No breakthroughs are required to improve weather prediction. But doing these three things could save thousands of lives and millions of livelihoods
’s lower costs will attract new entrants into the weather business. They can be expected to bring products exquisitely tailored to customers’ needs and fresh ideas that open new markets.
Three things need to be done to make the most of the possibilities. One is to ensure that healthy competition does not erode basic infrastructure. The mostly governmental outfits that dominateput a great deal of effort into assimilating observations from around the world into the consistent representations of the weather their models need. The costs of this can be defrayed by selling high-value forecasts into specialist markets.s will need to be trained on the data in those representations.
Before that becomes an issue, better access is needed in the here and now. In 2019 the Global Commission on Adaptation reported that 24 hours’ notice of a destructive weather event could cut damage by 30%, and that a $800m investment in early-warning systems for developing countries could prevent annual losses of $3bn-16bn. Accordingly, the World Meteorological Organisation has made “Early Warnings for All” by 2027 its priority.