On Mar 11, 7:47*pm, Pete L wrote:
Anybody have an idea how many people are employed worldwide directly
as forecasters? My guess is 200-400k

I just need a ball park figure to use in a talk.......

What a difficult question. 1800 are employed by the MetO:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporat...worktypes.html

but many of those will be in support services to the forecasting.
There are, of course, other forecasting agencies in the UK. In the
USA, 34% of atmospheric scientists are employed by the govenment,
which equates to 9,400 people:

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos051.htm#outlook

That would equate to about 30,000 scientists in all, but how many are
forecasters? If John's estimates for the UK are coprrect - and I see
no reason why they shouldn't be - maybe 10,000 forecasters?

Slide 20 in this presentation gives about 15000 working in the 10
major countries, but these are National Met Office employees and
again, it looks like everyone is included, not just forecasters, as
the MetO figures above tie in reasonable well. (Maybe some good info
for your talk though).

http://www.ofcm.gov/sai/presentation...p_weiss.ppt#20

As a result, I think John's estimate is reasonable, though like him, I
think it may be an overestimate.