Society

Weather satellite offering heads-up about disasters

By Wang Qian (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-05-27 07:45
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BEIJING - The stable operation of a recently launched weather satellite will improve China's capacity to prevent and mitigate natural disasters, said a senior meteorological official.

"After a half-year test run, the Fengyun-3B (FY-3B) has proven to be qualified," said Yu Rucong, deputy director of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA).

"It will play a significant role in future weather forecasting and providing concrete data to the public and policymakers about natural disasters."

The FY-3B, which was launched on Nov 5, is a polar-orbiting heliosynchronous weather satellite and transmits global meteorological data twice a day - at 1 am and 1 pm. Another satellite that was launched earlier, the FY-3A, transmits weather data daily, at 11 am and 11 pm.

The fact that both the FY-3A and FY-3B are transmitting data means experts will be able to analyze more information and better predict the weather, said Yang Jun, director of the National Satellite Meteorological Center and the National Center for Space Weather.

He said the FY-3B will be especially useful in providing timely data about frequent afternoon rainstorms during the flooding season in South China.

A chief designer, surnamed Yang, from the National Satellite Meteorological Center, told China Daily the FY-3 series will eventually include six satellites - from A to F - and noted that the country's scientists are already developing an FY-4 series.

"The first satellite from the FY-4 series will be launched in 2015," said Zhang Wei, director of the department of system engineering under the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.

The World Meteorological Organization and the United States' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have signed contracts with China to use data from the FY-3B.

China has launched 11 weather satellites in the Fengyun series since 1988, including four satellites in the FY-1 series, five in the FY-2 series and two in the FY-3 series. Currently, China still has six of those weather satellites in use.

The satellites in the FY-1 and FY-3 series are in polar orbits, while satellites in the FY-2 series are in geosynchronous orbit.

The geosynchronous satellites can transmit weather data every half hour.

"With the geosynchronous satellites, we know the real-time weather across China but the polar-orbiting ones allow us to forecast the weather," Yang, said.

Zheng Guoguang, head of the CMA, said in March that China will launch seven meteorological satellites during the next five years and invest more than 8 billion yuan ($1.22 billion) in meteorological infrastructure to improve the country's early-warning capability for natural disasters.

China Daily

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