Weather Industry Luminary Joins Spire, a Satellite Data Provider

April 12, 2016 – Satellite-powered data company, Spire, announces today that Alexander (Sandy) MacDonald has joined Spire to lead a group to test the use of Spire Radio Occultation soundings in weather assimilation and prediction models. 
 
Spire has deployed the world’s first commercial weather satellite network and continues to strengthen it with month-on-month launches, producing 100,000 GNSS Radio Occultation (GNSS-RO) profiles per day in 2017.  Dr. MacDonald and his team are developing a research-focused assimilation and prediction system that is optimized for testing the impact of high-volume RO data, enabling Spire to internally validate the quality of its data and to demonstrate the impact on forecasting accuracy. The team also serves as a weather and modeling center of expertise that will provide support to Spire customers on the uses of RO data.
 
“Spire cares tremendously about understanding our customer needs,” said Peter Platzer, CEO at Spire. “Dr. MacDonald’s team will provide us with deep insight into how customers are using or could use our data, and to demonstrate how our data contributes to saving lives and property through a better understanding of extreme weather events.”
 
Dr. MacDonald is the former director of NOAA’s largest research facility, the Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL), and was the 2015 President of the American Meteorological Society (AMS).  In addition to receiving numerous awards from the federal government, Dr. MacDonald holds the patent for Science on a Sphere ©, a luminous animated globe installed in more than 100 museums around the world. 
 
“After many years in the public sector, I am excited to be joining a dynamic organization that has a vision for improved weather forecasting that matches my own, with a clear ability to implement it,” said Dr. MacDonald. At Spire, Dr. MacDonald will also be developing advanced energy design systems for the global market, similar to that demonstrated for the US in a recent paper he published in Nature Climate Change.
 
Dr. MacDonald’s team, based in Boulder, Colorado, expects to work closely with the US community modeling effort and the COSMIC II program, reflecting Spire’s wider belief in public-private-academic partnerships.  
 
About Spire
Spire Global, Inc. is a leading player in the nanosatellite sector, building the world’s most advanced, constantly refreshed constellation. In an industry that is used to measuring development periods in years, Spire has accelerated timelines to a period of just weeks. Spire’s solutions offer organizations insights into weather & climate, shipping & supply chain and maritime domain awareness. This network of nanosatellites senses the ¾ of the planet inaccessible to most current systems which rely largely on land-based remote sensing. To learn more, visit: www.spire.com
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Contact Information

Nick Allain

Director of Brand

Spire Global Inc

press@spire.com