Meteorology, Meteorological, History

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HISTORY OF EUMETSAT, p22.

HISTORY OF EUMETSAT, p20.

p21.

By January 1970, Krige says that ESRO - presumably in collaboration with the ad hoc group - had developed the idea into a preliminary concept for a satellite which was to fulfil two missions: day and night observations of the Earth's cloud cover for short-term weather forecasting, and temperature soundings. The cost estimate was 73 Million Accounting Units (MAU)⁵. The ad hoc group insisted that a less ambitious programme be developed to bring the project down to 40 MAU. Krige says that "the hesitation in meteorological circles was reflected in the proposal on application satellites by the [ESRO] Committee of High Officials to the Ministers ... meeting in July 1970. "The proposal argued that development of meteorological satellites should be delayed by two or three years whilst Europe concentrated initially on telecommunication and navigation satellites because it did not have the human, industrial or financial resources to start more than two such programmes at once.

Krige then quotes an observation made by Sir Hermann Bondi, Director-General of ESRO, that the proponents of the other two types of application satellite had lobbied better and that the meteorological community had not yet convinced their governments that they had a worthwhile proposal that was really interesting technologically.

The ad hoc group had to go back to the drawing board. Their deliberations were influenced by the Global Atmospheric Research Programme (GARP) and the WMO World Weather Watch (WWW)⁶. These programmes were being developed in response to a Resolution that the United Nations adopted in 1962 to develop meteorology and atmospheric sciences "for the benefit of all mankind". The WWW coordinates space and ground-based observations from all over the globe for Numerical Weather prediction models. The GARP was sponsored by the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), and had the aim of pooling ground and space-based data to determine their utility. Debate about the specific aims of GARP took place among leading meteorologists under the auspices of ICSU.

Toward the end of 1970 it was obvious that the WWW and GARP needed four or five satellites in geostationary orbit and two or three polar orbiters. The USA already funded two polar orbiters and made the data freely available. It also intended to keep geostationary satellites permanently over its western and eastern territory for early warning of tropical storms. Understandably, the USA was not prepared to provide satellites in geostationary orbit above non-USA regions. The WWW and GARP therefore lacked three geostationary satellites, and Europe's meteorologists started to lean towards the idea of a European contribution in geostationary orbit.

Krige says that France did not like the way the ad hoc group's thinking was developing. Jean Bessemoulin, Director of the French National

5 - Before the introduction of the Euro, the European Space Agency used the Accounting Unit (AU) as a unit of currency. EUMETSAT used the European Currency Unit (ECU). The two units had roughly the same value. The Euro has replaced both. 6 - The World Weather Watch makes possible the worldwide collection, analysis and distribution of global weather and other environmental information in support of Meteorological and Hydrological Services.

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