Met Office and AI
The Met Office is a global centre of excellence in weather and climate science.
Since our founding in 1854, the Met Office has pioneered the science of meteorology and its application. To this day, we continue to push the boundaries of both science and technology, so that we can meet the demands of today and the future.
The revolution in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) represents the next frontier in forecasting developments, with huge potential to drive forward new advances in weather and climate science and services to help make society better able to stay safe and thrive in a changing climate.
The Met Office is at the forefront of harnessing the power of data science to deliver significant benefits across our work with government, businesses and the public. Aligned with the Met Office strategy, we have agreed the following strategic outcomes that we will be working towards.
- Maintaining the UK’s position as a world-leading modelling centre by remaining at the cutting edge of physics-based and ML-based modelling.
- Delivering world-leading weather and climate prediction data and intelligence through an optimal blend of both physics-based and ML-based modelling.
- Driving excellence through stimulating the national and international communities into improving the accuracy of, and trust in, ML weather and climate models by establishing the criteria for design of models and frameworks for assessment and assurance of their quality.
Our approach to embedding AI is described in the Met Office Data Science Framework, which builds upon the “fusing simulations with data science” theme within our Research and Innovation Strategy.
As well as the development of key capabilities for the use of AI in weather and climate science and services, we continue to invest in our people and culture – developing skills and evolving our work to ensure we maximise efficiency and provide trusted and reliable data and advice – and collaborate widely with exceptional organisations through our network of AI partners to complement our own expertise with that of others to support delivery of our data science ambitions.
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