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Comment by patcon | Hacker News Reader

Reading that article feels... unsatisfying. I realize they have a technical audience in mind, but all the data crammed into english sentences feels reminiscent of the days when complex math problems were described in words.

I feel like the dense information in that post could be described much more concisely in visual form, and I'm disheartened that it is instead hidden in paragraphs.

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I wouldn't say they have a technical audience in mind. Far from it, this is evidently a press release (notice how it says "by Press Office" at the top).

Put simply, they didn't write it for you. The Met Office externally deals primarily with journalists and civil servants, two audiences for which words are a main currency. I can assure you that internally they are not short of propellerheads geeking out on some quite spectacular visualizations.

The links you might be after instead: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/news/2016/arctic-sea-ic... http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadisst/

I think the most bizarre part about it is the structure of this as a report of 'things Ed Blockley said' (or 'added', or 'continued' - I was surprised not to learn that he 'exclaimed' or 'averred' anything), mixed in with a different set of additional facts and figures and context provided by the 'narrator'. It seems we might have been better served to have just had Ed Blockley's contribution unedited and in its entirety, without the contextualizing and narration provided by the reporter. It is possible to copy/paste out all the reported paragraphs attributed to Dr Blockley from the text and get a well written overview of current Arctic climatology.

It's bizarre, but it's also typical for press releases from large organizations.

guy sounds like a snob to me.

Hidden? It all seems fairly simply written to me. How would a visual presentation have made it easier to read?

See http://www.webpagefx.com/tools/read-able/check.php?tab=Test+...

Test Results:

Your page (https://blog.metoffice.gov.uk/2016/11/25/an-experts-view-on-...) has an average grade level of about 7. It should be easily understood by 12 to 13 year olds.

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