The Meteorological Office makes full operational use of pictorial weather satellite data in preparation of routine analyses of the atmospheric fields of wind, temperature, pressure and humidity. There are two types of satellite, polar orbiting and geostationary: the polar orbiter scans the globe from a height of about 830 km and as the globe rotates beneath the satellite each area is scanned twice in 24 hours; the geostationary satellite rotates with the globe and takes frequent pictures of the same area from a height of about 35000 km.

The pictorial data are in the form of visual and infra-red images and when used together can provide considerable information about the height, type and density of the clouds. Vertical temperature profiles within the atmosphere are also retrieved from polar orbiting satellites using linear regression techniques, but there are problems yet to be solved in areas of heavy cloud and precipitation. The paper was presented at Oceanology International 1982, held at Brighton.