General Interest

2004 was a big year for both the UK Met Office and the BBC. The Met Office celebrated its' 150th birthday, having been the first to be set up in the world. The BBC celebrated  50 years of live television weather broadcasts and I celebrated 30 years of  television broadcasting with them.

My previous article was about the old BBC graphics systems which I knew something about. Now we move onto the new, which was introduced shortly after I was forced to retire.

The British Antarctic Surbey team purchased their first Davis Vantage Pro in 2004 to use on the air strip at Sky-Blu,
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/Living_and_Working/Stations/Sky_Blu/index.html.  The instrument is used to give reliable information to their support aircraft during take off and landings.  The groomed blue ice runway is up to 1.2km in length and 50 m wide, permanently marked by flags.

A second purchase in 2005 means the new Davis Vantage Pro 2, with its increased transmission range of up to 300 metres, is to be located at Fossil Bluff later in the year, http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/Living_and_Working/Stations/Fossil_Bluff/index.html.  this site is a facility for refueling aircraft and forms a transit sttaion for summer groups.  You land on a snow/ice runway 1200 m in length approximately 1 mile away from the hit.  Rows of drums mark the runway and contain fuel for refueling the aircraft.

The readings given to support aircraft by the Davis instruments is invaluable for transporting people, supplies and fuel safely in the harsh weather conditions experienced.

For many years I have been using the expression “Global Warming is the ultimate weapon of mass destruction”    Why?