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
To understand why this is a diversionary window dressing read Autonomousmind. This man used his standing in the media to put out a false story that he had seen evidence that the British government had received secret warnings from the Met office of the hash winter ahead, and they had ignored this warning. This story was scotched through release of FOI documents and was untrue. Why did he publish this untrue stroy? How was it that he became the message bearer of untrue stories for the MET office? That is the only question he needs to address.
Until he steps up to the mark he should be treated as tainted
http://autonomousmind.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/roger-harrabin-plays-watch-the-birdie-on-wuwt/
Georgegr says:
February 1, 2011 at 1:07 pm
“Cassandra King says:
February 1, 2011 at 12:11 pm”
Great analysis Cassandra. Spot on!
Thanks for the kind words of support, this particular forum has led to some of the best posts I have ever read on WUWT.
Far from Mr Harrabin contributing to this site he has simply hung himself, his response to Anthony was not a guest post but a reply to an email and this reply did not provide any answers to the original inquiry. It looks like what it is and what it is is as far from engagement as its possible to get, it is in fact nothing more than a lazy evasion.
ThomasJ says:
February 1, 2011 at 1:25 pm
Cassandra King says:
February 1, 2011 at 12:11 pm
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Thank You – spot on!
Brgds from Sweden
//TJ
Many thanks for the very kind words TJ.
Yours
Cassie King.
Paul Hudsons blog also claimed a met office forecast for a cold winter in october. My guess is that their contacts in the met knew the weather was coming. Its the management layer that stopped the forecast getting out. Cancun, you know.. Some poor guy in tthe met is wishing he’d never said anything now.
Mr. Harrabin, we already have a history of predictions by Corbyn and the Met Office, and a history of actual weather to compare with…instead of proposing a contest, why don’t you just use your journalistic investigative skills to gather the existing data and report on the results?
Or, instead of doing research, you could take the WMO seriously when they say longer-term predictions are too “hit-and-miss”…I prefer the terms “inaccurate”, “unreliable”, or “useless” for clarity…and you could observe that the Met Office tacitly agrees by choosing to cease public predictions. In which case, the interesting journalistic questions are…why has the Met Office been so arrogantly forceful and colorful in their previous public predictions (barbecue Summer???), and why is the government paying the Met Office for unusable predictions?
I’m not interested in whether the Met Office can win a contest in the future; I’m interested in their current and past failures and lack of integrity, and why you are not taking them to task for unreliability and doubletalk that is too obvious to ignore.
Snowjob.
Anthony, could I honestly suggest that you delete this article.
Harrabin was given the opportunity to respond to Autonomous Mind and has totally failed to do so. I consider his article nothing better than spam and it should be snipped, as is customary.
POST-NORMAL POETRY POGROM
If you can talk with crowds so they think you have virtue,
Or walk with kings to promote their common touch;
If neither foes nor facts can distract you;
If all men count for nothing (and that is far too much);
If you can fill the unforgiving broadcasting minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of propaganda –
Yours is the Corporation and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a BBC Man my son!
Cassandra King says:
February 1, 2011 at 1:13 pm
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Cassie, thank you!
One day I hope my brain will be able to work half as good as yours.
I loved the proposition from Brandon Caswell @ur momisugly 11.45am, re: some kind of contest –
“Better yet, why wait. We already have a history of predictions . . .”
Also from Cassandra King @ur momisugly 12.11pm, regarding Leeds University’s ‘impartiality’.
What seems truly amazing to me is that all normal logic would suggest using the Royal Society as referee in such a matter, and yet seemingly Mr. Harrabin acknowledges that the RS would be unacceptable due to their evident bias.
I reckon Her Maj. should suspend their Royal charter until they start respecting its terms again.
Re: “… Mr Harrabin has run away from doing his job as and when CAGW has been threatened and criticised, he has protected those involved and has expended great effort in supporting and protecting them, I have yet to read a story critical of CAGW that he has broken.”
This guy sounds like bad news. Not a fan anymore.
Possibly one solution here – which can be guaranteed to be rejected is this.
If you are an advocate of AGW in the public domain, then all your pension funds should be required (by law) to be invested in green pension funds. I emphasise the word ‘all’.
Somehow, I think such an idea would be fought tooth and nail by the high priesthood of the AGW cult.
Peter
I, for one, welcome Roger Harrabin’s attempt to sort sheep from goats. Much of his reporting certainly seemed, in the past, to assume that AGW was a given. His recent Uncertain Climate pieces smacked of sincerity: here is a man who seeks to understand what can and cannot be predicted in chaotic systems. He’s embarking on a rational exercise in measurement. That’s good.
IIRC, he has no science training; he’s an English Language graduate. Rather than smirking that he’s an unfit member of this project, I’d suggest he’s standing in the place of the poor bewildered man in the street, asking such questions on our behalf.
