Meteorological satellite and satellite meteorology are the fastest developing new branches in the atmospheric sciences. Today the meteorological satellite has become a key element in the global atmospheric sounding system while the satellite meteorology is covering the main components of earth’s system science. This article describes the major achievements that China has made in these fields in the past 30 years. The following contents are involved: (1) History and present status of China’s meteorological satellites. It covers the development, launch, operation, technical parameters of China’s polar and geostationary meteorological satellites. (2) Major achievements on remote sensing principle and method. It describes the retrieval of atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles, cloud character retrieval, aerosol character retrieval, precipitation retrieval as well as the generation of cloud wind. (3) Achievement on the studies of meteorological satellite data application. This part covers the applications of meteorological satellite data to weather analysis and forecast, numerical forecast, climate monitoring, and prediction of short-term climate change. Besides, the new results on data assimilation, climate monitoring, and forecast are also included.
