CO129-491 - Public Offices - 1925 — Page 275

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Memorandum by the Director, Meteorological office.

I see no reason why copies of the revised

Circular to Mariners should not be distributed to the

Shipping Companies mentioned in the letter from Hong Kong.

I am afraid, however, that the response is likely to be

very unsatisfactory.

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Many meteorological services have attempted to

obtain meteorological data from the ocean by issuing

general appeals to shipping to send them observations by

wireless, but they have been almost uniformly unsuccessful.

The failure of India, which for this purpose is very well situated, has been particularly marked and frequently

referred to by the Director-General of Observatories, Simla.

The experience of the Meteorological Office, London, is

that the only way to obtain satisfactory observations from

ships is to organise the service on the same lines as a

land service is organised. We provide the ships from which

we wish observations, with fully tested instruments,

registers in which to record the observations and forms on

which to code and despatch the messages. In this way we have been successful in obtaining very satisfactory

meteorological information from the North Atlantic, our success only being limited by the amount of money available,

as the service is naturally somewhat expensive. The

organisation of such a service in the Atlantic is

particularly easy owing to the regularity with which ships

cross and recross from one side to the other. I can Bee

considerable difficulty in the organisation of such a

service from Hong Kong; but I think some attempt should be made to work along the lines of individual co-operation

rather than along the lines of broadcast requests for help.

During recent years this question of obtaining meteorological observations from ships at sea has been very much before the International Meteorological Committee.

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