Now a days in many parts of the world you can get some idea of what the weather will be today through full costs which depending on where you are can be remarkably accurate So when did Martin weather forecasting begin and what is the science behind it I'll be joined by 2 historians and a forecaster all of them weather experts so stay with us here on the b.b.c. World Service with me Richard Kandel after the news. I'm Stuart Macintosh with the b.b.c. News Hello President Trump has begun a visit to South Korea that's dominated by worries over the North nuclear threat Mr Trump on a tour of East Asia said he and the South Korean president Mon Jay in would work out a strategy for dealing with Pyongyang from Seoul Here's Robin Brant it's a brief visit but perhaps the most symbolic on Donald Trump's 5 country tour of Asia he's already sat down for lunch with some of the American troops stationed here there are over 30000 tomorrow here dresses politicians in this country's national assembly it's all aimed at demonstrating the resilience of a military alliance that has long protected South Korea strength in unity is the message they want to send to Kim Jong un just across the border in the north but there are strains to the President Trump has labeled his South Korean counterpart and a piece the 2 men disagree over a free trade deal the White House wants to renegotiate low here events are being held in Russia to mark the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution members of the Communist Party now in opposition are celebrating the armed uprising by Lenin's Bolsheviks with a March and rally in Moscow but President Vladimir Putin and his government are playing down the significance of the revolution there are no special events at the Kremlin on what is an ordinary working day. The u.s. Air Force has said it failed to report that Kevin Devon Kelly the man accused of shooting dead 26 people at a church in Texas had a conviction for domestic violence u.s. Officials have also revealed that he sent threatening text messages to his mother in law in the days before the attack James Cook reports Devon Kelly should not have been able to buy a gun because of a conviction for beating his wife and fracturing his stepson skull while in the Air Force and 2012 the Pentagon this investigative we have patent failure to pass on that information to civil authorities the murders in Sutherland Springs and Kelly's suicide after the gun fight and chase ended a life time of violence and anger Investigators say the killer had a grudge against his 2nd wife family some of whom were parishioners at the church a wealthy Japanese woman nicknamed The Black Widow has been sentenced to death for murdering 3 men including one of her husbands Roger Walker reports in a case that gripped Japan prosecutors at Kioto district court accused just sucker caca high 70 of using cyanide to kill her and others she amassed nearly $9000000.00 in payouts some insurance policies she'd made them take out she was said to have had relationships with mostly elderly or sick men always insisting they must be rich and childless caca high refused to speak at the start of her trial but later stunned the court by admitting that she killed her 4th husband in 2013 I was Roger Walker I'm still at McIntosh in London with the world news from the b.b.c. . Reports are coming in of an attack in Afghanistan on a private satellite television station in the capital Kabul I witness says say the men threw grenades and fired guns as they entered the Shamshad t.v. Headquarters they were thought to be more than 100 employees inside the building gunfire is reportedly still being heard there's no information about casualties more than 60 people are now known to have died in Vietnam in the worst flooding the country's seen for years about 20 others are missing floodwaters caused by a typhoon dumping heavy rain of damaged tens of thousands of homes and washed away some roads along Vietnam's south central coast in the town of a UNESCO World Heritage site the floods reached head height the Supremes courts in Papua New Guinea has rejected an application by asylum seekers to restore food supplies water and power to an Australian run detention center which officially closed last week Howell Griffith reports water food and electricity supplies were cut off at the man the center last week with the astray and government insisting the 600 men who remain there should move to alternative centers but the detainees have refused to go insisting they feel unsafe in Papua New Guinea and application on their behalf to resume basic services at the center has now been rejected by the p.m.g. Supreme Court he's trailing government has repeated its demand for the men to move calling on those who've had their asylum claims rejected to return to their home countries scientists in the United States are developing a new method of testing for malaria using a prototype breathalyzer it could offer a cheap and easy alternative to blood tests the breath samples of people with malaria give off a distinctive odor which allows detection of the disease researches say more development is needed but the breathalyzer could become a reliable means of early diagnosis helping to prevent deaths b.b.c. News how did we get from this February we may expect some showers of rain this month or the next. Well the next day after that. Or else we will have a better drive spring to this 15 hours g.m.t. Tomorrow in the village of East Hackney been 80 percent chance of rain temperature of 16 degrees Celsius with an added 2 degrees wind chill humidity of 93 percent and the u.v. Index of one how did we get from not having any reliable way of predicting the weather to an accurate tailor made for cost to replace a small Isabella. I'm Bridget Kendall and today on the forum from the b.b.c. World Service will be tracing the history of weather forecasting. With me a 3 x. But here to share their thoughts on different aspects of Michelle religion with the science of weather forecasting Christine Hopper is a former u.s. Navy Commander in naval oceanographer and now a history professor at Florida State University many of our publications focus on weather forecasting in America Peter gapes was a meteorologist with the British Antarctic Survey on the metal fence here in the u.k. Before becoming one of the best known where the fuel cost has on b.b.c. Radio and television and Peter Moore is a writer and historian with a particular interest in weather discoveries of the 19th century his book The Weather experiment traces the early stages of a scientific understanding of the Earth's atmosphere