From the Global Warming Policy Foundation, the questions begin, news coverage follows:
Did UK Government Keep Cold Winter Warning Secret In Run-Up To UN Climate Conference?
Press Release
London, 6 January: The Global Warming Policy Foundation has called on the House of Commons Transport Select Committee to set up a parliamentary inquiry into the winter advice the Government received by the Met Office and the renewed failure of both the Government and local authorities to prepare the UK transport system for the third severe winter in a row.
In a letter to the Chair of the Transport Committee, Louise Ellman, MP, the GWPF stresses that “Lessons have to be learned well in advance of the start of next year’s winter so that we are much better prepared if it is severe again.”
In recent days, the Met Office has stated that it apparently warned the Cabinet Office in late October that the start of the winter would be exceptionally cold. It would appear that the extreme weather warning was kept secret from the public.
According to media reports, the Cabinet Office has been unwilling to confirm whether or not it failed to pass on the Met Office warning to local and road authorities, airports and water companies.
“Not only is the lack of Government preparedness a cause for concern, but we wonder whether there may be another reason for keeping the cold warning under wraps, a motive that the Met Office and the Cabinet Office may have shared: Not to undermine the then forthcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun,” said Dr Benny Peiser, the GWPF director.
It will be important to establish whether the Met Office consulted with government officials about their Cancun strategy and what effect this may have had on the handling of the ‘secret’ cold winter warning.
In light of the renewed failure to prepare the UK and its transport system for a prolonged and harsh winter, the GWPF has listed 19 questions that need to be addressed in order to avoid future debacles.
The full letter is attached below.
Louise Ellman, MP
Chair, Transport Select Committee
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
5 January 2011
Dear Mrs Ellman
Transport System’s Winter Fiasco
I am writing to you on behalf of the Global Warming Policy Foundation regarding the transport system’s ill-preparedness in face of this year’s record cold winter.
The GWPF is calling on the Transport Committee to set up a parliamentary inquiry into the winter advice the Government received by the Met Office and the renewed failure of both the Government and local authorities to prepare the UK transport system for the third severe winter in a row.
This year’s winter fiasco has severely damaged the British economy – and its international reputation – as a result of the country’s ill-preparedness.
It would appear that the Met Office provided the government with contradictory winter advice and we need to find out what went wrong. Lessons have to be learned well in advance of the start of next year’s winter so that we are much better prepared if it is severe again.
Last summer, the Department of Transport carried out a study of the resilience of Britain’s transport infrastructure in the light of the two previous severe winters.
When the Quarmby Report (The Resilience of England’s Transport Systems in Winter) was published in late October, it entirely relied on the Met Office’s assurance that the chance of a severe winter and heavy snow would be relatively small and that the effect of climate change had further reduced the probability of severe winters in the UK; see also Transport chaos not an annual issue, say official report. Investment in more equipment may not be economical given rarity of British snow, says RAC Foundation chairman http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/21/transport-met-office
In recent days, the Met Office has stated that it apparently changed its original advice in October and actually warned the Cabinet Office that the start of winter would be exceptionally cold. It would appear that the Met Office’s cold warning was kept secret from the public.
According to media reports, the Cabinet Office has been unwilling to confirm whether or not it failed to pass on the Met Office warning to local and road authorities, airports and water companies.
Not only is the lack of Government preparedness a cause for concern, but we wonder whether there may be another reason for keeping the cold warning under wraps, a motive that the Met Office and the Cabinet Office may have shared: Not to undermine the then forthcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun.
Throughout October and November, the Met Office repeatedly pushed and published their key message in the run-up to the UN climate summit – that 2010 would probably turn out to be the hottest year on record, culminating in these Cancun-timed media reports: Cancun climate change summit: 2010 was hottest year on record http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/8175591/Cancun-climate-change-summit-2010-was-hottest-year-on-record.html
The Met Office was represented at the UN Climate Summit in Cancun by key scientists who briefed news media about their key message; see Scientific evidence is Met Office focus at Cancun <http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2010/pr20101126b.html>
It will be important to establish whether the Met Office consulted with government officials about the UK’s Cancun strategy and what effect this may have had on the handling of the ‘secret’ cold winter warning.
