About us

  • EUMETSAT SAFs

    Utilising specialist expertise from the EUMETSAT Member States, Satellite Application Facilities (SAFs) are dedicated centres of excellence for processing satellite data. They form an integral part of the distributed EUMETSAT Application Ground Segment. SAFs develop, generate and distribute operational satellite products including long-term data record generation.
    SAF products are designed to serve operational users : primarily Meteorological Services and other operational services in the member states and international organisations (Copernicus, ECMWF).

    • Map of the member states of EUMETSAT displaying the decentralized OSI SAF centers. Map of the member states of EUMETSAT displaying the decentralized OSI SAF centers.
  • OSI SAF

    The OSI SAF is an answer to requirements, from the meteorological and oceanographic communities of EUMETSAT Member and Cooperating States, for comprehensive information derived from meteorological satellites at the ocean-atmosphere interface. The OSI SAF offers a precious complement to in-situ data, based on continuously increasing temporal and geographical resolution products from coastal to global coverage.

    It takes into account, in particular, the requirements expressed in the framework of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), Group for High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (GHRSST), and, finally, Copernicus and its Marine environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS).

    The OSI SAF develops, processes and distributes, in near real-time, products related to key parameters of the ocean-atmosphere interface. Products are accessible on local FTP servers with flexible extraction interface, EUMETCast, and EUMETSAT Data Center (EDC). The OSI SAF also offers climatological data records.

    The OSI SAF team focuses on scatterometer winds (and soon microwave winds), Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and sea Ice Surface Temperature (IST), radiative fluxes : Solar Surface Irradiance (SSI) and Downward Longwave Irradiance (DLI), sea ice concentration, edge, type, emissivity, drift.


    The OSI SAF currently use data from meteorological satellites both in geostationary and polar orbit.

  • The overall logic of the OSI SAF during current phase (CDOP 4) is :

    • to carry into operations OSI SAF MTG and EPS-SG day-1 products already committed, and to contribute to EUMETSAT in-orbit commissioning activities of MTG-I1, METOP-SG-A1 and B1 satellites;
    • to develop innovative day-2 products, exploiting new capabilities offered by MTG and EPS-SG programmes;
    • to ensure the continuity of current operational OSI SAF products, with the necessary research and development activities to guarantee and when possible improve their quality;
    • to improve and extend in time already existing CDRs;
    • to strengthen efforts towards users in term of support, training and outreach.
  • PROJECT PHASES

    • 1997 - 2002 : Development phase
    • July 2002 - February 2007: IOP (Initial Operational Phase)
    • March 2007 - February 2012: CDOP (Continuous Development and Operations Phase)
    • March 2012 - February 2017: CDOP 2
    • March 2017 - February 2022: CDOP 3
    • March 2022 - February 2027: CDOP 4

    There are long-term commitments through secured funding until 2032 with EUMETSAT mandatory programmes.

  • CONSORTIUM and ORGANISATION

    Each SAF is co-funded by EUMETSAT and the SAF consortium members.
    The CDOP 4 consortium is constituted of Meteo-France, as leading institute, and of the following co-operating institutes : MET Norway (Norway), DMI (Denmark), Ifremer (France), KNMI (Netherlands).

    The production is based on three subsystems :

    1. Low and Mid latitude (LML) Centre, under Météo-France responsibility, processes and distributes the SST and Radiative Fluxes products covering LML, North Atlantic Regional (NAR) and Global areas. Ifremer contributes to the products distribution and archiving,
    2. High Latitude (HL) Centre, under MET Norway responsibility with the co-operation of DMI, processes and distributes the Global Sea Ice products, the High Latitude SST and the High Latitude Radiative Fluxes, 
    3. Wind (WIND) Centre, under KNMI responsibility, processes and distributes the Wind products.
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