From Observations to Forecasts - Part 3. Key principles and recent developments in satellite observations

摘要

On 1 April 1960, two and a half years after the launch of the first satellite, Sputnik-1, the Television InfraRed Observation Satellite (TIROS-1) became the first meteorological satellite. Since then, meteorology has been at the forefront of Earth observation. In 1963, the World Weather Watch programme was set up by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to establish a satellite observation network of (nominally) five geostationary and two polar orbiting meteorological satellites. The first geostationary meteorological observations started in 1966, followed by the launch of a series of meteorological satellites to observe and monitor our atmosphere (see Brugge and Stuttard, 2003).