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Other
SAF's

Other Satellite Application Facilities (SAF's)

SAF's are specialized development and processing centers within the EUMETSAT applications ground segment. Using specialized expertise in Member States, they complement the production of standard meteorological products derived from satellite data at EUMETSAT's central facilities in Darmstadt. The SAF network is under the overall coordination of EUMETSAT.

Nowcasting and Very Short Range Forecasting was started in February 1997 under the leadership of the Spanish Meteorological Institute. The SAF development deliverables are software packages for the generation of products on clouds, winds and global instability and will call upon advanced techniques of automatical satellite image interpretation.

Ocean and Sea Ice started in April 1997 and is led by Meteo France. The products of the SAF will include temperature, wind vector and radiative fluxes of the sea surface, as well as type, cover and edge of the sea ice.

Ozone and Atmospheric Chemistry Monitoring started in october 1997 and led by the Finnish Meteorological Institute. The products are focusing on total ozone/ozone profiles and on support to UV radiation forecasting. Specific validation tools will also be developed.

Climate monitoring was started in December 1998 and is under the leadership of the German Meteorological Institute. This SAF will generate and archive high quality data sets and information from satellites.

Numerical Weather Prediction, started in February 1999 and led by the UK Meteorological Office. This SAF will develop techniques and software to be used in the context of the Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) systems run by the National Meteorological Services, for improved assimilation of satellite data and for increasing their positive impact on forecasts.

GRAS Meteorology, our SAF, was started in April 1999 and is led by the Danish Meteorological Institute. This SAF will concentrate on developing techniques for the processing and effective use of GRAS data. In addition to the development of algorithms and techniques, this SAF will support their implementation aiming at the routine production and dissemination of quality-controlled atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles.

Land Surface Analysis, started in September 1999 under the leadership of the Portuguese Meteorological Institute. This SAF has been established for the monitoring of the land surface analysis using satellte data. The SAF will concentrate on developing techniques for deriving land surface parameters and radiation surface fluxes over the continents from the data of EUMETSAT\'s satellites.

Operational Hydrology and Water Management. Theme on support to operational hydrology and water management was approved by the EUMETSAT council in June 2004. It is led by the Italian Meteorological Service.

Links to SAF related pages:
Eumetsat SAF page
SAF overall planning and life cycle
SAF Extranet Area
EPS/Metop
Metop (and NOAA) services overview
EUMETSAT Publications
The concept of the SAFs

EUMETSAT disclaimer