The transport minister Philip Hammond has asked the government’s chief scientific adviser whether the last three cold winters may signal a ‘step change’ in weather in the UK.
The Met Office appears to deny this possibility. In its submission to the Quarmby Report, the Met Office claims that the chances of a harsh winter are receding steadily. Yet, the Met Office models were contradicted by Sir David King, the former government’s chief scientific adviser, who has publicly warned that the government should plan for more cold winters in the next few years.
It is evident that Sir David King has serious doubts about the reliability of the Met Office’s computer models. This manifest contradiction is further undermining the credibility of the Met Office which makes it all the more important to properly investigate the underlying problem of its erroneous winter projections and government advice over the last three years.
In light of the renewed failure to prepare the UK and its transport system for a prolonged and harsh winter, the following questions need to be addressed in order to avoid future debacles:
1. Why did the Met Office publish on its website estimates in late October showing a 60 per cent to 80 per cent chance of warmer-than-average temperatures this winter? What was the scientific basis of this probabilistic estimate?
2. Why did the Met Office provide the government with a secret forecast about a exceptionally cold start of the winter, at the same time it was publishing an opposite forecast to the public?
3. Did the government conspire to keep the Met Office forecast secret in the run-up to the Cancun climate summit?
4. Did the Cabinet Office fail to take appropriate action in response to the forecast and inform the relevant authorities to prepare the country, to keep the highways clear, to prepare airports?
5. Why did the government let its Winter Fuel Allowance budget be used up with only a fraction of the winter gone?
6. On what scientific basis did the Met Office tell the Cabinet Office that there were early indications of an exceptionally cold start to winter?
7. Why did the Met Office confirm to the news media on 27 October that its probability map showed significant warming in the months ahead?
8. Has the late October prediction by the Met Office that this winter would be mild affected planning for this winter? If so, what is the best estimate of how much this has cost the country?
9. In 2009, the Met Office predicted a 65% chance that the winter of 2009/10 would be milder than normal. Has the Met Office subsequently explained what went wrong with its computer modelling?
10. What is the statistical and scientific basis for the Met Office’s estimate of a 1-in-20 chance of a severe winter?
11. Has the Met Office changed its view, or its calculations, following the harsh winters of 2008, 2009 and 2010?
12. Is the Met Office right to be confident that the severe winters of the last three years are not related?
13. Which severe weather alerts were issued by the Met Office and when?
14. Although the Met Office stopped sending its 3-month forecasts to the media, it would appear that this service is still available to paying customers, the Government and Local Authorities for winter planning. What was their advice, in September/October, for the start of winter 2010?
15. Has the Met Office been the subject of any complaints from its paying customers regarding the quality of its advice?
16. Is it appropriate that the chairman of the Met Office is a member, or a former member of climate pressure groups or carbon trading groups?
17. Should senior Met Office staff (technically employed by the MoD) make public comments advocating political action they see necessary to tackle climate change?
18. Has the government evaluated different meteorological service providers and has it ensured that it is using the most accurate forecaster?
