The Met Office currently operates as a Trading Fund within the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). The Committee welcomes the move to BIS, particularly given the potential for closer links with the research base and the opportunity to develop further its commercial activities. Core services though for the public service must be maintained. The Met Office generates a significant proportion of its revenues from Government contracts and Customer Service Agreements, in addition to its' commercial services and the Government should provide clearly defined funding commitments. This would allow the Met Office to take a longer-term perspective on scientific and operational development. The Government has no plans to privatise the Met Office, which the Committee saw as putting at risk the strong partnerships built with international partners and the sharing of crucial meteorological data. Also the Committee welcomes the Government's initiative of Public Data Corporation. Some concern though is expressed that scientific advances in weather forecasting and the associated public benefits (particularly in regard to severe weather warnings) are available but are being held back by insufficient supercomputing capacity. The Met Office should attempt to streamline the scrutiny of science under one committee and develop a strong customer relationship with key government departments.

UPGRADE YOUR SMALL TALK GUIDED BY WORLD-LEADING WEATHER EXPERTS! From Foggy and Freezing to Scorching and Stormy, join the ultimate weather adventure through the great British seasons and uncover the extraordinary in every single day*. Are YOU the ultimate weather watcher? Do you know your drizzle from your mizzle? Ever wondered what rainbows are really made of? And could you pinpoint where lightning has struck twice? Pore over beautiful cloudscapes, learn the secrets of sunsets, discover freak weather and fogbows, and why forecasting was so important in British history, from D-Day to the Great Fire of London. Perfect for rainy days in or cloudspotting on the go, the Met Office share the best of almost 170 years of forecasting for the first time in this beautifully illustrated book. Packed with mythbusting, top trivia, stunning visuals and archive gems, shooting the breeze has never been so interesting! *Even when it is tipping it down.

An updated edition of The Cloud Book, featuring 12 new recognised cloud forms. This guide to the clouds helps you identify cloud types and understand their implications for the weather. It follows a logical progression from low clouds to high stratus clouds, and on to special clouds, with a foreword from the Met Office's chief meteorologist.

A history of weather forecasting, and an animated portrait of the nineteenth-century pioneers who made it possible By the 1800s, a century of feverish discovery had launched the major branches of science. Physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and astronomy made the natural world explicable through experiment, observation, and categorization. And yet one scientific field remained in its infancy. Despite millennia of observation, mankind still had no understanding of the forces behind the weather. A century after the death of Newton, the laws that governed the heavens were entirely unknown, and weather forecasting was the stuff of folklore and superstition. Peter Moore's The Weather Experiment is the account of a group of naturalists, engineers, and artists who conquered the elements. It describes their travels and experiments, their breakthroughs and bankruptcies, with picaresque vigor. It takes readers from Irish bogs to a thunderstorm in Guanabara Bay to the basket of a hydrogen balloon 8,500 feet over Paris. And it captures the particular bent of mind—combining the Romantic love of Nature and the Enlightenment love of Reason—that allowed humanity to finally decipher the skies.

Become an expert on clouds and skies with this definitive guide to cloudspotting, produced in association with the Met Office. Clouds have been the object of fascination throughout history, providing food for thought for scientists and daydreamers alike. In this comprehensive guide to the skies, Dr. Richard Hamblyn introduces you to all the different cloud species, including twelve newly recognized cloud forms. Produced in association with the Met Office—the world’s premier weather forecasting bureau—all things to do with the origin and development of a cloud are here. Whether you are looking at a giant fluffy cloud or a tiny fleeting wisp, your cloudspotting will be expertly informed and much more satisfying with this guide. Not only will you be able to identify individual clouds as they appear, but also to track their likely changes over time, and thus predict weather patterns. Illustrated with stunning images from around the globe, this book will unlock the mysteries of the skies so that you can enjoy cloudspotting and skygazing every day.