Research news

Understanding the wind in the atmosphere is very important for both weather forecasts and climate models. In August 2018 the satellite Aeolus was therefore launched to test a completely new way of measuring winds over the entire world using a very sophisticated Doppler wind lidar instrument. The …

A new Swedish-led satellite for improving coverage of the Arctic has gained support from enough countries within the European Space Agency (ESA) to receive budgetary approval. Work can now progress on building an initial prototype version of the Arctic Weather Satellite, a polar satellite with …

The Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) and SMHI began working together on open source code for processing satellite data ten years ago. Today, this collaboration – Pytroll – involves more than one hundred experts and developers from around fifteen different countries, and the software has grown …

For the first time in Swedish history, a cloud radar has been deployed in Sweden. It provides opportunities for new exciting research and opens up possibilities for collaborations in European projects.

How much energy can a solar energy plant produce? One factor that has an impact is the weather. In a research project, SMHI is developing forecasts for solar radiation and cloud cover, for use by solar energy producers both in Sweden and abroad.

Human impact on the climate has made extreme storms three times as common in the last 35 years in the West African Sahel area. Researchers have studied satellite data from the region and in a new Nature paper they show what they think causes the change.

Changes in air currents in the atmosphere has a great effect on the sea ice extent in the Arctic. Direct effect on the sea ice can be seen when the circulation patterns change. Scientists can determine this based on satellite data.

Joseph Sedlar, researcher at the SMHI, has received the EGU Award for outstanding young researchers in the field of atmospheric sciences.

Clouds affect both the weather and climate, and they play an important role in calculations of a changing climate. Despite obstructing the view, without clouds we would have it even hotter on earth, as they reduce the overall amount of incoming solar radiation. At SMHI, researchers are studying …

Satellite information is used in several different ways within SMHIs research. Two new projects are using satellites to monitor clouds in climate models to improve forecasting models.