19. What plans has the government to privatise the Met Office?
In view of the high level of public interest in this matter, we shall be releasing the text of this letter to the press.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Benny Peiser
— end
================================================================
Here’s some news coverage:
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. 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. Motoring organisations and passenger groups said yesterday that the delay hampered preparations for winter. – The Daily Telegraph. 4 January 2011
The Met Office has defended its decision not to make public a long-range forecast which predicted “an exceptionally cold” winter. The forecaster, which has its headquarters near Exeter’s Sowton Industrial Estate, told the Cabinet Office in October that temperatures would plunge lower than usual, and the winter would be longer than average.–Patrick Phelvin, The Exeter Express & Echo, 5 January 2011
It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry over the latest antics of the nation’s official weather forecasters. The Met Office now claims that it briefed the Cabinet Office privately in October that the winter would be ‘exceptionally cold’. Forecast? The Met Office didn’t warn the public about the severe winter weather. It’s increasingly difficult to understand what they do to deserve our £200million a year.—Daily Mail, 4 January 2011
You couldn’t have asked for a better snapshot of the chasm that divides today’s so-called expert classes from the mass of humanity than the snow crisis of Christmas 2010. They warn us endlessly about the warming of our planet; we struggle through knee-deep snow to visit loved ones. They host million-dollar conferences on how we’ll cope with our Mediterranean future; we sleep for days in airport lounges waiting for runways to be de-iced. They pester the authorities for more funding for global-warming research; we keep an eye on our elderly neighbours who don’t have enough cash to heat their homes. –Brendan O’Neill, Spiked Online, 4 January 2011
And finally, an article from 2005 that underscores how the Met Office used to handle such news:
Forecasters are predicting that Britain could be facing one of the coldest winters in a decade. Ewen McCallum, chief meteorologist at the Met Office, said the vulnerable and elderly would be particularly at risk as temperatures fall. He said it was important to give an “amber alert” to government, fuel firms, business and the health sector. He added that the aim was for “forward planning” to “make sure that government departments and business utilities have got their act together”. —BBC News, 19 October 2005
Is this going to be an inquiry like the whitewashes of the CRU Emails? Sorry, once burned twice shy.
I think it is clear why the Met Office did not warn the public. They are selling the forecasts and the public is not a paying customer. We must also remember that civil servants or quasi civil servants in parliamentary systems do not have responsibility to anyone other then the government of the day. The public simply does not count.
If you were composing the following chart, would you not think that the trend line was telling you something?
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/graphs/HadCET_graph_ylybars_uptodate.gif
“the red line is a 21-point binomial filter, which is equivalent to a 10-year running mean.”
Where are the FOI requests to the BBC and the shining of a light on Harrabin’s dead-hand manipulative watermelonery in all of this? After all, it is his uncorroborated blurting on state funded media that started this whole controversy. Let’s see what evidence he had for that, where he got it from and when.
Methinks the GWPF have acquired and locked onto the wrong target. Maybe that was the whole idea.
They have proven over and over that they are not the brightest bulbs in the box…
…now look what a can of worms they have opened up
By trying to say they did not make a wrong prediction again.
And some people still have faith in them, why?
Is anyone really surprised??
Warmists do not consider human lives as important as polar bear lives. Ideology is of supreme importance. Fanatics will sacrifice anything or anyone, as long as it furthers their agenda. Truth has no importance, UNLESS it serves the cause. This sort of behavior will not end, unless someone eventually goes to prison. GK
During the exceptionally cold weather the contribution to the power grid from wind farms was practically nil. So in the future when the UK has gone over entirely to renewables and shut down fossil fuel power generation we will be entirely dependent on French nuclear power (if they have any to spare) to keep the lights on and our electric cars running.
Yeah well good luck with all that but it ain’t gunna happen.
Why would the govt. set up an inquiry into itself.
The Met Office is part of the defense department so you got buckleys chance of getting anything out of ’em.
Do I need to explain what buckleys chance is?
Is the BBC reporting anything on this or are they doing a cover-up by omission ?
Steeptown says:
Mike Haseler:
““In a country where politicians are more than happy to increase the tax on electricity for Scots in order to help the English achieve their renewable obligation target.” It is not an English target. It is a UK target from the EU, signed up to by TonyBliar and his mainly Scottish-led Government (Brown, Darling etc etc)”
Steeptown, first ask yourself why renewable energy policy was devolved to Scotland? It was nothing to do with giving Scotland more power — it was simply a ruse to get the Scots to put up more windmills than was their fair share (which has some logic as we are the windiest country in Europe)
The big problem for the English is that the renewable target is e.g. 10% and the production target is 10% of all consumption. This can be very easily overlooked, but because about 7% of electricity is lost in transmission, producing 10% only delivers around 9.3% … meaning that the English were short on their “fair share”.
In contrast, Scotland started by producing some 8% of its electricity from Hydro, so only need to produce another 2% to achieve it fair share.
So …. someone in England had a cunning plan …. what if we give the Scottish numpties in parliament the “right to control renewable output but not the right to set a (lower) renewable target because we English will ensure that the target is a national obligation which has to be met … and to make up the English shortfall … we’ll tell them that Hydro power is not a renewable which means that they’ll have to produce another 8% (which almost exactly matches the amount that England was short).
