We all know they are caught up in the warming meme, but the Met Office in the UK is now trying to spin the idea that they had truly forecasted a cold and snowy winter, but they just didn’t tell anyone. The rationale? We skeptics here (and elsewhere) are a bunch of meanies for making fun of the BBQ summer that never happened, so we’ll keep it to ourselves.
The spin you are about to witness is Maytag quality spin. It is shameless, stupid, and beyond anything I’ve ever seen. Both James Delingpole and Autonomous Mind take the Met Office out for a spin cycle that ends up in a full stop. The propaganda is shameless, the smell odious, and the public relations disaster is even worse than before. They apparently just don’t know when to stop talking.
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From Autonomous Mind:
This is a potentially huge story with a nasty smell of conspiracy about it. There appears to be a concerted effort to whitewash serious failings at the Met Office, with the assistance of a senior climate change propagandist at the BBC who is fully bought in to the Met Office’s warmist agenda.
The Telegraph reports today that: ‘The Met Office knew that Britain was facing an early and exceptionally cold winter but failed to warn the public, hampering preparations for some of the coldest weather on record.’ The article goes on to say:
In October the forecaster privately warned the Government – with whom it has a contract – that Britain was likely to face an extremely cold winter.
It kept the prediction secret, however, after facing severe criticism over the accuracy of its long-term forecasts.
October? That is the same month that this temperature probability map was published – for public consumption:
There is absolutely no logical or rational basis for the Met Office publishing the probability map above, yet ‘secretly’ telling the government a completely different story. The Met Office not only published the map, it had meterologists speaking publicly about the map and setting an expectation of a very high probability of warmer than average winter, as I will explain…
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The stench of deceit surrounding the Met Office, it’s disgraceful self serving effort to mislead the public and apparent attempt by a publicly funded BBC journalist to distort the facts is overpowering. There now needs to be an independent inquiry into this whole matter. A Freedom of Information request is being submitted to ask for this secret October forecast.
Read the whole post here at: Autonomous Mind
From James Delingpole at the Telegraph:
So apparently the Met Office isn’t useless after all. Just cruelly misunderstood.
It seems that the reason it didn’t provide an accurate forecast of this winter was not because it didn’t know bad weather was coming. It was because we were all so horrid last time it made a boo boo over the infamous “barbecue summer” that it decided it wouldn’t make its forecasts public any more.
Which means the real victim of this sorry story is not us (for having been misled about the extremity of cold we could expect this winter) but the poor old, much-put-upon, much-maligned, but basically splendid and well worth the £170 million it costs us every year Met Office.
Hurrah, Hurrah and Thrice Hurrah for those magnificent men (and women: let’s not forget the great Julia Slingo) at the Met Office!
Hmm. Is anyone else as unpersuaded as I am by this extravagantly implausible piece of spin? There’s a big clue in the identity of the fellow from whom it originated: Roger Harrabin. Yes, Roger Harrabin as in the BBC’s High Priest of Gaian Worship and Climate Alarmism.
Read the whole post by James Delingpole at the Telegraph.
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Surely the good people of the UK have to be sick of this by now?
If you are, here’s my advice: picket the Met Office.
Borrow the tactics shown by the greens at Ratcliffe and Kingsnorth and show the burea-weasels what it’s like to feel the brunt of public scorn. A few protestors with a banner outside the Met Office (shown below) would be all it takes to make the news.
Demand accountability, not GIGO spin.
How the UK Met Office sees itself…..and justifies its multi-million pound existence….
“Working at the Met Office means working for an employer whose operations have a real impact on the lives of everyone.
If you watched, listened to or read the news this morning it is likely that the Met Office played an important part in much of the coverage — we are the most well-known weather information supplier in the UK.
We employ around 1,800 people at 60 sites across the world, most (about 1,400) working out of our headquarters at Exeter.
Our vision is to be recognised as the best weather and climate service in the world. Leading-edge science, innovation and research are crucial for us to meet that goal. From the technical aspects of collecting weather data, to world-leading numerical models, to state-of-the-art software, science goes to the core of our business.”
“Jean Rochefort” commented at AutonomousMind that there is a french blogger tracking the previsions. Please check it out at (excel spreadsheet) http://la.climatologie.free.fr/prevision-saisoniere.xls.
In 14 predictions (including 8 from amateurs), only the MetOffice predicted warming!!!
