4 ms·
Not sure if available worldwide, but there was a very interesting Radio 4 program recently, "What's the Point of The Met Office?", asking all sorts of awkward q
by dtf 11y ago
Not sure if available worldwide, but there was a very interesting Radio 4 program recently, "What's the Point of The Met Office?", asking all sorts of awkward questions of this venerable institution.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06418l5 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06418l5
Of particular interest is the Met Office's constant demand for bigger more expensive computers, and its recent moves into the more politically contentious territory of climate change policy.
- alecdbrooks 11y ago>Of particular interest is the Met Office's constant demand for bigger more expensive computers, and its recent moves into the more politically contentious territory of climate change policy. It doesn't seem that interesting to me. One of the reasons supercomputers are built in the first place is for studying weather and climate [0]. And "politically contentious" or not, climatology is a reasonable thing for a meteorological office to study. For example, the National Weather Service in the United States does both. Also, the Met Office has been involved in climate research [1] for a long time, so it's hardly "recent." [0]: For example: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/0829_050829_supercomputer.html http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/0829_050829_... [1]: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/resources/hadleycentre http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/resources/hadleyc...
- dtf 11y agoI take it you didn't listen to the programme.
- alecdbrooks 11y agoNo. What is it about how the Met Office studies climate change and requests new computers that is interesting? They both seem self-explanatory, so it didn't seem like listening to a 28-minute program would be worthwhile.
- DanBC 11y agoI did. It was mostly horseshit. If there's anything you think is particularly important you're probably better off pulling put those points and presenting them independantly. There were so many innaccuracies in the program that usin it discredits any point you want to make.
- megablast 11y ago> Of particular interest is the Met Office's constant demand for bigger more expensive computers, and its recent moves into the more politically contentious territory of climate change policy. I am confused at why this is contentious, this is exactly what I would expect them to do?
- justincormack 11y agoIts not contentious. The program was by an anti science climate change denier and was a total pile of shite.
- reasonishy 11y ago> anti science climate change denier Not everything is quite so black and white. You shouldn't be so quick to divide people into "goodies" and "baddies". You can be absolutely against spending public money on climate change research, whilst not being 'anti science'.
- DanBC 11y agoQuentin Letts is a climate change denier. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/aug/05/whats-the-point-of-bbc-editorial-guidelines-climate-change http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/aug/05/whats-the...