[SatNews] EUMETSAT has been designated by the European Commission as the provider of data from the Suomi-NPP polar-orbiting satellite of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to the Copernicus marine and atmosphere services, for a period of 17 months. Copernicus is an EU program for monitoring the Earth environment and security.
Artistic rendition of the Suomi NPP satellite.
Image courtesy of NOAA.
Under the agreement signed by Alain Ratier, Director-General of EUMETSAT, and Daniel Calleja Crespo, Director-General of Enterprise and Industry at the European Commission, EUMETSAT will provide sea surface temperature ocean color products extracted from the observations of the VIIRS imager to MyOcean2, the consortium tasked by the EC to deliver the pre-operational Copernicus marine service.
Likewise, EUMETSAT will provide Suomi-NPP atmospheric composition products to be agreed with the MACC II consortium in charge of the pre-operational Copernicus atmosphere monitoring service.
Capitalizing on the well established cooperation between EUMETSAT and NOAA, the NPP Suomi data service to Copernicus will use the existing EUMETSAT multi-mission infrastructure to receive Suomi-NPP data from NOAA, to extract products and to deliver these products in real time via EUMETCast, the EUMETSAT satellite data dissemination service. EUMETSAT will ensure that the capacity of the EUMETCast service is enhanced to fulfill the requirements from the Copernicus services.
Access the EUMETSAT infosite at this direct link.
