Meteorological Service to Cover Sky, Earth and Space

Home>>Sci-Edu

Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, November 21, 2001

Meteorological Service to Cover Sky, Earth and Space

The geo-environment forecast in the future is different from traditional meteorological reports, for it includes natural activities' impact on the atmosphere, supervision and analysis on physical, chemical phenomena in the atmosphere, as well as global and regional climate changes.

The meteorological departments would not only observe the sky, but also explore the earth and probe into the space, says Qin Dahe, director-general of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA). That is, the meteorological service will extend to wider fields of geo-environment forecast on top of traditional weather reports.

By then better forecast service will be provided to the public as on earth, ocean and space environment. Impact to weather by earth surface will be added onto regular supervisions on temperature, rainfall and wind, and the forecast period would also be extended from today's short-term report to climate forecast over a quarter or even a year.

Different from Traditional

The geo-environment forecast in the future, says Qin, is different from traditional meteorological reports, for it includes natural activities' impact on the atmosphere, supervision and analysis on physical, chemical phenomena in the atmosphere, as well as global and regional climate changes.

It also includes impact of comprehensive atmosphere environment on social economic activities and ecological environment, and so on.

This has become a global trend of world meteorological service and departments the world over are now repositioning themselves for traditional services have undergone a process of diversification. Some developed countries are spelling out new types of technological systems and a cover-all service strategy has been brought out in the US.

Good Foundation

China's weather departments also have a good foundation for expanding new services considering the huge observation system on the earth and in the air.

The system, on top of traditional weather reports, can also observe physical and chemical elements as radiation, acid rain, pollution, sand storm and nuclear proliferation, as well as gather ecological information on forest, vegetation, ocean, water surface, earth surface, ice and snow.

On information processing and forecast techniques, the meteorological departments are able to make physical, chemical and ecological forecasts related to geo-environment.

Besides, understanding and method on environment forecast and atmosphere changes has been developed from qualitative analysis to quantitative analysis.

By PD Online Staff Li Heng