Scottish Independence Campaign Battles Over BBC Weather Forecast

00_NOP writes "The political battle over Scotland's independence ballot — to take place in September this year — has now moved on to how the BBC project the UK on their national weather forecast. The BBC use a projection based on the view of Britain from geostationary weather satellites and so there is naturally some foreshortening at the northern end of Britain (Scotland, in other words). But nationalist campaigners say this means Scottish viewers are constantly being shown a distorted image of their country which makes it look smaller and hence (in their view) less able to support independence. In response others have suggested that the nationalists are truly 'flat earthers.'"

Comments

Firrrst post the noo

[Hognoxious]

Jings, crivens and helpmaboab!

Will there be a referendum about beta, d'ye ken?

Re:Firrrst post the noo

[Sesostris III]

Although probably economically beneficial to Scotland, most people want independence for moral reasons.

Oh, has the referendum happened? I thought it was due in September.

Or are we talking only about those (in Scotland) who so far have expressed a preference for independence. Although substantial, I don't believe this is (yet) a majority of those eligible to vote. And we won't know for certain until September.

As to "Successive Tory governments", from 1997 to 2010 we (the UK - I'm rUK) had a Labour government, with two Scottish Chancellors (Brown and Darling), a Scottish Prime Minister (Brown) and a Prime Minister, who if not Scottish, was educated at one of Scotland's top Public Schools (Blair, went to Fettes, in Edinburgh).

Re:Firrrst post the noo

[dintech]

And to all you Americans, the 4th of July is something we Scots would like to celebrate with you. We think having our own political system is important too.

Re:Firrrst post the noo

[Sesostris III]

Yes, I don't get a say (as in voting in the referendum) on this, and I accept that as right and proper. The decision whether to become independent or not is being rightly left to the voters of Scotland. I don't need to be referred to an article by Roger Scruton to "educate" myself on this! Actually, What I was trying to point out is that the voters of Scotland haven't as yet has a say on this themselves - they will do in September - so to indicate that they have already come to a decision (and that the decision was for 'moral' reasons) is incorrect.

Yes, I'm sure the rUK could vote in a Labour government on it's own. That was not the point I was trying to make. What I was pointing out was that the phrase "Successive Tory governments" seems to ignore the existence of the last Labour government (1997 to 2010), a government where much of the 'top brass' was Scottish.

(Talking of governments and parties, the McCrone report, although commissioned by a Conservative Government, was suppressed by the Labour Government under Harold Wilson!)

Finally, if Scotland does vote to become an independent country, then I shall wish it well, and hope for ongoing friendship between Scotland and the rUK. If Scotland votes to remain in the UK, then I hope we all continue to strive to make the UK work well for all its citizens.

Re:Firrrst post the noo

[Suferick]

More likely the (Spanish) EU commission president would look very unfavourably on Scottish membership, considering the boost that would give to the independence ambitions of Catalunya and the Basque country. And would it stop there? What about Sicily, Lombardy, Bavaria...? That's the thinking behind the reluctance to see the UK divided within the EU.

Bravemap

[RDW]

"Would you be willin' to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take OUR MERCATOR PROJECTION!"

Re:Not the first time

[Sique]

The problem is that any projection of a map onto a flat surface is distorted. There are no un-distorted maps. A map contains serveral classes of important data on a map, and projections mainly affect distances, areas and angles. It is mathematically impossible to have a plane projection of the Earth's surface which correctly displays distances, but you can have a map that preserves angles and a map that preserves areas. You can't have a preservation of both area and angle in the same map though. But both angle-preserving and area-preserving maps are absolutely bad at displaying distances, so most projections in use today try to compromise between areas and angles and still have not too large distortions of distances. Northpole and Southpole, because they are uninhabited, are cut off most maps, which gives larger playroom for compromise-maps.

But if you have a map, which tries a compromise between angle preservation and area preservation, and which does not show North- and Southpole, you will always have the areas of the northern and southern regions displayed larger than they are compared to those near the Equator. This is a pure mathematical necessity and not limited to the Mercator projection. The only way to not have this distortion is not to have the Equator being horizontal on your map.

The West Wing had a great segment on map projectio

[chriswaco]

This clip from The West Wing sums up map projection issues nicely: http://youtu.be/n8zBC2dvERM

Re:Not the first time

[Half-pint HAL]

The problem is that any projection of a map onto a flat surface is distorted. There are no un-distorted maps. A map contains serveral classes of important data on a map, and projections mainly affect distances, areas and angles. It is mathematically impossible to have a plane projection of the Earth's surface which correctly displays distances, but you can have a map that preserves angles and a map that preserves areas.

The BBC weathermap is not a true planar projection, though. It's a 3D projection rendered onto 2D, emulating the view of the UK from orbit. Neither ground-level angles, nor latitudinal distance, nor longitudinal distance, nor surface area are preserved. All distances and all areas are reduced. This is because the projection is seemingly taken from somewhere above France, so the south of England is close to the camera, and the north of Scotland is not only further away (hence smaller) but also reduced in height due to the curvature of the Earth included in the projection.

When this first came in (years ago now), the justification of this was that it is more "natural" to look at, and easier to understand... but only a handful of people have ever had the opportunity to see the UK from such an angle, so I can't see what's so natural about it. Furthermore, the BBC initially refused to allow any regional opt-out from the standard projection, so the Scottish weather was on a zoomed subsection of the map, which had practically zero north/south resolution compared to exaggerated east/west.

After a lot of complaints, the BBC tweaked the angles slightly, but the problem still remains. It is particularly irritating that the Gaelic weather forecasts, half of whose target audience are in the Highlands and Islands, is forced to use the same map, where their part of Scotland is so drastically shrunken that a single weather symbol blocks out over a hundred miles on the map.