After the revelation: The Met office and the BBC- caught cold that the Met office had issued a forecast to the UK Cabinet office, and that forecast didn’t contain much of anything useful, the least of which was any solid prediction of a harsh winter, I offered BBC’s environmental reporter Roger Harrabin a chance to respond, to tell his side of the story. At first I didn’t think he would, because his initial response was kind and courteous, but not encouraging. I was surprised today to find this essay in my Inbox, which is repeated verbatim below, with the only editing being to fix some HTML formatting in the links he provides at the end. In his essay, he’s proposing a “weather test” of the Met Office, and Piers Corbyn has agreed to be tested as well. – Anthony
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From Roger Harrabin BBC Environment Analyst
The latest who-said-what-when saga over the Met Office winter forecast has created a stir of interest and understandable concern.
I offer some thoughts of my own on the matter in my BBC Online column. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12325695
But the row only serves to emphasize the need for better information on the performance of weather forecasters over the long term.
That’s why I am attempting with the help of the Royal Met Soc, the Royal Stats Soc and the Royal Astro Soc to devise a Weather Test in which forecasters enter their forecasts to a central data point, so they can be judged against each other over a period of time.
We’d like to compile records of daily, weekly, monthly and seasonal forecasts. The UK independent Piers Corbyn is the only person to have volunteered so far to be tested in all these categories, though we will be in discussions with others to persuade them to take part.
We, the public, need to know which forecasters and which forecasting methods we should trust for different types of forecasting.
We are progressing with a protocol which will ensure that all participants submit data in the same form. Hopefully we’ll be able to launch the project fairly soon, although it is proving time-consuming.
Before we settle the final protocol we’ll publish it on the web to gather comments from citizen scientists. When it is finally agreed by the steering group it’ll be handed to Leeds University to run the project, with no further involvement in the data from the steering committee members.
In the meantime I’m hoping to avoid further controversies like the Met Office winter forecasts. I have been accused in the blogosphere of having so many different motives that I can’t keep track of them all.
My real motive is to try to do a decent job telling people about things that are important and they probably didn’t already know. For instance I first led media coverage about the value of the Met Office seasonal forecast a number of years ago. (My other motive – for those of you who keep emailing me at weekends – is to have a life with my wife, kids and friends.)
I do need to scotch one particularly bizarre bit of blogbabble, though. Some bloggers depict me as a puppet for the BBC’s pension fund trustees trying to boost their investments in green technology.
This is definitely going in my book – it is the most entertaining and baroque allegation I’ve ever faced. The truth is that BBC bosses issue very few diktats and most programme editors are stubbornly independent. I offered the recent Met Office stories from my own contacts and knowledge. No-one else asked me to do them. I don’t even know the pension fund trustees.
There are some very clever and inventive people out there in the blogosphere. Some are laudably engaged in a pursuit of facts about climate change and weather. Others might serve more use by trying to locate Elvis.
If you want to measure my journalism, you could take a look or listen to some of the articles or radio docs below. And make up your own mind.
Uncertain Climate docs 1 & 2:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tj525
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tmcz3
Copenhagen doc http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00w6pp4
Articles on Royal Society, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10178454
Met Office, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8462890.stm
Lord Oxburgh, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10507144
And Al Gore, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7040370.stm
Sounds like a good idea to me. Perhaps in a few years we will be able to better judge the MET. It certainly looks like they were grossly wrong over the last 3 years. Hopefully, these wishful thinking forecasts will be replaced by objective scientifically based forecasts.
Sounds like a good proposal by Harrabin, but he’s making it a little to complicated. Just agree on what to predict and all the participants publish it at the same time. Anyway, I think it will be an exercise in futility since the climate is too complex, much less the weather! Anyone ever heard of chaos? I don’t know why people think they can be helpful with weather prediction beyond a few days.
We, the public, need to know which forecasters and which forecasting methods we should trust for different types of forecasting.
And once he gets that sorted he can do the same for equity analysts and economists.
“I offered the recent Met Office stories from my own contacts and knowledge. No-one else asked me to do them. I don’t even know the pension fund trustees.”
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Roger, you should have stuck with that story…
….it made you look smarter
“Some bloggers depict me as a puppet for the BBC’s pension fund trustees trying to boost their investments in green technology.”
