Editing Weather ship (section)

== Function ==
[[File:Atlantic Weather ships.jpg|Weather ship locations in the northern Atlantic Ocean|thumb]]
The primary purpose of an ocean weather vessel was to take surface and upper air weather measurements, and report them via radio at the synoptic hours of 0000, 0600, 1200, and 1800 [[Universal Coordinated Time]] (UTC). Weather ships also reported observations from merchant vessels, which were reported by radio back to their country of origin using a code based on the {{convert|16|km|mi|adj=on|sp=us}} square in the ocean within which the ship was located. The vessels were involved in search and rescue operations involving aircraft and other ships. The vessels themselves had search [[radar]] and could activate a [[homing beacon]] to guide lost aircraft towards the ships' known locations. Each ship's homing beacon used a distinctly different frequency.<ref name="contact">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sEeaJC_y22EC&pg=PA55|page=55|title=Contact at Sea|publisher=The Gregg Press, Inc.|author=Peter B. Schroeder|year=1967}}</ref>  In addition, the ships provided a platform where scientific and oceanographic research could be conducted. The role of aircraft support gradually changed after 1975, as [[jet aircraft]] began using polar routes.<ref name="BritishShips"/>  By 1982, the ocean weather vessel role had changed too, and the ships were used to support short range weather forecasting, in [[numerical weather prediction]] computer programs which forecast weather conditions several days ahead, for [[climatology|climatological]] studies, marine forecasting, and oceanography, as well as monitoring pollution out at sea. At the same time, the transmission of the weather data using [[Morse code]] was replaced by a system using [[telex]]-over-radio.
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