“Satellite Meteorology: past, present and future” 

by Dr Jennifer Hannafin, EPA Fellow, NUI Galway

Thursday 21st May 2009, 8pm, Botany Theatre, Trinity College, Dublin

“First light” raw data from the EUMETSAT Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget satellite sensor launched in 2002. Animation created by J. Hanafin.  

Since the launch of the first environmental satellite in 1960, observations from space have proven invaluable in both monitoring and studying the atmosphere. The most recent operational satellite series, MetOp, heralds a new collaborative era in the field of operational satellite meteorology, as it is the first joint European-US mission. This talk will give a history of different missions over the last 50 years and how they have contributed to research and operational meteorology. Advances in technology have increased the amount of data and the type of phenomena that can be observed from space. An overview of these advances and how they have impacted on meteorological science will be presented. As Ireland has recently joined the European Space Agency, their missions relevant to atmospheric research will also be described, along with an overview of the missions planned for the next 5 to 10 years.

Brief CV 

Dr Jenny Hanafin is an EPA Research Fellow at the National University of Ireland, Galway. She graduated with an honours degree in Marine Science from the then University College Galway. Her doctoral research was carried out at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami, Florida in the field of remote sensing of sea surface temperatures, from both ships and satellites. Having been awarded the Koczy Fellowship by the University of Miami in 2001, she graduated with her PhD the following year. Her first post-doctoral position was based at Imperial College London, where she worked in collaboration with EUMETSAT managing operations for a satellite sensor measuring the Earth's radiation budget. She returned to Ireland in 2006 to work on the Community Climate Change Consortium for Ireland project. She is currently collaborating with Met Éireann on a research project which uses GPS satellites to observe atmospheric humidity and assess how these observations can impact on the accuracy of the precipitation forecast.