UCL Public Policy

• Home
• Policy events
• Past policy events
• Policy briefings
• Policy secondments
• Policy commentaries
• Policy projects
• Policy engagement and partnerships
• UCL Research & Parliament
• Policy strategy
• Get involved
• Policy expertise

Ground-breaking weather predictions

The development of computer models that can predict global weather patterns has resulted in two spin-out companies, a website (which received more than 1.6 million hits in 2007) and produced warnings to help plan for extreme tropical weather conditions. During Cyclone Sidr in 2007, Tropical Storm Risk (TSR) helped the Bangladeshi government plan mass evacuations and keep casualties at around 3,500, a fact praised by Bangladeshi officials. Since 2004, TSR has worked in partnership with ReutersAlertNet, a humanitarian news site that distributes real-time TSR alerts for active extreme weather events worldwide.

The ventures were developed from work by Professor Mark Saunders and his fellow climate researchers at the university’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL). Using sophisticated computer models, the team can assess the strength and pathway of storms, when they will arrive at geographical locations and how much damage they could cause. TSR tracks hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones worldwide and offers un-rivalled accuracy in mapping their impacts. Eurotempest focuses on the destructive wind storms that often sweep across the European continent.

<Back to Examples