Natural England and the Met Office join forces to measure climate change

A project undertaken by Natural England that monitors the effects of climate change and air pollution on biodiversoty is to begin working alongside the Met Office.

The Long-term Monitoring Network (LTMN) is one of the ways that Natural England measures the effects of climate change, air pollution and land management on the natural environment.

Its aim is to understand these effects so that Natural England can give the best advice on mitigating or adapting to long-term environmental changes.

The partnership with the Met Office will see it add its meteorological expertise to the network to bring it right into the 21st century.

Tim Hill, Natural England’s chief scientist, said: "This new partnership gives us clearer data more frequently over an extended network of stations.

"That expanded capacity gives us a better picture of how the natural environment is responding to long-term changes, and at the same time simplifies the management of the network."

At present the network has 32 monitoring stations, mostly on National Nature Reserves and sometimes in very remote locations. Weather data comes from a network of 16 weather stations, and is retrieved monthly.

Not all monitoring sites currently have useful weather data available to them. Any equipment faults can take a long time to discover, which can lead to gaps in our understanding.

Under the new partnership, the Met Office will upgrade all the existing weather stations with new communications equipment, and install new ones at up to 13 further sites.

They will connect the stations to their Meteorological Monitoring System, using the mobile phone network, meaning the data will be routinely sent to the Met Office’s Exeter headquarters, and checked daily for quality.

In return, the Met Office will be able to use data from Natural England stations to validate its weather forecasts.

Jim Trice, of the Met Office, said: "Working in partnership with organisations such as Natural England helps the Met Office develop, improve and refine the services we provide.

"The Met Office uses a vast array of weather data gathered from a number of sources including weather stations across the UK.

"The data from Natural England’s monitoring network will make a valuable contribution to the Met Office’s ability to accurately monitor and provide weather advice."

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