Ecotretas
Eco;
So, the MET is uniquely erroneous! Such an honour. Such a travesty!
On the upside, now the MET has said they forecast a cold winter, it should get a bit warmer….
Time for a few questions on the floor of the house of commons. I’ll write to my MP and get him to ask a couple of awkward questions.
When and to whom did the MET supply this forecast?
What plan does the government have in place for compensating individuals who slipped and broke limbs on the ice on ungritted paths? And for businesses who lost money due to the inadequate supply of grit on roads?
Someone should have told the MET that when they find themselves in a deep snowdrift, they should stop digging downwards.
So much for ‘open government’ eh Dave ‘Greenwash’ Cameron!
In the 12th century England, it has been punishable by death (hanging) to claim to be able to predict the weather.
There has been some progress during the last 800 years. Now they pay for the same crime.
Reposted comment from Bishop Hill:-
Of course the problem with the MET Office isn’t their almost-brand-new £30M Supercomputer or its proposed replacement with one four times as powerful. They would be just as dogma driven and incompetent if they had the computer power of the Pentagon on one hand or an old Amstrad on the other.
The problem is that they are staffed up with hard line ecotards like Pope & Sligo, who take every opportunity to promote their AGW religion. And led by an even more hard line ecotard like Robert Napier – just awarded a CBE for “Public Service”. (A bit like awarding one to Harold Shipman for “Patient Care”.)
And it isn’t just a cruel stroke of fate that led to him getting this post, it was because the Government and senior figures in the Civil Service chose him precisely because he is a hard line ecotard.
If in any doubt, check out the 2010 report “Zero Carbon Britain 2030”, which has the MET Office (together with the University of East Anglia and other usual suspects) as “partners”.
This is firmly in the pixie dust and away-with-the-faries end of the energy debate. Note that even LoonyHuhne only pretended that the UK could be “zero carbon” by 2050 in the LibDim election manifesto.
“Zero Carbon” by 2030? Really? And we have a publically funded body like the MET Office on board?
And you are surprised that their forecasts are crap?
Jan 3, 2011 at 4:02 PM | Martin Brumby
From the Delingpole article comments:
Robert Napier, Chairman of the Met Office board, is or has been:
– Chairman of the Green Fiscal Trust
– Chairman of the trustees of the World Centre of Monitoring of Conservation
– a director of the Carbon Disclosure Project
– a director of the Carbon Group
– Chief executive of the World Wildlife Fund UK
He is also a member of the Green Alliance.
I think the Met Office have got it just right. Predict two completely opposite outcomes and then no matter what actually happens you are bound to have made a CORRECT forecast.
These guys are brilliant and whoever is in charge deserves a knighthood…….oh, he just has!
Keep the part of the Met Office that produces the Shipping Forecasts and scrap the rest.
Give the job of predicting the UK weather to Joe B. and Piers C. Pay them handsomely.
The only snag will be that if any prediction is even slightly inaccurate then sadly Joe B. and Piers C. will be vilified unlike the Met Office mistakes/lies/inaccuracy that pass through the media with barely a whisper – if that.
The same law should be re-enacted, with just one word change: “climate” instead of “weather”.
But it’s not THE Met that’s blowing the whistle, it’s most likely an aggrieved individual whistleblower or an aggrieved meteorological faction within that body who are looking to get even with the ruling “political” faction. That’s what I implied when I led off my comment with the following quote, which I tagged “I agree”:
You wicked cruel nasty people! Leave our wonderful genious Wet Office alone. I hear that the BBC has contracted the WO’s Drs Slingo & Pope to jointly chair a revised version of the classic radio quiz show, “I’m sorry I haven’t a clue”!
Kadaka and Robert,
We couldn’t afford Hindcovering.
It would be two deer.
(Sorry.)
Werner Brozek says:
January 4, 2011 at 8:43 pm
“By the way, the November Hadcrut3 number was 0.431, but as you say, it was not on the site you refer to.”
See: http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/12/hadcrut3-2010-will-be-2nd-5th-warmest.html
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Neither is it on the site that Luboš Motl refers to. But it can be found, with difficulty at:-
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/hadcrut3.html
There is a link on “monthly data” in “Monthly near-surface from 1850”
If you have a look, please see if you can reconcile the monthly numbers with the “annual data” on the same page, I can’t!
Maybe time will tell?
“Surely the good people of the UK have to be sick of this by now?”
