (HSR-22, March 1998). The following account draws on the facts he reports.

In November 1968, the European Space Conference decided that ESRO should extend its brief to encompass satellite application programmes. Satellite meteorology was established as one focus, and ESRO proposed a programme based on a large polar orbiting satellite with a payload of between 300 and 600 kilograms. This idea was presented to meteorologists attending a meeting of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in June 1969. Some of these meteorologists, many of whom were heads of National Meteorological Services, later formed ESRO's ad hoc group for Space Meteorology. In June 1969 they endorsed the recommendation, primarily, says Krige, because alternative ideas overlapped with existing national programmes. One of the existing programmes was the French proposal for the Meteosat geostationary satellite to provide continuous imagery over Europe.

4 - One of the key scientific players in the early days was Pierre Morel. His personal account of those days can be found on the EUMETSAT website: www.eumetsat.de. Click on Publications, then Image, then Issue 7, November 1997, "How it all started."

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

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