Find out how she adapted to life in a new country and got to grips with working at a European organisation… Can you please introduce yourself and your role? My name is Rachel Venn and I am working as an “Intern in Strategy, Communications and International Relations” at EUMETSAT. What are your main tasks? I’m working under Vincent Gabaglio, who is the International Relations Officer at EUMETSAT. Essentially, I’m supporting him in his role in relations with Africa, with whom EUMETSAT have a long-standing relationship. Although we’re a European organisation, we share our satellite data with Afri ..read more

In this blog post, we catch up with the activities of the IGAD Climate Prediction & Applications Centre (ICPAC), a climate centre tracking the locusts in East Africa, and see how EUMETSAT’s satellites and data helped mitigate this crisis. ©FAO/Haji Dirir The locust plague Desert locust swarms are a pestilence of biblical proportion. Coming in waves ever since ancient times, they ravage crops that supply food to communities and livestock – in only one day, a small swarm can consume the food of 35,000 people. One locust alone is merely a type of grasshopper, but when climate conditions and ..read more

It might be surprising to know that the smoke has even made its way as far as Europe. Fig. 1: A view of the smoke from the California fires as seen from the Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellite, taken on 10 September 2020 Federico Fierli, Atmospheric Composition expert at EUMETSAT said: Each year, we observe extensive and prolonged wildfires in many regions and California is known to be one of the most affected. However, this year appears to be exceptional, as preliminary data has shown it is estimated to be a record in terms of extent and fire emissions. Last week was characterised by an even hi ..read more

Turbulent or rough air is most commonly defined as chaotic currents of air that are disturbed by some outside force. Air turbulence is an occurrence that takes place everywhere, even at ground level and above the normal cruising altitude. However, while air turbulence is harmless in most cases, because it is a source of worry for many people on flights, pilots try to avoid it as much as possible. Forecasting turbulence With forecasting being an integral part of the aviation environment, the EUMETSAT Nowcasting and Very Short Range Forecasting (NWC) Satellite Application Facility (SAF) has been ..read more

Continuing in a similar vein, the latest episode takes us to the marine world and focuses on fisheries, where we learn how satellite data is used to monitor the marine environment, support maritime safety and help manage fishing activity off the coast of West Africa, with special focus on detecting illegal fishing activities. Sectors such as fisheries heavily depend on accurate information about the weather and climate. Fisheries are not only a predominant source of protein for many, but also a very important part of many world economies, providing jobs to a lot of the population. Needless to ..read more

Read on to hear more about Joana’s daily tasks and what she likes to get up to in her spare time! View of Super Typhoon Hagibis south-west of Japan, as captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellite on 08 October at 00:16 UTC Can you tell us a bit about your role? My daily tasks are very much involved with data services and system evolution. Currently, I am working as “Copernicus Data Services System Architect”, predominantly on the WEkEO platform and other related projects. WEkEO DIAS (Data and Information Access Services) is part of the ambitious Copernicus programme. When I joined EUMETS ..read more

Jasmin Vural shares her fellowship experience with us and gives us a peek into her role. What do you hope to achieve from the fellowship experience? Originally, my academic background is in astrophysics, so my main hope at the beginning was to transition well into the fields of meteorology and remote sensing. In addition, I wanted to do something more pragmatic; not only to feel that my work was having an impact on the world in which we live, but to also have a wider range of opportunities available to me later. What project(s) are you working on? What does your role entail? The goal of my pr ..read more

Vasileios Barlakas, who will finish his fellowship in February 2022, was kind enough to talk to us about himself and his experience so far as a fellow. Please tell us a little about yourself and your background. I come from Greece (Thessaloniki). From a young age, I have been interested in physics and would often find myself wondering about the phenomena that take place in the atmosphere. In 2004, my childhood dream started materialising when I enrolled at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki for a degree in physics. I did my specialisation in Atmospheric Physics and then pursued a master ..read more

Author: Rasmus T. Tonboe, Danish Meteorological Institute In this latest feature, Dr Rasmus Tonboe, Sea Ice Researcher at the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), talks us through the data collected throughout the mission and its use within the EUMETSAT Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility (OSI SAF). MOSAiC is the biggest and most comprehensive Arctic sea ice experiment ever. Running over a full seasonal cycle of ice growth and melt, snow accumulation, redistribution and eventual melt, total winter darkness and summer daylight for 13 months, it is distributed on six sh ..read more

People around the world are having to adapt to a new way of working, teaching and entertaining right now, making the most of available web technologies. There is a wealth of online resources out there, however, if you’re interested in learning more about Earth observation and satellite data, EUMETSAT has a range of material available to help you understand and apply the data we provide. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on oceans and atmosphere We have already run two Copernicus MOOCs on ocean and atmospheric monitoring that attracted over 10,000 participants in total from all over the wor ..read more