The Weather Machine

Blum follows the forecast back to its sources: old weather stations, satellite launches, the scientists who built a computer model of the atmosphere, and the history of the algorithms that run inside it. He describes the result as one of the largest machines people have ever made, held together by international cooperation that is easy to take for granted and not guaranteed to last, and argues that forecasting has quietly entered a golden age that the public has not yet learned to trust.

The forecasting system is the oldest operational digital twin of a place, the whole planet, with a model fed by live observations and a daily product that people act on. Blum's book is the accessible account of how such a thing is built and kept running, and of the institutional arrangements that a twin at any scale depends on.

Cover via Open Library.