PARIS – Spire Global unveiled Spire Forecast Sept. 11, a product designed to provide the maritime industry with detailed information on atmospheric conditions including global sea surface temperatures, ocean currents, wave heights, surface winds and air temperature.
Spire Forecast is the first product from the company’s Spire Weather business unit.
“We created Spire Weather to augment and support the global weather prediction industry, from the private sector to government organizations who provide daily predictive weather information to global businesses and the world,” John Lusk, general manager for Spire’s commercial business units, said in a statement.
Founded in 2012, Spire gathers weather data in addition to tracking ships and aircraft with a fleet of more than 70 cubesats in low Earth orbit.
One of Spire’s first datasets was radio occultation, which means measuring atmospheric temperature, pressure and water vapor by observing the impact of those variables on radio waves. Spire announced Sept. 9 that its constellation collects 5,000 daily radio occultation profiles.
“Spire is working to create new tools to aid in this joint effort to illuminate the Earth,” Alexander “Sandy” McDonald, Spire Weather director, said in a statement. McDonald served previously as director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth System Research Laboratory.
“We are offering global organizations and in particular the national [meteorology] centers like NOAA a way to vastly improve weather forecasts for public safety, that’s a big part of our mission to provide the best-unbiased measure of climate available from satellites,” McDonald said.
Spire is developing information products for specific industries and market segments. Spire announced the creation in February of its Spire Maritime business unit. Spire announced an agreement in August to share data and develop products alongside Concirrus, a London-based insurance analytics company.