Yes, we bloody well are!
Write or e-mail your local MP making it clear that you’re sick of the one-sidedness of the whole AGW topic. Our voices are being ignored by those in Westminster. We’ve had enough.
Make a list of scientific facts about CO2, etc.; make a list of proper scientists and science organisations across the world who are opposed to both the claims that CO2 is a pollutant and the debasement of science due to the politicisation of climate science.
MPs are obliged to respond, they may even be obliged to pass on your letter to the Energy Secretary himself. However far the letters go, make your opinion known to those people who establish policy in this country. Don’t just whine about it on websites.
For those who missed the Electricity Market Reform Statement in the House of Commons, here is the text http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/emr_os/emr_os.aspx (unfortunately, the video from the HoC is no longer available on the BBC website – if anyone recorded it please put it online so everyone can see what we’re up against).
The same applies to all members of the electorate across the world: write to your parliamentary representative – they work for you, we are not subservient to them, so please make your voice heard via the official channel that is your constitutional right.
So either ….
The MO saw the cold coming and duly warned ministers. Being imbeciles ministers ignored the warnings.
OR….
The MO are as good at spinning facts as they are at long term weather forecasting.
This should be fun. In the blue corner we have professional baby kissers who can spin their way out of just about anything. In the other corner we have the MO. If I were a betting man…
Welcome to the wacky world of CAGW.
Remember: The reality is, we’re freezing not in spite of climate change but because of it.
House of Commons video: http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_commons/newsid_9293000/9293372.stm
Alan Simpson not from Friends of the Earth says:
January 4, 2011 at 3:41 pm
‘Sadly, no, no, try again. Tragically the UK MET Office is part of the Ministry of Defeat, err, oops, Defence.
So no FOI requests allowed’
Not so, at least according to the Met’s own FOI page:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/legal/foi.html
What a execrable bit of spin from Roger Harrabin and the Biased Broadcasting Corporation. It might have worked 20 years ago, but now we live in the age of the Internet and Little Brother is watching and recording. When the BBC and Roger decide to slink away from AGW, they may try moving on to “Biocrisis” or “Peak energy” and see how far that gets them. We’ll be waiting for them. Skeptics are not that forgiving and the Internet does not forget…
tallbloke says:
January 5, 2011 at 12:00 am
‘I’ll write to my MP and get him to ask a couple of awkward questions.’
I wish I could say the same – my MP is Britain’s only Green member, the appalling Caroline Lucas.
The MET office now make several forecasts, they stick them in draw and later after the event thay take out the forecasts and publish the one closest to what happened.
£170M a year Simples
The Met Office issued it’s probability of warmer weather for Nov/Dec/Jan in October; in the West London suburb where I live, temperatures fell below zero degrees C and light snow also fell on the 28th October and continued to fall until Dec 3. Light snow fell again on Dec 8, then temps increased until Dec 17 when temps abruptly dropped to 1deg C and light snow fell once more, which increased to heavy falls on Dec 18 and continued to snow moderately until a final heavy snowfall on Dec 20th. All this in an area where snow is fampous for NOT falling!
It seems that the Met Office can only forecast with reasonable accuracy when the weather appears on the radar. Their Teraflop computer is as useful to them as a new formula 1 car would be to me, no matter how much I would like to have such a car in my back yard!
I suspect Roger Harribin has been very economical with the truth in an attempt to stay in line with the BBC’s Warmist beliefs and to prevent the value of the BBC’s invested pension funds from plummeting in the same manner as carbon trading has.
Given that the Beeb is not as impartial as it keeps telling us, but has a definite slant towards the left, I do wonder if Harrabin thought a little poke at the coalition Government might be useful …
Surely the good people of the UK have to be sick of this by now?
Yes we are. Perhaps we can hope that ‘Chlorophyll Dave’ Cameron will see this moronity as a personal affront, boneless though he is. Although he does seem able to tolerate Chris Morhuhne as energy secretary. Not holding the breath, though.
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RichieP says:
January 5, 2011 at 2:25 am
tallbloke says:
January 5, 2011 at 12:00 am
‘I’ll write to my MP and get him to ask a couple of awkward questions.’
I wish I could say the same – my MP is Britain’s only Green member, the appalling Caroline Lucas.
In that case, write to her ten times as often. She, no doubt, now wants to hang on to her salary and expenses.