Royal Met Society meetings

[franksingleton]

In view of criticisms that are heaped on the Met Office, anyone in the Reading area might like to know aboutthis event. Go along and have a go!



I would like to bring to your attention a meeting that might interest you.

Never far from controversy – the history of the Met Office 1854 – 2010
From 7pm at The Town Hall, Victorian Gallery, Blagrave Street, Reading, Berkshire RG1 1QH

(Directions: http://www.readingarts.com/townhall/howtogetthere)
Never far from controversy – the history of the Met Office 1854-2010
Malcolm Walker, Chairman of the Royal Meteorological Society’s History Group.
From its inception, the Met Office has never been far from controversy. Hundreds of questions have been asked in Parliament, and the media have never been slow to voice their criticisms and there have been numerous public inquiries into the work of the Office. From the first storm warnings for seafarers to the Barbecue Summer and those clouds of volcanic ash, the story of Britain's state meteorological service has been punctuated by calls for the Office to justify the money spent on it.

When the Office took its first tentative steps, it was a sub-department of the Board of Trade with a staff of four and a budget of a few thousand pounds per year. It is now an Executive Agency and Trading Fund responsible to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, with a staff of more than 1,800 and a turnover of nearly two hundred million pounds per year. It is "everybody's servant", to quote an editorial in The Times, and it has always endeavoured, to quote the motto on the Office's coat of arms, "to predict the weather through knowledge".

Throughout its history, the Met Office has been the object of unreasonable attack but the Office has become over the years a most highly respected member of the international meteorological community and second to none in respect of weather and climate forecasting. This talk will focus upon the highways and a few byways of the history of the Meteorological Office, from 1854 to the present day.


The event is free, and open to members and non-members of the RMetS.



104 Oxford Road Reading Berkshire RG1 7LL
t: +44(0)118 9568500 |
e: chiefexec@rmets.org | w: www.rmets.org

 

[franksingleton]

Royal Met Society meeting, Durham

Your chance to go and confront the Met Office Chief Scientist. I do not think that she bites!

THE GORDON MANLEY LECTURE 2011 - Society’s growing vulnerability to natural hazards and implications for geophysical research.[.b]
Date: Thursday, 24th November 2011 Time: 17.00 Location: Geography Department, University of Durham
Email: dennis.wheeler@sunderland.ac.uk

THE GORDON MANLEY LECTURE 2011


This year’s Gordon Manley Lecture will be held on Thursday 24th November at 1700 hours in the Geography Department of the University of Durham. Our speaker is Professor Julia Slingo (UK Met Office). Her lecture is titled: “Society’s growing vulnerability to natural hazards and implications for geophysical research.”


Abstract

Recent natural hazards around the world have raised our awareness of our vulnerability, challenged our scientific understanding and questioned our ability to predict and prepare for such events. This lecture will take some recent examples and use them to explore the implications for the research agenda in weather and climate modelling and prediction, and in how to translate our predictions into products and services that address user needs.


150 years on since the first public weather forecast was issued by the Met Office, the prospects of modelling and predicting hazardous events and their impacts will be discussed in terms of our current capabilities and what investments are needed in model development, supercomputing resources and the science of interdisciplinary impacts. We live in an uncertain world, and preparedness requires us to take account of that uncertainty. The science challenges of moving towards more reliable and confident predictions that take us from uncertainty to probabilities and risk based assessments will be discussed.

R Met Soc meetings are usually open to the public and free. You will even get a cup of coffee or tea and a biscuit. If in the area, you cannot afford not to go.

 

[binch]

Wind arrows

Why are conventional wind arrows, c/w fletching, not shown on TV forecast progtammes?
Years ago the shipping forecast was read at a moderated cadence. Today it is gabbled. Is that the fault of the BBC?

 

[franksingleton]

Why are conventional wind arrows, c/w fletching, not shown on TV forecast progtammes?
Years ago the shipping forecast was read at a moderated cadence. Today it is gabbled. Is that the fault of the BBC?

Those are questions to put tpo the TV weather people. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/hi/about/newsid_7788000/7788199.stm. I retired many years ago.

I was only putting these meetings up because I know that there is much interest in climate change and because there are often complaints about the met office. Such comments might be aired at the the reading meting.