Here we speak to Dr Christoforos Tsamalis from the Met Office about his research in support of forecasting applications and climate monitoring.

In order to obtain accurate weather forecasting models you need sea surface temperature measurements, especially when forecasting storms and cyclones. Using satellite observations to measure sea surface temperature provides you with a global picture.

There are two types of satellite instruments that provide information about sea surface temperature:

Instruments working in the infrared spectrum

Instruments working in the microwave spectrum (not affected by clouds)

The Operational Sea Surface Temperature and Sea Ice Analysis (OSTIA) system then merges the information from different satellites together with in situ observations to create a high resolution analysis of the current sea surface temperature for the global ocean.

Featured Educators:

• Dr Christoforos Tsamalis

Explore the data

EUMETSAT Oceans MOOC Data Viewer

View featured satellites on the satellite tracking app

• Metop-B

Don’t forget you can download the video and transcript with the links on the right.