Research and Special Investigations (continued)

I believe that John has over-emphasised what he calls the war between the Bureau and CSIRO. There is no doubt that Taffy Bowen's denigration of the Bureau's scientific capability had created problems for Warren, and Taffy's attitude, too, was not eased by the candour with which Gerry O'Mahony and I expressed doubts concerning the validity of his claims of success in cloud seeding. We in the Bureau saw urgency in the need to take advantage of the immense technological advances which had occurred during and after the war. There were times when we were impatient with the 'academic' meteorologists in CSIRO and the universities who were critical of our scientific ability. Despite this we appreciated their erudition and were grateful of the opportunity to benefit from it.

Len Dwyer's main objective for the Bureau was to increase the effectiveness of its forecasting and warning services, especially with regard to tropical cyclones, floods and bushfires. He saw that a basic requirement for a better warning services was a significantly expanded network of observations and gave this a high priority. At the same time Len was well aware of the importance of increasing the scientific capability of the Bureau and encouraged me to take all possible measures to this end. He saw the importance of improving liaison with the CSIRO, the universities and international organisations and encouraged his staff to foster such liaison.

The pressure to give priority to research and special investigations directly related to improvement of Bureau services was a source of frustration to many Bureau meteorologists. They were often required to interrupt their attention to a field of research in which they had a special interest to investigate a problem in another area of Bureau activity. Reg Clarke and Kevin Spillane were two members of the Bureau who moved to the CSIRO where they were able to pursue careers which offered more opportunity to focus their research in an area in which they had a special interest.

Bureau of Meteorology