Science in the Met Office : thirteenth report of session 2010-12 / House of Commons Science and Technology Committee.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Science and Technology.
Date:
2012
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Science in the Met Office : thirteenth report of session 2010-12 / House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    7/136 (page 3)
    Summary As the UK’s national weather service, the Met Office aims to provide the UK and its citizens with the best weather and climate service in the world. The Met Office currently operates as a Trading Fund within the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). The move, last year, from the Ministry of Defence to BIS is welcome, particularly given the potential for closer links with the research base and the opportunity for the Met Office continue to expand activities that generate commercial income, this must not put core services for the public sector or the Met Office’s international reputation at risk. In addition to commercial revenue, the Met Office generates a significant proportion of its revenues from Government contracts and Customer Service Agreements. It is not unreasonable for the Met Office to expect clearly defined funding commitments from the Government over the period of the current spending review and we make recommendations seeking to address this problem. A clearly defined funding commitment would allow the Met Office to take a longer-term perspective on scientific and operational development. There has been much speculation over recent years about whether it would be advantageous to privatise the Met Office. We are pleased that the Government has no plans to do so. Privatisation would put at risk the strong partnerships that the Met Office has meteorological data. We heard contrasting views on how easy it is to gain free access to Met Office data. We take some reassurance from the fact that the Met Office tries to address specific data concerns as and when they arise. Best practice about making data more freely available should be drawn on from other countries. We also welcome the Government's initiative under the Public Data Corporation to make more Met Office data available, but this should be done with as little bureaucracy as possible. powerful supercomputers. The Met Office collaborates well with a number of partners both in the UK and internationally to gain access to and share observational data and to available. It is of great concern to us that these scientific advances in weather forecasting ready and waiting but are being held back by insufficient supercomputing capacity. We consider that a step-change in supercomputing capacity is required in the UK and the Government should finalise the business case for further investment in supercomputing capacity soon. The Met Office is consistently within the top three centres internationally in weather prediction. However, an accurate forecast is of little use if it is not communicated well and understood by the customer. The Met Office should work with broadcasters to improve communication. In particular, the inherent uncertainty in longer-term forecasts should be