where. Graeme Badland there are a number of moments in history which could be seen as starting points for the modern scientific weather forecast but for the English sea captain Robert Fitzroy that moment might well have been the arrival of a brief for a shit storm off the coast of modern day Argentina in 829 Peter Moore you describe this moment in your book piece would you read it for as Fitzroy so. Lightning rain and hail almost at once the fragile bark one of a class ridiculed as Coffin Briggs by naval men was helpless in the face of the assault her top masts and been was sheared off along with a 100 full of spiders at one terrifying moment she was pitched back on her beam ends in the rolling sea within a few degrees of capsizing it was only when Fitzroy cut away the best power and small bower anchors that she was brought to the wind and righted by 6 pm just 15 minutes after the storm had hit the worst had passed but not before a 2nd seaman had been lost overboard thank you please remove I'm Captain Robert Fitzroy was an important figure in the history of weather forecasting tell us a bit more about him why was he said he. Fitzroy to some is known as the founding father of British meteorology he was the 1st boss I suppose of the mater office when it was founded in 854 although it had a very different remit than the one it has today's best known probably in popular history is being Charles Darwin's captain on a much bigger kind of strutting character which belies I think more interesting reading of Fitzroy his life which was that he was a pioneering scientist he was a humanist to some extent he really really wanted to leave his mark on history as the pioneer of the weather forecast a term he invented and what is his job entailed the new Mr Logical Department to the Board of Trade which was to become known as the Met Office later what did it entailed he was hired originally really to send out old historical weather archives a to go to places like the observatory zing Greenwich or q. To look through the Naval records abductee and start compile Levy's win maps which would show where the wind blew to particular time during the year so that the merchant fleet really could plot more scientific reach rather than just sailing straight from one port to another and this systematic collection of data is clearly important but what was going on before he started doing this how did people manage to navigate their way through weather gauge what weather to expect weather at sea or sailors or farmers or anyone else well it was a large body of contemporary wisdom which goes from the behavior animals or the appearance of clouds and sky and whatnot and the idea that it could be a science at all was a challenge by some people you know this was the heavens And it just kind of went on as it did and it was capricious that was the weather so that was what Fitzroy was born into this idea of weather being chaotic. He was at the forefront of a movement to try and look for patterns and collect data and see some order if you like but Chris hope it's true isn't it that the new metal system in London where Fitzroy was wasn't the only place taking a more scientific approach in the mid 19th century in the United States to there was a move on the way to produce where the charts for shipping Well that's right Navy Officer Matthew fun tain Mori who unfortunately for him had been injured in an accident and could no longer go to sea had been stuck at a place called the Navy's depot of charts and instruments and this was not a place to be if you were going to be a successful naval officer let's just put it that way and so he needed something to do and so he started looking through the log books and compiling the information that was there that was recorded as as these ships were underway and based on that information he was able to make charts that showed what the prevailing winds were and the prevailing ocean currents were for different times of the year and then he could give these to ships captains and said Ok take a look at this and make sure that your path follows along so that you have winds that are that are blowing you there and that they will have winds that are blowing you back and by the way please bring me the information on how that worked out for you and then he would update his charts and eventually his ideas got to Europe where they were really taken in as being very important I have to tell you that Europeans look at Mori as being a big deal in meteorology more than Americans do they kind of consider him to be like Ok but it was very important to European meteorology and you think he was partly an inspiration to Fitzroy Peter. Really came before Fitzroy and I think what they wanted Fitzroy to do was replicate the success of the night in America a very Britain so this is a kind of very economic driven you know this is not because. People might think of the weather forecast as a humanitarian kind of thing this is the British government wanting to make more money because they want their merchant fleet to get to where they need to go faster though there was another technological advance around this time last night which was also important for the move towards weather forecasting and that was the development of the 1st electrical Telegraph Peter gets How did that help it's all about getting the big picture really I mean weather systems span hundreds of miles dynamic they're moving changing all the time to have any hope of actually predicting where they're going to go next how intense they're going to be you need to get an instance that shot of what the weather is doing at any one moment and that's exactly what the Telegraph allowed all these telegraph stations taking weather observations collating that to one center and then from that you could actually if you could see a storm coming from the west you could see it moving hour by hour you had some hope of warning people head of it of what was actually to come so Peter Moore How was it then that Fitzroy came up with the idea and the phrase weather forecast Well I think you could look back to the old phrases or the old let's call toolkit he had prognosticate which sounds very strange word to us today I mean I'd like to see Peter Gibbs whether probably last not a great deal of you said that would be really good or prediction or prophecy which is even what they were doing something new and they needed a new word to describe it I think it's interesting if you look back to Fitzroy his background as a naval officer and the front of the ship is called the fo'c'sle or the forecastle as it's pronounced I wonder if you just take