Bureau promises better forecasts

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Farmers want the Bureau of Meteorology to improve its long-range forecasts, or at least be clearer about the limitations of its predictions.

New South Wales graingrower John Ridley says the bureau was clearly wrong to back a wet La Nina year so strongly earlier this year, and many farmers have been caught out.

Head of the National Climate Centre, Mike Coghlan, agrees the accuracy of forecasts needs to be better, and says the bureau is working to improve the models it uses.

"Getting the land surface coupled to the atmosphere and the atmosphere coupled to the ocean models, getting that right and of course then testing those models to make sure that when we do run them forward in time they are giving us some realistic expectations," he says.

Sourced from ABC.