So basically, we in Scotland have been stitched up. We’ve been given control over renewables so long as our numpty politicians accept that Hydro is not a renewable and therefore we suffer all the economic consequence of hydro dams littering our landscape and putting off the tourists, but we don’t get the benefit of lower renewables targets.
Erik @ur momisugly 8:53am
“The Met Office, a world leader in weather and climate change research, will provide high-level independent advice to enable fund managers, often responsible for pension funds, to reduce the risks from both natural and man-made climate change on their investments.”
How the hell are they going to do that with any credibility?
The Met Office and their tentacles are really getting a wierd smell about them now.
Of course, the UK infrastructure could not have been upgraded instantly to cope with a severe freeze, but measures could have been put in place to cope with the likely problems ensuing given proper warning. It is undeniable that in October the Met Office produced probability and ensemble mean maps for November-December-January showing a strong likelihood of higher than average temperatures, with expected temperature anomaly around +0.5 degC above normal. And, we might add, the whole of Finland +2 degC and above, and vast tracts of Siberia as well, where it has been way, way below normal. My correspondent in Finland assured me on December 20:
“We haven’t had so much snow in December since 1915, 95 years ago! And the temperature has been on average 5 to 10 degrees below normal the last two months.”
As far as Northern Ireland, Scotland and South-East England are concerned, the probability that temperatures would be ‘well-below-normal’ was given in October as 95% certainty (which for forecasting is about as good as it gets) that the infrastructure would not take a knock. Yet records were broken all over the place – for central England it was the second coldest December since 1659. Incidentally, CET temperature dataset covers three and a half centuries. The yearly average temperature, averaged across all mean monthly temperatures, in 1659 was 8.83 degC. In 2010 it was also exactly 8.83 degC. What delicious irony that the first and last years in the dataset covering three and a half centuries (the first in the ‘Little Ice Age’ and the last in a time of ‘unprecedented warming’) have identical yearly averages!!
Even as late as November, when early winter was upon us, and they were supposed to have told a different story to the Cabinet Office, the Met Office were still citing the quintile probability of ‘well-below-normal’ temperatures for Scotland and Northern Ireland as between 5% and 25%, so still unlikely. The evidence is still on their website. And this really blows the Met Office out of the water, because even if they try to dissemble to say that they issued a ‘revised’ secret forecast to government at the end of October after they had issued the October probability maps, then they have no excuse for producing different public November probability maps.
If the government actually knew something different then it would be unconscionable for them to blame public and private bodies for lack of preparation. And how can we tolerate a public body soaking up £4million a day still showing their public face on their website and saying something different to their ‘masters’. They must have been lying to one or the other. By practically admitting to speaking with a forked tongue, the Met Office has effectively admitted that it is being used as a propaganda and ‘crowd manipulation’ tool to pump out climate porn. And the Met Office, after all, is a propaganda tool of the government, being part of the Ministry of Defence.
Unless anything different comes out of the woodwork, I remain convinced that the ‘climate change’ narrative that all the main parties in the UK are upholding and pushing with draconian legislation is responsible for perverting the purpose of the Met Office. If you look at the Annual Report of the Met Office following the appointment of that dreadful eco-imperialist Ex-WWF Robert Napier as Chairman (by the government, of course), you will see that it is he who ensured that the Met Office has changed direction to climate change advocacy, since he admits that was his aim.
I wrote a blog post about Napier, where I wrote
“This web of organizations over which Napier exercises influence means that Napier is responsible for the generation of climate alarmism, input into the IPCC reports, powerful secular and religious eco advocacy, directing of investments exceeding $55 trillion towards the Green agenda, monitoring of eco compliance, manipulating government fiscal policy towards green taxes, and control of the built environment towards the green agenda. Napier is an eco-imperialist, and for him and his cronies it’s all about total social control for the green agenda – controlling all bases: investment, building, land, religion, government, taxes, propaganda, media, advocacy, monitoring, climate science and data.”
Met Office credibility is now in tatters, I’m afraid.
