§ 39. Mr. Markhamasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether any special funds or facilities are given to superintendents of the Meteorological Office to carry out investigations or research work; and whether the results of such investigations are published by the Meteorological Office?
§ Sir V. WarrenderNo question arises of making special payments to members of the staff of the Meteorological Office, who are all whole-time civil servants, in respect of investigations or research work carried out by them. Provision is, however, made in Air Estimates to provide payment to investigators outside the office at Universities and elsewhere, and to the National Physical Laboratory for special investigations. As regards facilities for research at the Meteorological Office, the normal work of a large proportion of the staff is in the nature of research, especially at the observatories, and the sum total of research work carried out by the staff is very considerable, as will be seen from the list of papers published by them which is 355 quoted in the annual reports of the Director of the Meteorological Office. The Meteorological Office itself publishes two series of monographs: Geophysical Memoirs and Professional Notes. During the ten years 1927–36, 35 papers have been published in the former and 29 in the latter, and many of these deal with outstanding research work in meteorological science.