Next few days to next few decades

BBC Weather presenter and Met Office forecaster Peter Gibbs takes a behind the scenes look at weather prediction.

BBC Weather presenter and Met Office forecaster Peter Gibbs takes a behind the scenes look at weather prediction, on timescales from a few hours, up to several decades in the case of climate change.

Weather forecasting is one of the few areas where scientists are expected to routinely predict the future. Technology such as satellites and supercomputers give meteorologists the firepower to achieve consistently good forecasts over periods of a few hours to a few days using sophisticated simulations, but chaos muddies the waters beyond that.

Perhaps surprisingly then, similar models are used to make useful predictions about climate decades into the future, while it's the intermediate timescale of seasonal forecasts that are currently the most challenging.

Peter will explain the science behind the forecast and may ask for your help in demonstrating some of the principles!

Register to tell a friend about this lecture.

Comments

If you would like to comment about this lecture, please register here.

©2003-2006 Niminim Limited. Created by

Any ad revenue is entirely reinvested into the Lecture List's operating fund