EUMETSAT
and NOAA sign long-term
agreement for weather and
climate monitoring from space
Building
on a 30-year relationship,
EUMETSAT and the US National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) signed a
long-term cooperative agreement,
ensuring continued space-based
operational monitoring of
weather, ocean and climate.
28
August 2013
At a ceremony at the European
Union Delegation in Washington,
DC, EUMETSAT’s Director-General,
Alain Ratier, and Kathryn D.
Sullivan, NOAA Acting
Administrator, signed the
agreement, in the presence of
high-level representatives of
the European Commission.
“The partnership between
EUMETSAT and NOAA has
continuously developed over the
last 30 years and taken a
strategic dimension, bringing
substantial benefits to Europe,
the USA and the worldwide user
communities. Today the
partnership covers back-up
arrangements and data exchange
for geostationary satellites and
full sharing of low Earth orbit
satellite systems, with the
Initial Joint Polar System and
the Jason series. With this
agreement, we have established a
policy framework to further
develop our cooperation into the
next decades”, Ratier said.
Having exchanged data from
their geostationary spacecraft
for decades and established
back-up arrangements, EUMETSAT
and NOAA now operate an Initial
Joint Polar System consisting of
the European Metop satellites
and the US NOAA-19, -18 and
Suomi NPP satellites, delivering
global measurements that are
essential for weather
forecasting and environmental
and climate monitoring. The
partnership also extends to the
ocean surface topography mission
implemented by the Jason series,
which is crucial to sea level
monitoring in our changing
climate, to seasonal forecasting
and to the development of
operational oceanography in
support of the Marine service of
the EU-led Copernicus programme.
EUMETSAT and NOAA are
planning to expand their
cooperation into the next
decades, with the implementation
of the Joint Polar System
combining the EUMETSAT
Metop-Second Generation and the
NOAA JPSS satellites, and of the
planned Jason-Continuity of
Service (Jason-CS) programme
also involving ESA and the
European Commission.
“The need for environmental
intelligence has never been
stronger. This partnership with
our EUMETSAT colleagues allows
us to continue collecting and
sharing vital space-based
observations, resulting in a
better understanding of our
global environment,” Sullivan
said.
EUMETSAT and NOAA have been
key contributing agencies since
the beginning of the EU-US
dialogue on the peaceful use of
space led by the US State
Department and the European
Commission, where their
long-standing operational
cooperation is regarded as a
unique example.
|
