From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
London, 13 February – The UK Met Office has been accused of seriously misleading the public about climate-driven storms in the UK.
On 22nd January, the day after Storm Isha, a senior meteorologist from the Met Office stated on BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast that “when we see these storms they are more intense and that’s down to climate change”.
However, after being challenged through a FOI request to provide evidence for the claim that storms have become more intense, the Met Office was forced to admit they have no such evidence.
In its response, the Met Office also referred to its own UK Storm activity report which clearly states that “there is no compelling trend in maximum gust speeds recorded in the UK since 1969.”
We call on the Met Office to publish a full retraction of what is evidently a false and misleading claim.
Notes for editors
Met Office: Recent trends and future projections of UK storm activity: “This report found that there is no compelling trend in maximum gust speeds recorded in the UK since 1969, measured as the number of days more than 20 weather stations recorded gust speeds above 40, 50 or 60 knots.”
Met Office: State of the UK Climate 2022 (page 47): “Storm Eunice [in 2022] was the most severe storm to affect England and Wales since February 2014, but even so, these storms of the 1980s and 1990s were very much more severe.”
Paul Homewood: Met Office cannot provide evidence for “more intense storms” claim
“. . . the Met Office was forced to admit they have no such evidence.”
Typical!
The ends justify any means for these people.
It would be bad enough if it was a typical alarmist nut job- but the Met! People should get fired over this.
I can tell you now, neither the Met Office nor the Waffen BBC will retract anything. This is an opportunity to reset – as they say – to providing factual weather reporting and eschewing the activist led claims they are wont to make. An opportunity they have no intention of taking.
Slingo Bingo says: “”the variable UK climate meant there was “no definitive answer” to what caused the storms.
“But all the evidence suggests there is a link to climate change,” she added.
“There is no evidence to counter the basic premise that a warmer world will lead to more intense daily and hourly rain events.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26084625
“”all the evidence suggests there is a link to climate change””?
“”after being challenged through a FOI request to provide evidence for the claim that storms have become more intense, the Met Office was forced to admit they have no such evidence. “”
I doubt Slingo will behave any differently to Paula Vennels (Post Office) and Vennels was forced to hand back her CBE Ouch. She should be in jail. I think everybody knows that. And yet tumbleweeds.
Leaders like these count on the little people giving up. They don’t always get their way.
“There is no evidence to counter the basic premise that a warmer world will lead to more intense daily and hourly rain events.”
Can they show any evidence that shows their basic premise that a warmer world will lead to more intense daily and hourly rain events? Or since they said it first, do you have to prove them wrong, like in any kid’s argument?
Storms are less intense in a warmer world because the equator-pole thermal gradient is not as steep. Richard Lindzen pointed that out some 30 years ago, and it’s been ignored ever since. By people who know better.
This specifically manifests itself in the dramatic decrease in the strongest tornadoes. EF4s are down well more than half and EF5 may have disappeared altogether. This is in perfect accord with the second law of thermodynamics.
https://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/f5torns.html
The burden of proof is on the party making the claim. Making a claim like “storms getting more intense” without evidence is meaningless and does not require anyone to disprove it.
They couldn’t care less, even if they do write a retraction it’ll be tucked away somewhere and nobody will see it.
A lie travels halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on.
It may not be evidentially true but it feels true and isn’t that more important?
Oppressing people’s feelings is intellectual colonialism, anti-feminist and outside the range of acceptable language, as defined by the BBC.
Prediction is hard — harder when predicting the past.
Be logical:
If storms get worse due to climate change and there is no sign of storms getting worse.
I suggest there is no climate change!
“”I suggest there is no climate change””
Talk about asking for it….
There is and Hom Sap is merely a spectator
Well, apart from a small amount of beneficial warming..
Can anyone list ways in which the “global climate” has actually changed??
Provide actual data to show it actually has changed , and isn’t just weather normal events re-occurring..
Story Tip
Meanwhile, the BBC has resurrected that old worn out narrative of starving polar bears, due to ice melt.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68253819
Never ending BS! Polar bear populations seem to be increasing and have been ever since they have cut way down on the hunting tags.
