China to introduce high resolution tech to forecast weather

Chinanews, Beijing, July 25 – The State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping and the China Meteorological Administration (CMA)signed an agreement in Beijing Tuesday on the technological cooperation and information sharing of fundamental geographic information. With the agreement, CMA will be able to obtain fundamental geographic information with high resolution images. According to Zheng Guoguang, CMA director, the signing of the agreement will lay a solid foundation for China to forecast the weather with greater accuracy.
China is a country constantly hit by bad weathers such as typhoon, thunderstorm, drought, gale, hail, fog, haze, sandstorm, heat wave, and freeze. These natural disasters have greatly affected the country's economic development, ecological environment and the basic livings of the people. In recent years, as global warming takes effect, extreme weathers occur more frequently than before. It has thus become an important task, as Zheng said, for meteorological workers to study how to raise the accuracy of weather forecast and how to forecast the weather timely and with greater details, so as to reduce the damages caused by natural disasters and to protect people’s property and lives. Acquiring fundamental geographic information with high resolution remote sensed images will greatly help meteorological workers to achieve these goals, Zheng said.
At present, the spatial resolution for the polar orbit meteorological satellites and geostationary satellites has reached 1.1 kilometers and 1.25 kilometers, respectively. The geostationary satellites can send a picture to earth once every 15 minutes. The information gathered through high resolution remote sensed images, together with the fundamental geographic information (with a scale of 1:50,000) and the information gathered through underlying surface, will make it possible for China to provide a more detailed weather information to customers based on their specific demands.