EUMETSAT

EUMETSAT (European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites) is an intergovernmental organisation created through an international convention agreed by a current total of 26 European Member States: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Romania, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. These States fund the EUMETSAT programs and are the principal users of the systems. EUMETSAT also has 5 Cooperating States. Cooperation agreements with Iceland, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Estonia and Serbia have entered into force. The convention establishing EUMETSAT was opened for signature in 1983 and entered into force in 19 June 1986.

EUMETSAT's primary objective is to establish, maintain and exploit European systems of operational meteorological satellites. EUMETSAT is responsible for the launch and operation of the satellites and for delivering satellite data to end-users as well as contributing to the operational monitoring of climate and the detection of global climate changes.

The activities of EUMETSAT contribute to a global meteorological satellite observing system coordinated with other space-faring nations.

Satellite observations are an essential input to numerical weather prediction systems and also assist the human forecaster in the diagnosis of potentially hazardous weather developments. Of growing importance is the capacity of weather satellites to gather long term measurements from space in support of climate change studies.

EUMETSAT is not part of the European Union.