Agencia Estatal De Meteorología
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The State Meteorological Agency (, AEMET) is a
state agency A government agency or state agency, sometimes an appointed commission, is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government (bureaucracy) that is responsible for the oversight and administration of specific functions, s ...
of the
Government of Spain The government of Spain () is the central government which leads the executive branch and the General State Administration of the Kingdom of Spain. The Government consists of the Prime Minister and the Ministers; the prime minister has the ...
responsible for providing weather forecast, warnings of hazardous weather and assisting the administrations in such matters. The AEMET is part of the Secretariat of State for Environment of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and is headquartered in the University City,
Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...
. The agency was known as Central Institute of Meteorology from 1887 to 1978 and National Institute of Meteorology from 1978 to 2008 when it adopted its current name. The AEMET performs forecasting based on weather and climate modelling from data collected from its network of monitoring centers. The agency has centers distributed through the
regions In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...
and it has offices in almost every airport and air force base. In addition, there are monitoring observatories spread throughout the Spanish geography. It represents Spain in international meteorological institutions, such as the
World Meteorological Organization The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology an ...
(WMO), the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).


History

It was founded in 1887 as the "Instituto Central Meteorológico" by Royal Decree of August 12 and it was part of the Directorate-General for Public Instruction of the Ministry of Development. As stated in the founding Decree, the Institute had to "especially calculate and announce the probable weather to the ports and capitals of the province, without prejudice to the other scientific and practical work entrusted to it." The creation of the agency was promoted by the Development Minister Carlos Navarro Rodrigo and Francisco Giner de los Ríos, founder of the
Institución Libre de Enseñanza The Institución Libre de Enseñanza (ILE, English: ''Free Teaching Institution'') was a pedagogical experience developed in Spain for more than half a century (1876–1939). It was inspired by the Krausism, Krausist philosophy introduced at the Co ...
, in an attempt to correct the country's delayed development of modern science. It was the first institution dedicated to the meteorological service in Spain. Its first director was the scientific Augusto Arcimís who remained in office until 1910. The first headquarters of the institute was the Castle building in the Retiro Park, Madrid. With different denominations this agency has been playing the role of "National Meteorological Service" since its creation. During the Second Republic, in 1933, it became dependent on the Directorate-General for Aeronautics of the Ministry of War. After the
Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...
, in 1940, all the meteorological services were unified in the renowned "National Meteorological Service", which was attached to the Ministry of Air. In 1962 a new building was inaugurated in the
University City of Madrid The University City of Madrid (), also called the Campus de Moncloa, is a complex in the Moncloa-Aravaca district of Madrid, Spain, that holds buildings of two universities and several related organizations. The campus was built between 1929 and 1 ...
that in the 70s assumed the central services. In the democratic period, a new restructuring took place in 1978, when it was renamed the National Institute of Meteorology (INM) and became dependent on the Ministry of Transport and Communications. The second and last restructuring of the agency happened in 2008, when the National Meteorological Institute was renamed State Meteorological Agency and it assumed all the goods and responsibilities of its predecessors.


Activities and resources

AEMET's main task is "to develop, implement and provide meteorological services falling within the competences of the
State State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...
, as well as to give support to other public and private activities which improve the safety and quality of life of the Spanish society". Its activities include, among others, taking meteorological observations in Spain and archiving them, weather monitoring and forecasting, and doing scientific research in
numerical weather prediction Numerical weather prediction (NWP) uses mathematical models of the atmosphere and oceans to weather forecasting, predict the weather based on current weather conditions. Though first attempted in the 1920s, it was not until the advent of comput ...
models. To accomplish these tasks AEMET has at its disposal high computing power and a vast observation network, including staffed and automatic
weather station A weather station is a facility, either on land or sea, with instruments and equipment for measuring atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric conditions to provide information for weather forecasting, weather forecasts and to study the weather and clima ...
s,
radiosonde A radiosonde is a battery-powered telemetry instrument carried into the atmosphere usually by a weather balloon that measures various atmospheric parameters and transmits them by radio to a ground receiver. Modern radiosondes measure or calculat ...
s,
weather radar A weather radar, also called weather surveillance radar (WSR) and Doppler weather radar, is a type of radar used to locate precipitation (meteorology), precipitation, calculate its motion, and estimate its type (rain, snow, hail etc.). Modern w ...
and lightning detectors.AEMET resources


References


External links

*
Izana Atmospheric Research Center

Useful information for visitors
{{DEFAULTSORT:Agencia Estatal de Meteorologia Governmental meteorological agencies in Europe Research institutes in the Community of Madrid Government agencies of Spain