This guy (Roger Harrabin) needs to go back and read the message he sent. It reads like any another “on the dole” bureaucrat nonsense. He talks, he promises, he wishes, he hopes, he offers potential solutions, he puts on a happy face, then he goes about his oblivious way. I realize Roger Harrabin isn’t a politician, but bureaucracy is filled with such cronies who cling to the dole, and they will say and do whatever it takes to see the dole continue. He should have done what all bureaucrats do: ignore, ignore, ignore.
When an adder hisses, you can spot it right off.
This sounds like a deflection. The problem has nothing to do with the accuracy of their forecasts (even though obvious inaccuracy spawned their behavior.) The true problem is that they lied.
Mark
You don’t have to know the trustees, to know that your pension has been heavily invested in green industries, and that it might be a good plan to talk up global warming on every occasion to protect that.
“My real motive is to try to do a decent job telling people about things that are important and they probably didn’t already know.”
Roger, first thanks for the article. However, the Met Office have a record of making predictions (particularly regarding global climate and seasonal UK forecasts) and then covering up the failure of these forecasts.
I was once a quality manager in a medium size company, and the key to quality was to first admit you had a problem. Only once you admit there is a problem can an action plan be taken to improve the processes to tackle the problem.
The fact is that from where I stand the BBC have been making excuses for the Met Office. Notably the global and seasonal forecasts, but I was also horrified at the abysmal excuses trying to suggest they forecast the severe weather in Scotland.
The point is, even if you think you are being impartial and unbiased in your reporting, you still are part of this big group-think culture in the BBC which as Sissons clearly explained, colours all that happens in that organisation.
So, what I have to ask is: how are you going to ensure in future that you are not part of this group-think culture? I’m not asking you to suddenly become a sceptic (not anymore than any journalist should be), all I want is fair open and honest reporting and the abysmal travesty from the BBC of “meet the sceptics” the prequel comedy: “meet the royal society” hasn’t done anything to improve the standing of the BBC in the UK or abroad!
But he doesn’t address the original critiscism does he? This is time to keep your eye on the pea under the walnut again.
He says let’s invent some games which are listed as We will, We will, We will , We will, …etc; the We being the good old unbiased BBC. After careful adjustment and homogenisation, the Value added data will be passed to Leeds….
Sorry chaps your BS detectors should be on full alert, this guy is from the BBC and it is simply not impartial these days on any subject at all. Some of us in England can hardly bear to watch it, yet by law we have to pay for it.
Keep your eye on the story he told us about the Met giving secret advice to the government. We don’t need more competitive games which you will edit, just answer the B…y question – Why did you tell porkies on behalf of the Met Office?
The “who-said-what-when saga” has to be resolved first. Skills do not matter if they are combined with dishonesty.
It is obvious, that somebody did not tell the truth.
If this is resolved and then Harrabin still in his position and the Met Office still exists in its current form, such a competition may be of interest.
Conducting a forecasting test is an interesting idea, an activity for the Royal Society, for example.
An interesting idea for a journalist would be to report on who at the Met Office lied about communications with the Cabinet office, and analyzing their motives.
Is basic reporting too much to ask?
“Others might serve more use by trying to locate Elvis.”
That made me chuckle!
A good idea, this. A protocol is a good idea too. Otherwise it would be just as difficult to judge as an offer from a mobile phone company.
One name is all I need to make Roger look like a twit forever…
…Jo Abbess
Harrabin: “If you want to measure my journalism, you could take a look or listen to some of the articles or radio docs below. And make up your own mind.”
I have been listening to your reports on the BBC for too long to count and three things spring to mind whenever I hear them: Bias, bias and yet more bias.
I look forward to the day when you spend my tax money (or BBC Licence fee as it is otherwise known) in an impartial way as laid down in the BBC Charter and by the BBC Trust.
Until that day comes Mr Harrabin I will always view you as a stooge for the AGW agenda. Nothing more nothing less. Remember you are spending MY money on your reports and I expect impartiality!
Roger Harrabin’s response looks a very fair and sensible one to me. I like his suggestion for a weather test particularly since it would be split into various categories. Trying to compare success in daily or even weekly forecasts with success in seasonal forecasts would be like comparing apples and oranges. In fact it might be a good idea to add another category – for “extreme weather” events but perhaps it would be too difficult to get a defintion of what would count as such an event.
