Weather Forecasting

Archive Report

Action to Improve Reliability

This Year's Global Weather Experiment

The global Weather Experiment — the largest international scientific experiment in history — began Jan. 5 with a goal equal to the scope of the venture: improving man's ability to predict the weather. With worldwide drought in the background and the prospect of weather disasters always looming in the future, improved weather forecasting seems to be a goal that transcends ideology, national rivalries and international politics.

Scheduled to run the entire year of 1979, the experiment is a joint project of the International Council of Scientific Unions and the United Nations World Meteorological Organization. It involves 147 nations, six earth-orbiting satellites, 50 ships, 110 aircraft, 300 high-altitude balloons, 300 floating buoys, and a $300 million pricetag.

It is these ...

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