§ Lord Kennetasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will now publish in detail the reasons, including cost benefit analysis, which led to the withdrawal of six out of eight weather ships in the North Atlantic in the last 10 years and what steps, together with neighbouring West European governments, they propose to take to secure proper information until better satellite information becomes available in the 1990s.
§ Lord TrefgarneA number of nations fund four ocean weather stations collaboratively under the North Atlantic Ocean Station Agreement. In 1977 nine vessels were operated by Norway, the Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom and the USSR to maintain a continuous presence at the four stations. The UK operated the two ships necessary to maintain one weather station. Currently five vessels are operated by Norway (1), the UK (1) and the USSR (3). These are sufficient to maintain a continuous presence at one station and only part-time presence at another two.
Since 1977 the number of nations funding the ocean weather stations has more than halved. This is because dedicated ocean weather vessels at fixed stations provide only one source of offshore observations and some nations have opted to invest in meteorological satellites, buoys, ships and aircraft of passage. The UK invests in all of these observing methods to some degree and, under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organisation, is playing the leading role in an international assessment of the impact of these various types of observations on weather forecasting. The results of this assessment are expected to be available in mid-1989 and will guide the design of a composite observing system for the North Atlantic in the 'nineties.