The European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts created this Forecast Sensitivity Observation Impact chart, which notes the relative importance of various datasets in reducing forecast errors. The light blue line shows the declining impact of airborne sensors as air travel declined during the COVID-19 pandemic. The orange line shows the growing importance of radio occultation data with the addition of data from the second Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate in March and Spire Global data in May. Credit: ECMWF

SAN FRANCISCO – The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration awarded its first contracts Nov. 20 to purchase radio occultation data from commercial satellite operators GeoOptics and Spire Global.

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Debra Werner is a correspondent for SpaceNews based in San Francisco. Debra earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s degree in Journalism from Northwestern University. She is a recipient...