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The Bureau of Meteorology says it's tweaking its new rain radar after it was revealed hundreds of thousands of Australians are still using its old website. The bureau's new director is attending a conference in Tasmania alongside some of the world's leading climate and ocean researchers.

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00:02There's been a lot on the agenda this week at the conference.
00:05Of course, one of the big stories of this year has not just been about what's happening in the weather,
00:10but the Bureau's website bungle, I think it's safe to call it that now.
00:15Just last week, it was revealed that up to 400,000 people are still using the old website.
00:23Interestingly, when I had a chat to the new director Stuart Minchin,
00:26he said it seems that there are certain parts of Australia that are using the old website more than others,
00:32including South East Queensland.
00:34The community there is very reliant on the radar with storms coming across,
00:39and so they have a preference for the old view of the radar, and we've noted that,
00:45and we're working, as I said, on improving the new radar so that it gives people what they need.
00:53Now, I'm not sure how they'll feel about me saying this,
00:55but I will say there is some climate scientists at this conference who have admitted to me
00:58that they're also still using the old bomb website as well, so not just South East Queensland.
01:03Stuart Minchin has said, though, that there is a list that they're working through fixing,
01:08radar included, as well as other things that have been brought to their attention,
01:11like being able to select your location if you're outside of a town,
01:15which is something that's been raised by farmers too.
01:18Now, interestingly, outside the website, Stuart Minchin also mentioned the responsibility of the Bureau of Meteorology,
01:27not just in making accurate forecasts, but being able to communicate those forecasts well to the public,
01:34and some of the challenges that they have in setting up expectations about what will come.
01:40We're looking at all the potential probabilities that may put in play,
01:45and we're giving our best guess based on how those models have been performing as to what the forecast is
01:50going to be,
01:50but we're never going to get it 100% right.
01:53Now, at this conference, the website hasn't really been the big topic of conversation.
01:57It's actually been more about the direction of climate science in Australia,
02:01and the concern that for all the talk there is about climate change and how much of a threat it
02:08is to Australia,
02:09will be a threat going into the future, and also how much communities are living through it already
02:15in our extreme weather and in our insurance.
02:19The science needed to help make decisions around that just isn't being supported in the same way.
02:25So this is both on a global scale.
02:27There has been kind of an undercurrent of concern about what's going on in the US
02:32with a lot of threatened cuts to climate science there,
02:35and some major agencies which Australia relies on, but also at home.
02:40I mean, CSIRO has cuts on the table.
02:43They are a big player when it comes to climate science and modelling,
02:46and there's also some critical infrastructure, computing infrastructure that we have here in Australia,
02:52which scientists are frustrated has been allowed to age and effectively fall behind the rest of the world.
02:59Now ideally for some people who have come up with the quality and recommended Lindsay can look a little bit,
02:59you will come to a stage more quickly.
02:59They are so important that the problem is.
03:00They have to ensure that we have to get things right now under the importance of the future.
03:00And the��oc還 in the ceiling has been accumulated on the open уже and the wall of sarra,
03:01and those people will be the most important that they have.
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