China has established the world's largest and most comprehensive coordinated meteorological observation system, featuring a coverage of land, sea, air and space, according to a press conference in Beijing on Saturday.
Chen Zhenlin, head of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA), and Bi Baogui, deputy head of the CMA, briefed on China's high-quality development in the meteorological field during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), saying that the comprehensive observation system consists of nine Fengyun meteorological satellites, 842 weather radars, and over 90,000 ground-based meteorological observation stations.
The CMA officials noted that China's independently-developed BeiDou system has broke the GPS system's monopoly in meteorological air sounding.
Over the past five years, China's weather radar monitoring system has been further improved and reached an international advanced level. It covers over 90 percent of densely populated areas, featuring monitoring products with complete independent intellectual property rights.
The radar monitoring system can identify over 80 percent of disastrous weather, with a better performance in monitoring small- and medium-scale severe weather like heavy rains, hail, tornadoes, and thunderstorms, according to the officials.
"China has established the world's largest and most comprehensive coordinated meteorological observation system, covering land, sea, air [and space], with meteorological satellites and radars as the mainstay, and ground meteorological stations, high-altitude meteorological detectors, ground-based remote sensing vertical observation systems and greenhouse gas observation systems as important components," said Bi.
According to the CMA, China, for the first time, has integrated 35 small commercial meteorological satellites, as supplements to Fengyun satellites in data collection, into its operational meteorological system.
China establishes world's largest, most comprehensive coordinated meteorological observation system
