I think one area where the private sector is strangely inactive is weather forecasting , it has so many potential clients ranging from farmers to vacationers …actual models are useless beyond a 15-day timeframe
I don’t think there’s a business model there at all. Once anyone sells a forecast to anyone it’s OUT THERE and hard to sell again, and this is a HARD problem, basically the definition of chaos, severely limited by supercomputer time and raw data from dedicated satellites and thousands if not millions of instruments around the world and subject to exponentially diminishing returns. Weather forecasts basically perfectly fit the definition of a public good.
Now, if you were talking establishing a new network of weather sensors and selling that DATA to institutions...
I think one area where the private sector is strangely inactive is weather forecasting , it has so many potential clients ranging from farmers to vacationers …actual models are useless beyond a 15-day timeframe
I don’t think there’s a business model there at all. Once anyone sells a forecast to anyone it’s OUT THERE and hard to sell again, and this is a HARD problem, basically the definition of chaos, severely limited by supercomputer time and raw data from dedicated satellites and thousands if not millions of instruments around the world and subject to exponentially diminishing returns. Weather forecasts basically perfectly fit the definition of a public good.
Now, if you were talking establishing a new network of weather sensors and selling that DATA to institutions...
There are multiple private companies that do weather forecasts. Airlines generally do buy forecasts to know how much fuel to put on the airplanes.
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=weather%20forecasting%20businesses
I think there’s a market for curated forecasts—forecasts that specialize in giving the information a particular organization needs.
Even individuals might pay to get a weather forcast for a travel route.