Part 2

Scientific and technological
innovation at the heart
of what we do

The research teams at Météo-France develop numerical climate and weather prediction models in a European cooperative mindset. This pivotal activity for the institution contributes in no small part to continually improving its operational tools and the quality of services it delivers.

Météo-France’s ability to anticipate small-scale intense weather events ever more accurately is particularly reliant on the enrichment of numerical weather prediction (NWP) systems. The excellence of climate model performances is also crucial for enabling the institution, on the one hand, to fulfil its role as a leading scientific contributor within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and, on the other, to play an instrumental part in providing world-class climate services.

Such activities are underpinned by significant means and infrastructure, which are constantly being improved and upgraded to ensure optimum performance and service:

  • essential test means (drones, aircraft, etc.) for improving our understanding of the physical processes at work in the atmosphere and validating the behaviour of NWP models;
  • observation networks, some of which are specific to Météo-France (automatic stations, radars, etc.), or pooled at international level, such as satellites;
  • computing and storage facilities with the necessary power and capacity for translating groundbreaking research into practice.

All of these sectors have seen myriad breakthroughs through 2016, in terms of a diversity of territories (South-East France and more generally the Mediterranean, Antilles and French Guiana, West Africa and the Indian Ocean among them) and environments (the atmosphere, the sea, the mountains and the city for example).

Discover the other chapters of the current part

2.2 Climate : tapping into data from the past to anticipate changes in the future