Forum yesterday to promote the station's Climate Prediction Initiative. The story is reprinted here: NEW YORK (Bloomberg) -- Wouldn't it be nice to know more about how hard the next hurricane will hit, particularly if you're an insurance company? The answer is an emphatic yes, and it explains why the the Bermuda Biological Station for Research didn't have too hard a sell when it asked insurers to fund a new risk-prediction plan. The 92-year-old institute raised $1.2 million, said director Tony Knap.

The insurers want state-of-the-art forecasting tools "because the past may not necessarily be a good guide to the future,'' Knap told the Bloomberg Forum.

Besides hurricanes, Bermuda Biological Station also would like to predict incidents of river flooding in Europe and make long-term weather forecasts.

Contributors to the new risk prediction initiative include insurers Centre Cat Ltd., General Reinsurance Corp., Mid-Ocean Reinsurance Ltd. and Chubb Group, as well as software developer RMS Inc.

The cash will send Bermuda Biological Station's annual budget above $9 million next year, around $1 million more than 1995's total. Last year, the institute spent $7.24 million.

Knap, an oceanographer, said scientists are able to tap resources elsewhere, lowering some capital costs.

For example, Bermuda Biological can tap into one of the most advanced supercomputers from Cray Research Inc. in a university in Alaska as well as other supercomputers in Germany.

Knap said the Bermuda institute doesn't seek to duplicate other hurricane studies under way at Scripps Oceanographic Institute and elsewhere. "We're bringing in people from all these places,'' he said.

Knap criticised Republican plans to abolish the Department of Commerce, which is responsible for the US Weather Service.

"Short-term savings may lead to long-term risk,'' he said, noting that cutbacks have already trimmed the number of ocean vessels that track water temperatures -- which may be helpful in making predictions.

A colleague at Massachusetts Institute of Technology warns that "within five years, we may be in a worse position to predict'' future hurricanes than today, Knap said.