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
Why on earth are you people granting Kudos to Harabin, for crying out loud. All he has done is submit a letter to Anthony which A has put on his site. How is that worthy of Kudos. He has failed to answer any of the questions previously submitted to him and go off on some wild goose chase into getting the lying Royal Socs to devize soem way of ensuring that the MetOff wins some glamour competition. Haven’t you plonkers read the write up on the BBC’s two recent demolishing jobs. Get real, guys and girls. This is not some nice bloger you are addressing this is a senior correspondent at the BBC global warming pension fund cheating producers.
Sorry Mr Harribin,but as many have pointed already we don’t want to know about
some game you’ve devised to find out who can forecast better?..most on the internet go to their own favorite site and see for themselve’s and i’d bet a large majority do not use the Met Office…….What we expected you to post was the whole story of the Wintergate story from start to finish.
Lastly you stated,
” The truth is that BBC bosses issue very few diktats and most programme editors are stubbornly independent”.
If true..why did the top brass of the BBC invite the top climate scientist to a meeting to which they have refused FOI request’s for the list of who they where?
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If true.. why did Al Gore invite top BBc executives to the Dochester to discuss climate change?
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Why has Peter Sission wrote the things he has about the BBC’s stance on climate change?
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Why did Jeremy Paxman write in the BBC’s own in house magazine.
“I have neither the learning nor the experience to know whether the doomsayers are right about the human causes of climate change. But I am willing to acknowledge that people who know a lot more than I do may be right when they claim that it is the consequence of our own behaviour.
I assume that this is why the BBC’s coverage of the issue abandoned the pretence of impartiality long ago. But it strikes me as very odd indeed that an organisation which affects such a high moral tone cannot be more environmentally responsible
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As for the Horizon and Meet the Climate Sceptics programes, the less said the better!!
I sent the following to Richard Black, Roger’s colleague at the BBC:
You MAY NOT even read this let alone comment, but here it is anyway…
perhaps you might at least tell me if you get it?
http://autonomousmind.wordpress.com/2011/01/28/the-met-office-winter-forecast-lie-is-finally-nailed/
He didn’t! …”The same bush”?
Sorry “brush”!
“If the conservative IPPC forecasts are accurate our children may rue the years we spent squabbling over climate change rather than tackling it”
This is a quotation taken from your article about Al Gore.
Anyone who uses “our children” is at best, an insurance salesman or at worst, a blackmailer. Where would you put yourself?
We need people like Roger Harrabin, Paul Nurse, Al Gore, Dr Trenbeth et al to let us know which damaging weather events are caused by AGW and which are not.
Otherwise we would not know!
Roger’s suggestion is far from perfect, but it is a step in the right direction.
However, everybody had better be prepared for a lengthy test, if this is all there is. You should know that it is unwise to judge a forecaster on results during a single phase. Any crank with a fixed idea looks quite good when the wind turns in his favorite direction. But how does he do when the wind turns again, as it will do? Economic forecasters, stock pickers, and fund managers need to be tracked through several full up-and-down cycles. Similarly climate forecasters. You can’t stop this contest and declare a winner after a week or even after a year. Probably not after ten years. This is a long-term operation, if it is to be meaningful in climate terms.
If anyone finds this a reason not to park their criticisms until some fine day when the test is finished, I can understand that.
@- Mike Jowsey says:
“For balance, also mention the billions of research funds from governments which are driving the AGW agenda. ”
I have seen the figure of $2 Billion for federal research funding, although I think it can be pushed up by including all the NASA Earth observation satellites…
For balance Glaxo, the drug company, have put aside $2.2 Billion just for legal cost which the problems with their recent diabetic drug treatment may incur….
An the cost to BP of the Gulf oil spill dwarfs any figure I have seen for climate research costs.
Re: “Besides the missing courtesy (a welcome address or maybe saying thanks to Antony for offering the opportunity) …
… there is absolutely no need for weather tests with the MET. I’s all done. No interest. Piers Corbyn took the prize and went off with it.”
Piers Corbyn’s approach is superior to that of the conventional AGW theorists. This is why he gets better results. His model is comparatively less driven by an ideology than the Earth’s immediate astrophysical environment.
But, the notion that we should settle for Piers’ model is perhaps something which not even Piers would agree with (?). And any proposal that we should stop the search for even better models can point to no philosophy to justify it.
I say let the open-source theorizing begin. Let’s create a market in weather predictions that will facilitate a discussion of the winner in the newspapers and blogs, and allow anybody to enter into it. What would be the harm? This could ONLY go into a positive direction, assuming that the offer does not restrict those who can participate. I think this process could supplement the peer review process.
However, if the strategy is to somehow restrict a seat at the table — as has happened in the peer review system — then this new approach will fail just as the last. But, I recommend taking this olive branch — even if people here disagree with this person’s overall behavior. He must now be pressed to follow through in a fair manner.
A comment on Bishop Hill has pointed out that Mr Harrabin has written a letter to the Daily Mail to deny that he caved in under pressure from Jo Abbess.
I’m sure many of us remember that incident well. It caused quite a stink at the time (April 2008). The emails are a matter of record.
She threatened him, and he wrote, after an exchange of several emails, “Have a look in 10 minutes and tell me you are happier. We have changed headline and more.”
As Roger Harrabin was being given a chance to respond to a piece I wrote, I feel in a position to state he has not addressed the points made. He has done this before with me which is why I have not bothered to ask him for his comments.