the last 2 letters of forecastle you come up with forecast and I wonder whether Fitzroy the old sea captain might have been thinking in these terms because you want to something that sounded precise you wanted something which was about a projection into the future and you needed a new term and this was the word he settled on let's just try that one Chris as a former u.s. Navy Commander what you think about that idea Well certainly it would make sense from a navels. Standpoint or for from somebody who spent their whole life at sea which fits right basically had that is the leading edge of the ship and certainly when we're making a forecast we're trying to be at the leading edge of the atmosphere to give people a clue as to what's going on. Ok so that's the word but what was actually happening this was storm warnings here so you we've got the telegraph which appears you know in America and Europe and he 1840 is really kind of becomes more prevalent and it's a network which builds they want you've got this creation of a data network and people start to use it for meteorology rather than using it things like long distance games of chess which was the 1st thing they used before they started to be able to spot the storms as they were coming Ok and then you have a moral obligation or at least you know if you know if you're the person at the end of the Telegraph as Fitzroy was because he did Clayton alist or especially as he being in the storms in the South Atlantic being installed is light and Tema now I think this is a really important point whether Tim was not an abstract thing he's someone who sailed you know for the Straits Miguel and he's had the wind through his hair he's seen how dangerous and how violent it could be this time a lot of people were dying around the British coast just because they had no warning of storms and so this is when you come into the crisis of the moral crisis I suppose which is if you have the information about a storm coming what should you do about it and Fitzroy was very much of the mind that he wanted to do something but Chris Hopper we should remember that Fitzroy wasn't the only one doing this was he Britain wasn't the only country starting to storm warnings I believe the Dutch got there 1st yeah the Dutch started in June of 1860 that was the real debt meterological Institute. I was doing that and I think if you look at Dutch topography which is pretty darn flat and with water coming up around the edges of the country there that it makes sense for them that they would have wanted to have put out warnings and you can contrast that with the French who at the same time were willing to put out observations no other words to report what had been reported to them but they weren't really ready to make forecasts yet well let's come on in the u.k. Then move to so we've had storm warnings for shipping and saying listen fisherman but then the next step is the weather forecasts for the general public do you know when the 1st one was published and why we do it was in the Times on the 1st of August in 1861 Ok And it's important you distinguish it between the storm warnings in the forecast because the storm warnings of course are very specific when there's a storm on the way and people can spot those forecasting as. You know as Chris and peace will tell you it is a lot more complicated and there was a big step from one to the next but I think Fitzroy is reasoning was that one should gathering all this data from your interpret to see whether the storm away but you might as well let the public know the results of your kind of interpretation anyway even if there isn't a storm on the way because then you can tell them you know it's going to be nice weather in Weymouth in the south of England or it's going to be bad weather and Aberdeen in the north that kind of thing and this happened yeah on the 1st of August 1861 well let's hear about 1st published forecasts the 1st time a government institution had issued a weather forecast to their ironically Fitzroy had no official mandate for this and acted purely on his own initiative Peter Gibbs please read it 1st. General weather probable in the next 2 days in the north moderate westerly wind fine in the West moderate southwesterly fine in the selfe fresh westerly fine but I think get away with that. Is you know I'm afraid I'm old enough that it reminds me of for cos I can remember when I was Smoove just shows what a long way things go on interest or in lifetime and actually still quite similar to the shipping forecast that we have in the u.k. Which is a bit of a national institution and still is in the simple form because people need to bear to hear it and actually act on it. One of the most powerful Atlantic storms ever recorded hurricane Amma has been battering the Caribbean Island 70 get you to and then the u.s. National Hurricane Center said winds on the recent Tarakan And of course being able to forecast extreme weather events has always been a priority because the damage they can do but the path towards understanding the science behind them has been anything but smooth these only weather forecasts were essentially trying to find patterns in my day trying to apply them to current situations but in 1004 all that changed when a Norwegian physicist called Bill him back nice published an article which called for a new approach using mathematical calculations to work out a forecast known as numerical weather prediction I mean Chris this was revolutionary wasn't it well it was because here you know us was actually a physicist the was in a meteorologists and he was a rather perturbed that the meteorologists spent a lot of time kind of waving their hands around and not looking to the physics that had to be behind atmospheric motion so he published this paper in $1000.00 No 4 and his suggestion was that if you could figure out what your conditions were at any given time spirit conditions on the Earth's surface so we're talking about air. Sure in temperature primarily at that point and then you could plug that information into the equations of motion that would govern how the air moved whether it's moving across the surface or whether it's moving vertically then you could get into write those equations and move it forward in time and then figure out what the weather was going to be in the future and so although he knew he couldn't do it at the time because they didn't really have the way to handle the equations they're not equations that you can just sit in Solve they have to be they have to be solved what we call numerically as kind of as a sophisticated way of doing guess and check I guess is