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.

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    1 Introduction Background 1. The Met Office is the UK’s national weather service; it aims to “provide the UK and its citizens with the best weather and climate service in the world”.’ The difference between weather and climate is a measure of time; while weather is the condition of the atmosphere over a short period of time, climate is how the atmosphere behaves over relatively long periods of time.” Under its Public Weather Service (PWS) remit, the Met Office provides a range of weather information and severe weather warnings to enable the public “to make informed decisions” and “to mitigate against the impact of the weather” thereby contributing to “the protection of life, property and basic infrastructure”? Beyond the PWS, the Met Office provides contractual services to a range of government departments (see paragraph 9) and to commercial companies that utilise weather and climate information to inform business and operating decisions.* Underpinning these services is the science at the heart of the Met Office; remaining at the cutting edge of modelling and prediction should allow the Met Office to “provide an increasingly accurate and reliable service” .° The inquiry 2. We announced our inquiry into “Science in the Met Office” on 19 July 2011, inviting written submissions addressing the following questions: i. How effectively is the Met Office fulfilling its Public Weather Service remit? ii. Is the Met Office’s Science Strategy 2010-15 robust and achievable and how will the strategy help to deliver a better service? iii. What are the roles of the Met Office’s Chief Scientific Adviser and its other senior scientists? How do they provide comprehensive and up-to-date scientific advice? iv. How robust are the models used by the Met Office for weather forecasting, climate predictions, atmospheric dispersion and other activities? v. How effectively does the Met Office coordinate its activities with government departments, non-departmental public bodies, the UK research base and its international counterparts? 3. In the course of our inquiry we visited the Met Office in Exeter, where we toured the facilities and met representatives from senior management; we are grateful to them for : Ev 36, para 1.1 [Met Office] : NASA website, “What's the difference between weather and climate?”, www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa- n/climate/climate_weather.html Ev 66, para 1.1 [Government]; A full list of the services provided by the Met Office under the PWS can be found at Annex A. 4 Ev 36, para 1.5 [Met Office] and Ev 47, para 3.a-c [Met Office] 5 Met Office, Met Office science strategy 2010-2015, November 2010, p01