EUMETSAT Annual Report 2022

EUMETSAT ANNUAL REPORT 2022
2022 highlights
Member states
invest in innovation
The EUMETSAT Council in December authorised
a three-year, €26.8 million investment in the
preparatory phase of new satellite systems
designed to significantly improve weather
forecasting accuracy. The funding will allow
engineering activities to continue on the
EUMETSAT Polar System (EPS) – Aeolus and
EPS-Sterna missions, which would measure
winds and atmospheric temperature and humidity
respectively. The work will pave the way for the
council’s decision, by mid-2025, whether to proceed
with the two programmes.
AI MOOC passes
10,000 registrations
In late 2021, EUMETSAT, the European Centre for
Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, Mercator Ocean
International and the European Environment Agency
developed a massive open online course (MOOC)
covering artificial intelligence and Earth monitoring. The
course remains available online and, by the end of 2022,
had attracted more than 10,700 registrations. The MOOC
provides an introduction to the use of machine learning
techniques with Copernicus data, through a mix of
video content and new Jupyter notebooks.
Annual conference
draws large turnout
About 460 people attended the annual EUMETSAT
Meteorological Satellite Conference in Brussels,
Belgium, on 19-23 September. The conference was
held in person, after last year’s online event and the
cancellation of the 2020 edition due to pandemic
restrictions. The theme of the 2022 conference was
“a digital ecosystem for Earth observation”. A wellattended
press conference was held in conjunction
with the conference to promote awareness of the
upcoming launch of MTG-I1.
Africa forum focuses
on transition to MTG
Preparing Africa’s meteorologists and scientists
for use of data from MTG was a feature of the
15th EUMETSAT User Forum in Africa, held in
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on 13-16 September.
About 150 meteorologists and scientists from
50 African nations attended, to help ensure their
communities get maximum benefit from the new
capabilities of the MTG system.
Coordination group marks
50th anniversary
The Coordination Group for Meteorological
Satellites, consisting of satellite agencies from
around the world, marked its 50th anniversary
at a meeting at the World Meteorological
Organization’s headquarters in Switzerland
on 17 June. The event showcased the benefits
of coordinated space-based observations and
looked at future challenges, including threats
of disruption to services from “space weather”
and growing pressure on radio frequencies.
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