Meteorology, Meteorological, History

An IGO
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weather and
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HISTORY OF EUMETSAT, p34.

HISTORY OF EUMETSAT, p32.

p33.

CHAPTER 2

EUMETSAT'S FIRST LONG TERM PLAN

The story of how EUMETSAT became what it is now began in earnest when the Director, John Morgan, presented plans for the Organisation's long-term future to the Council at its fourth meeting in April 1987. Until this date the Council had essentially been completing unfinished business - deciding on the location of the headquarters and making up the shortfall in funding for the Meteosat Operational Programme (MOP) - from the negotiations to establish EUMETSAT.

By contrast, the Long-Term Plan looked to the future. It was intended as the basis of discussion about EUMETSAT's strategy. The Council's conclusions would give the Director and Secretariat the guidance they needed when planning financial and human resources for future activities and negotiating with the German government over the size of EUMETSAT's new headquarters.

Implicitly the plan posed the question: how should EUMETSAT interpret in practical terms its primary objective, "to establish, maintain and exploit European systems of operational meteorological satellites, taking into account as far as possible the recommendations of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)"? Should EUMETSAT be a passive conduit through which money flowed from the meteorological services to the European Space Agency (ESA), allowing ESA to develop what it thought best after consulting EUMETSAT and the WMO? Or, should EUMETSAT attempt to drive the process of selecting the appropriate satellite systems, instruments and ground segment infrastructure?

A cover note with the plan urged the Council to "quickly reach a consensus regarding its role", and the plan itself made proposals that ranged widely from activities for improving the use of existing data to ideas about future satellite programmes. It proposed that EUMETSAT should be the leading Organisation determining Europe's scientific and technical contribution to international efforts to place meteorological satellites in polar orbit, and that there should be a follow-on to the first Meteosat operational series. Further, the plan urged 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
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