Welcome to Zero. I'm Akshutrati.

This week, weather data, volcanic skies and conflict in Timbuktu.

Here in the UK, chatting about the weather is basically national pastime. When is it going to rain?

When will we see the sun again?

And why have we gone through all four seasons before lunch?

And thanks to weather forecasting, we can have those conversations not just with good humor,

but also a good level of confidence.

We get these forecasts because the UK has a network of more than 400 weather stations,

spanning the length of the country, from the Okney Islands in the far north to the Silly Isles in the south.

The data the weather stations like these collect are invaluable.

It influences the decisions of governments and companies around the world and can be used to make models that predict energy consumption,

harvest, and even when countries might go to war.

As my colleague at Bloomberg Green, Laura Milan puts it.

What they do is really important because this data fits then into all these climate models,

into the research that climate scientists do to try to figure out how the world works today.

And this is the data key to figure out how it will change in the future.

When it comes to making climate models, the more data you have and the longer you've been collecting it for, the better those models become.

But weather stations are also expensive to set up and maintain.

And many countries can't afford them in great numbers.

Without these stations, it becomes difficult to provide accurate weather forecasts and makes

it even harder to work out how a country will be affected by climate change.

And while the UK benefits from an abundance of weather stations, many countries in Africa

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