The Met Office today announced that it has become a member of the International Space Innovation Centre (ISIC), supporting collaboration in the use of Earth Observation data and other satellite technologies.
A major focus of the Met Office activities in ISIC will be in support of Space Weather - the influence of solar events on the earth and its surroundings.
Space weather, such as Solar Mass Ejections (SME's), affects many aspects of modern technology that we rely on every day - such as navigation and communication, power distribution, aircraft and the space based instrument operations.
Working within ISIC the Met Office, along with other partners in the UK, will help to ensure that efforts are coordinated as part of an international programme with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Weather Service that is working toward the delivery of operational space weather alerts.
Vicky Pope, Head of Integration and Growth, who is leading the Met Office partnership with ISIC said "Our participation in ISIC will be building on the extensive work that the Met Office already do to exploit Earth Observation data for weather and climate monitoring. In particular we will focus on ways to improve the application of Earth Observation data in disaster risk reduction beyond weather forecasting."