ABSTRACT
A vast and complex weather reporting network is an essential component of many national meteorological services. The kind of weather observations made vary from country to country in terms of their number, spacing, elements observed, and their frequency of observation, but the situation in New Zealand where there are basically three kinds - rainfall, climatological, and synoptic weather stations - is fairly typical of most countries. Many national meteorological services are making a significant effort to improve the completeness of operational weather and climate data. Climate change is paramount in any consideration of weather and climate as a resource, but several aspects of the term need to be understood before any worthwhile analysis of the problem is considered. Much work has been accomplished on modelling the physical atmosphere; however much less research has been done on the economic and social aspects of such modelling.
