Revolutionary new weather satellite system aims to save lives
EUMETSAT Meteorological Satellite conference gathers experts to discuss revolutionary new weather satellite system.
European communities and their economies will be the direct beneficiaries of a revolutionary new meteorological satellite system, Meteosat Third Generation, which will begin to be deployed later this year, officials said today.
19 September 2022
19 September 2022
In the current context of changing climate, severe weather events are becoming more frequent and affect the whole of Europe. Floods from Storm Bernd in the summer of 2021 left more than 180 people dead in Germany and Belgium and caused billions of euros damage, while the consequences of the record drought and fires in the summer of 2022 will be long lasting.
The European Environment Agency estimates that weather and climate-related events caused as much as €520 billion in economic losses in the EEA between 1980 and 2020. Up to 145,000 lives were lost over the same period.
EUMETSAT Director-General Phil Evans said: “The Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) system is the most complex and innovative geostationary meteorological satellite system ever built. The purpose of this multi-billion-euro investment is to provide meteorological services in our member states with a vastly increased amount of more precise information which will help them protect lives, property and infrastructure. This system will, literally, save lives.”
The first satellite in the system, an imaging satellite that will provide higher resolution, more precise images of Europe and Africa every 10 minutes, will be launched at the end of the year.
Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium Director-General Daniel Gellens said: “The MTG system, once fully deployed, will allow us, for the first time, to track the full lifecycle of storms from space. We will be able to detect initial instability in the atmosphere before clouds form, monitor the development of storms and track lightning activity. This is a hugely significant development and we have been working with EUMETSAT to prepare to make the best possible use of the data from MTG.”
The MTG system shows what can be achieved through international collaboration and cooperation. A system like this would not be able to be deployed by any one of EUMETSAT’s member states alone but it was made possible by combining their expertise and industrial capacities. Belgian scientific and industrial expertise was integral to the development of this system.
