Bermuda will play a leading role in a revolutionary weather watch scheme that could save billions of dollars worldwide.

The Global Oceanographic Observing System is being set up by scientists to give accurate forecasts of weather conditions.

And it will be a vitally important operation to prepare countries for disasters like the hurricanes in Florida this year.

It will also serve other multi-million dollar industries like fishing, shipping and tourism.

Dr. Tony Knap, who heads the United Nations committee on pollution, believes Bermuda has a major role to play in GOOS.

Dr. Knap said: "Bermuda is going to play a very important role. Bermuda's long term monitoring station is the longest record of ocean temperature changes that exists by 20 years.'' The station has been recording ocean changes since 1954 and Dr. Knap points out that if records had only gone back to 1970 it would show a constant global warming over 23 years.

He said: "In 1954 it was warmer than now and, in fact, we are only just reaching those kinds of temperatures again. It is important to have a long-term record of natural changes compared to man-induced changes.'' Dr. Knap is currently involved in meetings in an attempt to get new hi-tech equipment for the Bermuda link in the global network. He says he wants to ensure that Bermuda's role is a priority.

He explained the importance of GOOS which is expected to improve scientists' ability to give five day forecasts compared to three days, 10 years ago.

He said: "The difference compared to what we can do now and what we could do 10 years ago are important. We moved from instruments on ships to satellites.

"GOOS will be able to supply information to fisheries, for ship traffic, looking at ice levels for Arctic routes and tourism which amounts to $440 billion worldwide.'' He used the example of Florida where the insurance damage bill was in excess of $7 million which, alone, is more than double the cost of GOOS. In fact running costs are expected to half once the system is up and running.

Over the next week Dr. Knap will attend meetings in Miami, Washington and Paris as the work on GOOS continues.