As others have said above he has employed a deflection stategy and I explain this in the link below.
http://autonomousmind.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/roger-harrabin-plays-watch-the-birdie-on-wuwt/
Also contained in that link is some background on the ‘Weather Test’ that might help put the project into context. When all the dots are joined you see it is more of the same old agenda laden spin.
Over the last few days we have had crystal clear examples of how the BBC has become, along with the Guardian, the dark heart of propaganda for a desperate cause, put on the back foot by reality and by nature and by Climategate. They are also clear examples of the utter contempt that the BBC has for us deniers and any ordinary people who just want to be told the truth.
They have shown, again and again, how they will go to any lengths to pervert science and truth on behalf of their ‘noble cause’ and have silenced all dissent in their own ranks. And Mr Harrabin is no minor foot soldier in all this, however fetchingly and sincerely he portrays himself. He’s a high priest of the new religion. Is it courage or cunning to respond to Anthony’s invitation? I don’t know but I won’t trust him an inch. And neither should you. Talking about tests is simply a distraction from the reality, that the Met is a contemptible organisation, now, ruined by these fanatics.
Quite so. Expect the final result to take the shape of a hockey stick.
ANTHONY IMPORTANT
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=7144
Flash this around your contacts, please
Roger – you’re a journalist, a common or garden “hack”.
Being employed by a bloated state monolith that screws 3 billion a year from reluctant citizens, on pain of imprisonment, doesn’t change that fact.
Your job is to investigate and report impartially – and your organisation has a pretty dubious reputation on that.
The idea that you can control public discourse by instigating dialogue with other public bodies is the sort of breathtaking arrogance that makes your unwilling subscribers weep.
Why has Peter Sission wrote the things he has about the BBC’s stance on climate change?
Because he has retired left the BBC ?
What on earth is a journalist from the BBC doing coordinating with the Royal Society and others to arrange tests of weather forecasting accuracy? Surely that is a job for the independent National Statistics Office, not a state broadcaster? And what does it show about the self-importance of the BBC that it thinks its role is to organise such a test? I would respectfully suggest to Mr Harrabin that when he becomes part of creating the news event rather than impartially reporting it he is no longer a journalist.
Mr Harrabin, if you want to earn some respect as a journalist why don’t you try asking some hard questions of AGW and its supporters? The people posting here can probably organise a good list for you to start with. Try a little Frost-style questioning (or Paxman-style, if you prefer) on the AGW crowd instead of allowing them to continually hide behind the “science is settled” defence. Have you any idea how frustrating that statement is to those millions of us out here with science training? It makes our blood boil. And just try to imagine how difficult your journalistic credibility will be to maintain in the future if that temperature curve just keeps refusing to go up over the next 10 years as it has over the last 10 years. Even if you privately favour the AGW hypothesis, it would do the theory no harm to be subjected to some robust investigative journalism. And the audience here might then give you some well-earned respect for being a serious journalist.
“Cassandra King says:
February 1, 2011 at 12:11 pm”
Great analysis Cassandra. Spot on!
Chris Reeve says:
February 1, 2011 at 12:41 pm
Why do you feel the need to take the olive branch? Haribin is not writing this piece for your benefit. He is trying his darndest to deflect criticsism now and delay further criticism for later. It just a thinly disguised delaying tactic. This is not a nice, lovely man you are offering the branch to. You give this guy the olive branch and he will beat you with it. I’m sorry to ruin your rose coloured spectacles but get real.
This is a good idea but why not start by comparing the predictions already made? We already know what has happened.
Anthony said : 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
Anthony. Why didn’t you do like the BBC and edit it differently /sarc off
I am sure that Mr Harrabin can clear up any misunderstanding as to accusations of partisan bias very quickly indeed, if he will just write a list of stories he broke that are critical of the CAGW consensus, the institutions that support the CAGW consensus, the wrongdoing of any individual or group or organisation involved in CAGW propagation.
The rules are very simple and do not include some fantasy panel of CAGW believers delivering some fantasy verdict on competing forecasters years from now, the rules are to simply write down in any order the ten most important breaking stories that Mr Harrabin broke or was the first person to air a report on the MSM that cast doubt on CAGW and uncover wrongdoing and/or bad practice in any institution involved in CAGW funding and research.
The answer of course is that Mr Harrabin has never broken and anti CAGW story nor has he fully investigated wrongdoing that lead to the uncovering of any evidence of wrongdoing in any pro CAGW institution or individual. This is the simple truth and all the deflection in the world cannot help him on this forum. This is not just my opinion, just examine Mr Harrabins record and you find that he just happens to get involved in stories like climategate and wintergate just in time to try and close them down.
A key word in there is “independent”. Defence of “independence” is often used by the BBC (and the Australian ABC) to counter accusations of bias. But these organisations can be both independent and very biased. The real meaning of independence in this context is freedom from outside interference, giving them the freedom to be as biased as they like, without accountability.
In the early 2000s I heard a radio programme by Harrabin about Depleted Uranium.
There were several issues that I had with it so I wrote to him ,yes a real letter, outlining my concerns.
No reply, so I emailed him and received a reply saying he had the letter on his desk and would respond soon.
Still waiting.
Cassandra King says:
February 1, 2011 at 12:11 pm
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Thank You – spot on!
Brgds from Sweden
//TJ