I hope that in addition to Piers Corbyn the Met Office, Positive Weather Solutions and Joe Bastardi will also participate. It would also be good to have other overseas participants. If the competition is limited to forecasts for Britain (and perhaps parts of Europe) I don’t suppose any Australian forecasters will want to participate but it would be good thing if the Met Office’s counterparts in other European countries will also join in. After all, a weather forecaster based in France or Norway, say, should not find it much more difficult to issue forecasts for Britain than he/she would for their own country.
I forgot to ask Mr. Harrabin;
What is your comment to the aid BBC gets from Africa?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1351174/African-country-set-make-breaking-wind-crime.html
Anyone with half a brain should steer clear from the bbc, they have shown their discriminatory colors and made their views on man made climate change very clear, it seems very convenient to me that they put the blame of these preplanned biased documentarys on independent film makers.
The BBC Environment Analyst appears to be setting a fue traps thought up by some “bbc think tank” over at the dirty tricks department.
I would say to Roger Harrabin & BBC there is no such thing as man made climate change, AGW or CAGW. the public understands It, the public has seen the opinionated attempts to “stitch up” & portray climate change skeptics in a bad light in a manner that would make dictators around the world envious.
I’d like to put it to Harrabin & BBC to hold their hands up, admit to the public they got it all wrong about man made climate change, get you head out of the clouds and come back to reality and realize harsh winters are here to stay, and these green taxes & carbon offsets that the bbc are helping to fuel are causing wide spread winter misery.
The article on the Royal Society (29/5/10) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10178454
is really very good indeed. He forcefully criticises the FRS’s for their authoritarian, “I’m an FRS – trust me”, attitudes. Looking at the recent programme by Sir Paul Nurse, the new President is as hidebound as the old.
Isn’t the real problem that somebody lied about what they had said?
Good on Roger for fronting up here though. Be polite people.
Daily forecasting seems to add burdensome work to the compilers with little added value. Here in Canada, the daily stuff is almost always right, I think of more as a weather report than a forecast. Stick you head out the door, call up the radar online and presto! one forecast.
Weekly, monthly, and seasonal. I would suggest a 30, 50, and 100 year forecast as well, but that is already “settled.”
Roger,
I’m pleased to see you have chosen to respond here at Anthony’s site. However you have neatly avoided a number of the most pressing questions.
There is one in particular I would like an answer to:
You said, in relation to the report released by the FOI request: “This doesn’t match a more conclusive forecast I gleaned from a Met Office contact in December”
From here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12325695
What exactly was this forecast – was it verbal, in writing? And more importantly, who gave it to you?
Also, in the above entry you say:
“I note a blog report (which I cannot yet verify) saying that a civil servant commented: “The Met Office seasonal outlook for the period November to January is showing no clear signals for the winter.”
This suggests to me you’ve scanned a couple of blogs, but haven’t gone to the source, which is freely available here:
http://www.censoring.me/temp/MetOfficeFOI.pdf
The statement in question isn’t a “comment” – it is a statement the Cabinet Office was planning to include in ‘Forward Look’, thus representing its position for the coming winter – a position which you will see in the return email from the Met Office, with which the Met Office apparently has no problem.
I count this as another credit to the persistence and fair-mindedness of WUWT and other responsible skeptic blogs. Let’s test the models and their interpreters with real data. We all win when some quantifiable level of confidence, rather than mere claims of robustness, can be put in forecasts/scenarios.
“Now, seasonal forecasting is a science in its infancy. The World Meteorological Organisation tell me that most “met” services don’t publish them because they are so hit-and-miss.”
However, very long range forecasting science has matured to the point that we are so certain of its accuracy decades out that we must junk our present means of producing energy and pour unimaginable amounts of taxpayer and consumer money into alternatives that cost more and produce less reliably.
At least, that’s what I understand from the BBC.
Meh. Whatever. The Beeb is a socialist propaganda mill with no journalistic cred these days. Nobody should take them seriously even when they momentarily put on a mask of reasonability. The Brits need to elect a government that will take away the public funding from these lefty twits. Government controlled broadcasting is a bad thing. No exceptions.
Sounds like a good idea – until one realises that the Met Office has the habit of changing, ahem, updating their forecasts all the time so that the ‘original’ one isn’t available any longer.
If that isn’t going to be ‘forbidden’ in this scheme, then forget it.