The UK Met Office is the United Kingdom’s central provider of weather, climate and oceanographic forecasts, providing meteorological services for the public, the military and for commercial businesses. Meteorological research, on both climate scales, and short term scales is carried out alongside operational forecasting.
The Met Office responsibilities include;
- Providing short term forecasts of weather to the general public, alongside weather warnings when appropriate
- Maintaining and improving observation networks (both oceanographic and atmospheric)
- Contribute to Climate programmes, advising stakeholders
- Model development and fundamental research to underpin all other activities
- Provide meteorological services to the commercial sector
In the north west shelf region the Met Office, as part of the Copernicus project (formerly MyOcean), runs a 7km resolution baroclinic model of the North West European shelf. This forecasts currents, sea surface height, temperature and salinity, as well as being coupled to a biogeochemical model. Alongside this a 2-d barotropic storm surge model is run operationally as part of an ensemble prediction system, providing services for flood forecasting.
The Met Office vision is to be the global partner of choice for weather and climate services.