It occurs to me that both may be right. That is the climate modelers predicted a warm winter (we have already seen evidence that the Met model is clearly wrong as it anticipates at 4C temp rise per 100 years) and the meteorologist predicted a cold winter based upon conventional weather analysis.
If harsh winters are proof of global warming, why did they decide to keep the cold winter forecast away from the public?
Something got lost – third paragraph of my post should read
“As far as Northern Ireland, Scotland and South-East England are concerned, the probability that temperatures would be ‘well-below-normal’ was given in October as <5%. In other words, the Met Office were predicting with 95% certainty (which for forecasting is about as good as it gets) that the infrastructure would not take a knock…"
Less than 5% for 'well-below-normal'.
Mark Bowlin says:
January 6, 2011 at 9:28 am
If there’s one thing that should bring warmistas and skeptics together, it should be an end to bird mincers. Or not. Mike Haseler, please help your non-Commonwealth cousins out here…what’s a bird mincer?
=======================================================
A whirlygig, or a pinwheel. When they actually serve a purpose, some may call them “windmills”.
Erik @ur momisugly 8:53am
Didn’t realise it was 2008. LOL, Credibility dealt with I suggest 🙂
Well, now they are proven to be bald faced liars on their work product. This casts a serious aspersion on all their work products to date. Someone needs to acquire the raw recorded data and start from scratch. Anyone?.. Anyone?
Sooner or later the U.K. will have a warm winter and the alarmists will shout “See? See? We told you this would happen.” Nothing will change.
On the west side of the pond, we’ll be capped and traded, by law or by fiat.
Weather is unimportant. Government control? That matters.
What did you expect?
When you put WWF in charge of Met Office with Mr Napier at the top.And the intimite relationsship with CRU and green fascist biased BBC? The truth? Honesty? respect of taxpayers?? You fools!! They are going to keep on lying until you fysicly kick them out.Load your hadn with tomtoes and start throwing and elect people that you can trust.Be a politician your selves! Dont accept this anymore. Kick ass!!
The real question is, Who is culpable for the deaths that could have been avoided, and are there criminal and/or civil remedies available in the UK?
In the US, a person who knowingly withholds a remedy, if he or she is in a custodial or stewardship position, and this contributes to or causes death, then this person is:
1) guilty of negligent homicide, or if intentional, voluntary manslaughter
2) guaranteed to be held liable for civil action.
Who will bring the charges?
Metoff, Madoff I fail to be able to find a distinction in the morals.
Good to see this letter. I was proposing to write to my MP along these lines anyway when I’ve got a couple of hours to draft a formal and sensible letter tomorrow and if we all write to our MPs, all asking the same questions, it might just put the cat amongst the pigeons. I can’t quite believe that all MPs truly believe in Climate Change and if enough people write to them, perhaps a few of them might start to come out and might start to be brave enough to start to question the ideology. I’m not even sure that they will have to start questioning the ideology (apart from those with vested interests) but it is so similar to the days when gays (queers, as they were then) had to keep their heads down and deny homosexuality, scared stupid that they might be outed. If there are enough sceptics prepared to come out of the closet, it might actually start being acceptable to have a sensible discussion. And we might start to stand up for ourselves, the UK that is, against the idiocies of the EU.
No doubt I’ll be howled down for having my head in the clouds, but I live in hope! Get writing, please!!!!!
BTW – Mark Bowlin – bird mincer=wind turbine
Pat “It occurs to me that both may be right. That is the climate modelers predicted a warm winter (we have already seen evidence that the Met model is clearly wrong as it anticipates at 4C temp rise per 100 years) and the meteorologist predicted a cold winter based upon conventional weather analysis.”
Nope – according to the Met Office themselves, they use the same models on the same computer to do both. There is no independence. This means, of course, that the weather forecast will always have the climate change bias being applied continually more and more each year, so if the bias is wrong, the weather forecasts will become worse and worse each year.
Yes, it’s completely nutty. But don’t blame me, blame the goons at the Met Office who call themselves scientists but can’t decouple the actual from the hypothetical.
Mark Bowlin
A “bird mincer” = wind turbine