This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Weather forecasts inform countless everyday decisions—from farmers deciding when to sow crops and energy companies anticipating demand to public authorities preparing for heat waves. But how useful those forecasts are depends considerably on where people live.
Manuel Linsenmeier, professor of environmental economics at Goethe University Frankfurt's Center for Critical Computational Studies (C3S), and Jeffrey Shrader of Columbia University set out to map differences in forecast accuracy around the world and examine how they relate to countries' levels of economic development. They analyzed global model forecasts produced by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) between 1985 and 2020 and compared them with observed weather conditions. Their main focus was short-term temperature forecasts, although they also examined predictions of precipitation and surface pressure.
The results reveal a striking pattern: on average, short-term temperature forecasts are more accurate in higher-income countries. The relationship holds for forecasts from one to seven days ahead. Remarkably, a seven-day forecast in a high-income country is, on average, more accurate than a one-day forecast in a low-income country.
The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications. "For many people in Germany, checking a fairly reliable weather forecast on their phone whenever they want is something they barely think twice about," Linsenmeier says. "But our findings show that the information underpinning those forecasts is distributed very unevenly around the world.
That matters because weather information is particularly valuable in places where livelihoods depend on weather-sensitive activities or where people are especially vulnerable to extreme weather." Overall, weather forecasts have become substantially more accurate worldwide since the mid-1980s, with countries at all income levels benefiting from scientific and technological advances. Yet the gap between richer and poorer countries has narrowed only modestly. Geography accounts for part of the difference: short-term weather forecasting is inherently more difficult in the tropics, where many low-income countries are located.
The global distribution of wealth therefore overlaps with the geographic distribution of weather predictability. Linsenmeier and Shrader estimate that geography alone accounts for roughly two-thirds of the worldwide variation in forecast accuracy. Differences in meteorological observation systems also play a role.
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