During the 1970s, the Meteorological Office's numerical models of the global atmospheric circulation began to simulate the main features of the world's climate and its variations and show that the climatic consequence of increasing the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere was global warming. The Office's previous predictions by simpler models of a general warming much accentuated in polar regions were confirmed, but further study with improved models and a more powerful computer would be required to assess these climatic effects and their likely economic and social impact with real confidence.

The causes and the economic and social consequences of climatic change were debated in the House of Lords on 30 November 1978. The opening speaker, Lord Tanlaw, asked the government whether there was cause for concern in the current increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide and apparent change in global weather patterns. He referred to an article by the Office's Director-General that had been published in Nature (1978, Vol. 276, pp. 327–328). In this, Dr Mason had suggested that a doubling of carbon dioxide would lead to an increase in global temperature of two or three degrees Celsius. Though this was a modest increase, Lord Tanlaw said, it “might well lead to increased food production by prolonging the growing season and, furthermore, produce considerable savings in energy consumption”. There might, though, be “unforeseen disadvantages”, such as adverse effects on agriculture in some parts of the world as a result of changes in rainfall patterns. The melting of glaciers might also cause sea level to rise and thus threaten coastal communities.

The first ‘flying machines’ were flimsy and the motions of the atmosphere capricious. Many an early aeroplane was damaged or wrecked when dashed to the ground by an unexpected gust of wind. The pioneers of aviation certainly needed meteorological assistance, and the French pilot Louis Paulhan did indeed gain some when, in April 1910, he won the prize of £10,000 offered by the Daily Mail for being the first to fly between London and Manchester in under twenty-four hours. The Meteorological Office made elaborate provision to keep him supplied with information about the prospective weather en route.

The Emergence of Aeronautics

The Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, informed the House of Commons on 5 May 1909 that the Government wished to apply the “highest scientific talent” to problems of aerial navigation. He had appointed a special committee which would be chaired by Dr Glazebrook, Director of the NPL, and include among its members Dr Shaw, Director of the Office.

The Met Office is a well-respected and familiar British institution, whose weather forecasts people hear every day. News about its activities and advice are discussed at length in the media and in Parliament. It was founded in 1854 and still goes strong. Queen Victoria had personal weather forecasts from Admiral FitzRoy, the first director, for her three-mile voyage across the Solent to the Isle of Wight. It is not an exaggeration to say that the Office has played an important part in the history of the United Kingdom and of many other countries over this period, in both peace and war. Although it is an institution based on the application of science and technology, its outstanding staff have in fact originated some of the key developments of meteorological science and technology, a tradition that continues today.

This book had its origins in the PhD of the late Dr Jim Burton, a forecaster in the Leeds Weather Centre, who was encouraged by Sir John Houghton, then Director-General of the Met Office. His predecessor, Sir John Mason, helped the project. The necessary financial ingenuity to arrange funding for research into the history of the Office was provided by Martyn Bittlestone, our finance director, when the Office became a Trading Fund in 1996. The Chief Scientist, Professor Julia Slingo, has helped recently with her insights into developments up to 2010. I am very grateful to Malcolm Walker, formerly of Cardiff University, for accepting the invitation not only to write the book but also to listen tactfully to all the inputs from meteorologists and commentators on the text. Stan Cornford's detailed study in 1994 of the Met Office involvement in the D-Day forecast was also a significant contribution.

Some of the most distinguished scientists in the land were members of the Meteorological Council, but to little effect. As a scientific institution, the Meteorological Office was moribund in the 1890s. A scientist with vision was required.

Changes in membership were rare, and those that did occur were forced. Sir John Lefroy deputized for Richard Strachey from April 1878 to April 1879 (whilst Strachey was in India, advising the India Meteorological Department). Professor Smith died in February 1883, and the vacancy that resulted from Strachey succeeding Smith as Chairman was filled by the Radcliffe Observer, Edward Stone. William Wharton succeeded Frederick Evans as Hydrographer in July 1884, and George Darwin joined the Council in February 1885, when Warren De La Rue resigned because of failing health. George Stokes resigned in November 1887, when elected Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge, and his place on the Council went to Alexander Buchan, to represent the Scottish Meteorological Society. Thereafter, there were no more changes in membership for nearly ten years.

To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Office, Laura FitzRoy presented a portrait of her father. This was reported at the meeting of the Meteorological Council on 19 October 1904, but the anniversary otherwise passed largely unnoticed. FitzRoy's era had long since passed. However, another reason for the passing of the anniversary with so little attention paid to it could have been preoccupation with the report of an inquiry published in 1904.

Yet Another Inquiry

The impending closure of the Ben Nevis and Fort William observatories was the subject of questions asked in the House of Commons in 1902. For example, John Dewar asked the First Lord of the Treasury on 28 July whether the Government, in giving an annual grant of £15,300 to the Office, would make it a condition that these observatories “be maintained in a state of efficiency, or consider the advisability of making an additional contribution to the Meteorological Council towards the expense of properly maintaining them”. The Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour, replied, saying that he had been advised “it would not be desirable to impose conditions on the Meteorological Council or to inquire into this or that particular observatory”. He was not prepared, he said, to answer the part of the question relating to an additional contribution.

Sir George Simpson retired on 2 September 1938, his sixtieth birthday. Who would succeed him? This matter had been addressed as early as 21 February 1936, in an internal minute from J B Abraham, an Assistant Secretary in the Air Ministry, to J A Webster, a Principal Assistant Secretary.

Abraham had ruled out Lempfert and Whipple on grounds of age and ruled out Gold, too, but not on grounds of age, even though he would have been 57 when Simpson retired. Rather, there were misgivings about him. Abraham doubted he had “the administrative ability requisite in the Director of a big department” and commented that his temperament was “rather difficult”. Abraham also ruled out Corless, Entwistle, Goldie, J S Dines and E G Bilham, the five in the Principal Technical Officer grade. His conclusion was that none had shown the all-round scientific and administrative ability a Director needed. Simpson's successor would need to be someone not currently a member of the Office's staff. In Abraham's view, the field of selection was “rather restricted”. Brunt might be a possibility but appeared to “lack the personality and all-round ability which was desirable”. Perhaps the most suitable successor was Watson Watt. He was, Abraham said, “a scientist of great ability and exceptional energy”.

Sir Napier Shaw died on 23 March 1945, aged 91. In his lifetime, meteorology had been transformed, partly through his scientific insight, inspiration and leadership, but also through technological developments such as wireless telegraphy, aircraft, the radiosonde and radar. He had given the UK a leading position in international meteorology and laid the foundations which had been built upon in peacetime and wartime to form the institution the Meteorological Office had become by 1945, a scientific and technological body of national and international importance.

Further Reorganization of the Meteorological Office

Hardly had the war ended when there came yet another reorganization of the Office, this one the outcome of an inquiry into the constitution of the Scientific Civil Service. The inquiry had been carried out during the war by a committee chaired by Sir Alan Barlow, a Treasury under-secretary, and its recommendations had been presented to Parliament in September 1945 in a White Paper (Cmd. 6679). The Office was reorganized on the lines the Barlow Committee recommended. Out went the grades that had been introduced in the 1930s in response to the report of the Carpenter Committee (see Chapter 9). In came the grades of Scientific Officer, Experimental Officer and Scientific Assistant, and with them came revised scales of pay.