Go on, Roger. Ask about “known knowns” and “known unknowns”. Ask about the limits of certainty in climatology. Read James Gleick’s 1987 book “Chaos” which showed us the mathematical limitations to weather forecasting which batteries of supercomputers can never defeat. Having read it myself back then, I have always been appalled at the overconfident tone of IPCC reports which ought to contain a little asterisk linked to a footnote saying: “Of course, the climate may do the exact bleedin’ opposite of all our lofty prediction.”
The bottom line is that th obsession on CO2 as the most important thing for the climate has come at the cost of poorer performance of anything brought into the thrall of this popular obsession.
Can anyone name anything that climate science in its current CO2 obsessed existance has done that has actually made things better (besides their budgets)?
While this test is a good idea, I am thinking it would be a good exercise that once the future testing periods are set, to go back maybe 4-5 years and look at what the contestants have done prior to the test. Maybe we can seed the combatants.
TheTempestSpark (February 1, 2011 at 11:36 am) says:
@Dave Have you ever tried to comment on a bbc or gurndain website?
you’ll find there is no respect or tolerance for apposing views on man made climate change issues, in fact they are very fond of the big red delete button (No pressure!).
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I have seen that, and it’s why I don’t trust them an inch, whereas I respect the integrity of people like Anthony Watts, the Bishop, McIntyre, Lucia, the two Pielkes, etc.
It’s a trust thing. I can trust someone who faces his critics – at least I can believe that he believes what he’s saying. When people duck, dive, weave and dodge, I start to question their motives.
Harrabin isn’t acting like someone with something to hide.
Why do we want to be tainted with any association with Auntie.
I notice the guys link to Elvis. Nowt like a little insult.
All everyone needs to do is publishe their forecasts on there own website.
PS.. For the Beeb, Met and Harrabin. All forecasts must be before the actual event. If you have problem understanding this please drop a post here. Lots of deniers will love to explain it to you.
I wrote my previous comment without reading others’ comments. After reading a lot of them (and kudos to all), I have to say this:
It isn’t science if it doesn’t predict successfully.
That supposedly is what peer review is supposed to be about, keeping weak speculations out of the mix, to let only the ideas that work in front of everyone. In fact, even the mentioned Royal Society was founded on the principles of “Get the damned philosophers out of here and let us real scientists show our experiments and judge each other on the results.” Unfortunately, Robert Hookes had barely expressed such ideas and had then signed onto before they were already violating it.
Hookes would laugh CAGW out of the county. Except he was too dour of a man for laughter. He was not known for a sense of humor. He’d have ripped ’em a new one.
Roger. Stop the smokescreen. Keep it simple. Either:
1. You were completely duped by the Met. Not a good thing to happen to a journalist.
Or
2. You are trying to dupe us. Not a good thing for a journalist to do.
Whichever is correct (and there is no option 3) it has been blindingly obvious to everyone that you have been on this game for years.
And is “Dave”, poster of so many sympathetic words here, actually your pal David Shukman?
Just answer the original question please. No more smokescreens.
Then resign.
Alexej Buergin says:
February 1, 2011 at 10:36 am
Anthony Watts’ first impression, that Harrabin would not respond, was absolutely correct: He did not respond.
He wrote about other things, though. Nice.
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Bingo. Got it in one. We’re being far nicer than he deserves.
John O’Sullivan’s thought provoking piece seems to be the source of Roger’s comment:
“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.”
I did my own (simplistic) comparison of short term met office forecasting last year and came to the conclusion that looking out of the window was more accurate than the current 5 day view we receive :
Results here
This non-response by Mr. Harrabin is contemptible. The issue is not the need for better information on the performance of weather forecasters over the long term, but rather at least one element of HMG attempted to bring down or create a crisis for the elected element. There is a back story here of lies, deception and political maneuver, and Mr. Harrabin was smack in the middle of it, either as a participant or as a dupe. This pathetic “response” solidifies the suspicion he was a participant and is not to be trusted.
Cassandra King says:
February 1, 2011 at 1:37 pm
ThomasJ says:
February 1, 2011 at 1:25 pm
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You’re most welcome, Cass!
I’d very much would point yours (and maybe others) interest towards the Swedish ‘public service’ (SVT) scheme as being – since way years back more than less in pursuit with the ‘BBC’. Compared to neighbouring countries (Norway, NRK, Finnish, YLE) there is a dramatic difference in terms of being ‘public’, i.e. unbiased and neutral. Take a look at this video, produced in 2006 and aired on NRK same year. NOT shown in SVT yet, 2011-02-01, although numerous people asking for it:
http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/193197
And we DO have the same problems here. Go Figure!
Brgds from Sweden
//TJ
Thank goodness Mr Harrabin didn’t suggest actual The Royal Society and a big cash prize for the most accurate forecasts. They’ve “previous” in resisting the truth…
Otherwise I strongly suspect a re-run of the shameful RS supervision of 18th century marine chronometer contest whee orthodoxy was threatened by and even in the end, when it was obvious they were wrong and had behaved in their own self interest and without honor – no apology was proffered.
I still haven’t seen any explanation of Mr Harrabin’s claims about the UKMO keeping their “correct” cold winter forecasts secret from the public and only telling the government.