China will put into service a new meteorological satellite in 2007 to gather meteorological information at high altitude around the globe, said a chief engineer with China's meteorological satellite center on Tuesday.

"The Fengyun-3 meteorological satellite is being manufactured by the eighth research institute in Shanghai under China Aerospace Corp. It will be launched into an 870-kilometer-high orbit to observe how temperature changes with altitude," said Xu Jianmin, who is a deputy to the annual session of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature in Beijing.

He told Xinhua in an exclusive interview that Fengyun-3 will enable China to observe the atmospheric temperature changes over oceans and gather meteorological information at higher altitude around the globe.

"Through analyzing changes of atmospheric temperature relative to altitude, we'll know the changes of atmospheric pressure relative to altitude, movement of air currents and overall weather information," said Xu.

China has put into service Fengyun-1 and Fengyun-2 satellites to observe clouds and ground situations. From Jan. 1 of this year, China started to provide information collected by Fengyun-2 meteorological satellite to Southeast Asian countries hit by tsunami.

(Xinhua News Agency March 8, 2005)