Redesign cost $96 million, new chief Stuart Minchin reveals
“I really try to be open and transparent about how we approach things, being open to saying when something is wrong,” he said.
“It’s easy to get defensive when you’re regularly criticized and beaten, but I don’t think that’s helpful.”
The website disaster occurred last year after the bureau sent a fake tsunami warning to half the country during the transition to new software. The message was marked “test” but caused alarm among many in NSW, Victoria and Queensland and the agency was forced to apologize.
Minchin acknowledged another public lapse by the bureau by asking people using the popular phrase “BoM” to switch to “Bureau” in 2022, prompting another rebuke from the department.
Then-environment minister Tanya Plibersek said the bureau’s focus “should be on the weather, not the brand.”
Minchin said it was an “incredible privilege” to lead the agency, which he referred to as “BoM.”
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“There are very few roles where your science can have an immediate impact on everyone’s daily life and safety,” he said.
Minchin’s career began working in water management at CSIRO, the country’s top science agency. He went on to lead Geoscience Australia’s environmental division, where he led the submarine search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared over the Indian Ocean in 2014.
He later became director general of the Pacific Community, the principal scientific and technical organization in the region.
One element of the openness Minchin said he would bring to the job is explaining the challenges the bureau will face, including weather changes caused by global warming that are creating more variable weather systems.
“Climate science tells us that when there is a change in the average climate, more extremes occur,” he said.
“We will have to take advantage of new technologies and new innovations. Artificial intelligence [artificial intelligence]for example, it will play a big role in future weather forecasts.
“We need to use this very carefully because AI modeling in many cases relies on pattern recognition from the past. But in a variable environment where the weather doesn’t always do the same thing it did in the past, you can’t just plug in AI and hope for the best.”
Complaining about inaccurate forecasts is a national pastime, but Minchin said one of his priorities is communicating the bureau’s track record.
The agency’s statistics show that the predicted maximum temperature has increased by two days in the last decade, so the four-day forecast is now as accurate as 2015’s two-day outlook.
“I think a lot of the criticism that the bureau receives from time to time stems from misunderstanding or people not understanding the complexity of what we’re dealing with.”
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