This week’s carer memes focus on meteorologists, which in Ireland’s case makes it one of the most difficult jobs in the country as they struggle to predict our temperamental weather.
While broadcast meteorologists are often on the receiving end of most of the abuse or praise, depending on their predictions, the vast majority of meteorologists rarely even get to see the light of day – ironically enough – let alone a TV camera.
For the most part, their day is spent trawling through reams of live weather data and patterns from satellite feeds and measurement stations across the country as well as developing new forecasting models in the hope that an incident such as Michael Fish’s incredibly incorrect prediction (video) of Hurricane Charley in 1986 doesn’t happen again.
They are also at the forefront of trying to monitor the ever-growing effects of climate change across the world and how this will effect marine life, sea levels as well as atmospheric changes due to depleting o-zone levels.
In terms of employment, state-body meteorological agencies are usually the main employers of meteorologists, but increasingly companies who are heavily reliant on their services, including those running off-shore oil rigs or consulting firms.