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Comment by dtf | Hacker News Reader

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

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.

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>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_...

[1]: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/resources/hadleyc...

I take it you didn't listen to the programme.

No. 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.

I 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.

> 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?

Its not contentious. The program was by an anti science climate change denier and was a total pile of shite.

> 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'.

Quentin Letts is a climate change denier.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/aug/05/whats-the...

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