Over on Polar Bear Science, Susan Crockford shows the study to be the usual alarmist garbage beloved by the Beeb, Guardian et al.
The short of it is that after intense hunting there were 7000 polar bears in 1970. And today, after 50 years of climate change, only 25,000 remain.
I wonder what a negative polar bear looks like. Maybe Mr Attenborough coud produce a documentary on the feeding habits of negative polar bears.
They yap about loss of sea ice…
Below is the up-to-date Arctic sea ice for the last 20 year
Also, the slight recovery from the extreme high of 1979 has allowed many sea creatures to return to the Arctic.
Species not evident since the MWP are starting to return to the Arctic waters as their food now has a chance to grow. Can’t swim on ice !!
The nearly extinct (from hunting) Narwhale is making a reappearance.
The ice retreats – whale food returns (sciencenorway.no)
Great thing is, that because of fossil fuels and plastics, they will no longer be hunted for whale blubber oil for lamps and for whale bone.
The Blue Mussel is also making a return, having been absent for a few thousand years, apart from a brief stint during the MWP.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0959683617715701?journalCode=hola
Hopefully the Arctic doesn’t re-freeze too much in the next AMO cycle, and these glorious creatures get a chance to survive, thrive and multiply.
The abstract from the second link
ps.. 6ºC warmer, 4ºC warmer.. far less sea ice… for thousand+ year periods
Yet the polar bears are still there. !
Didn’t you just love the money quote-
Changes in observation methods and instruments mean the data can only be reliably assessed back to 1969
…but trust us with the extreme weather and climate change meme way back since the Industrial Revolution folks.
The long-term climate of the Earth is still a 2.56 million-year ice age named the Quaternary Glaciation with over 20% of the land frozen.
Claire Nasir was a decent weather forecaster who seldom pushed an alarmist agenda of the kind many others at the Met Office resorted to (as in ‘hottest day ever …’ with no qualification at all). It seems promotion doesn’t do any present day public service providers any good at all. The higher they go the faster they end up saying the same things just as Orwell predicted they would – no observable value for money there then and so why not sack the lot?
Perhaps the public needs a competent meteorological centre and not the inadequate and dishonest monstrosity we are paying through the nose for – it would be cheap and CAREFUL.
Most of them are promoted beyond their capabilities. The incompetent ones are promoted higher and faster to keep them away from anything they would screw up.
Sounds like the Inverse Peter Principal. “After a person reaches his level of incompetence, he is then promoted to a level where his incompetence is no linger obvious.”
Likewise, the current story globally is that heatwaves are getting hotter, longer and more frequent. When I tested that gossip on 8 of Australia’s largest or important cities, I could not find evidence in support (unless I cherry picked data start dates, like most authors did).
You people in UK should calculate your own heatwave data to see if the current alarmist wisdom is supported. If enough countries do it – it is not rocket science – we might have the sarcastic result that every country has worse heatwaves than average.
Then, use the same, simple analytical approach to show that most countries are now seeing more ‘century’ days each year above 100F.
Give yourselves some easy science data to refute poor climate research.
Geoff S
Did they fire those responsible for spreading these lies? No? Then they will continue to spread these lies.
There is a new study saying Polar bears in Hudson bay are at risk of starving “due to climate change” – based on a study of 20 bears. Hmm…..
Some days they have to really dig deep into their lengthy datasheet of alarms; the return of insectageddon is pencilled in for August this year.
It’s a story that demonstrates just how effective the climate change propagandists are – the story was arounf the world in a flash
They’re just straight out lying to you. Like they always do. They got caught for once, but so what? They always lie and the rarely get caught, so they keep doing it.
In the US, the state records for maximum temperature were mostly set long ago.
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/scec/records/all/tmax
Well there’s the truth and then there’s the “truth” they want the public to hear which is whatever supports the political activist agenda regardless of facts. And if the voting population can be taught to believe the year was the wettest, driest, windiest, calmest, hottest and coldest year on record then they are ready to vote for the green new deal and probably the burning of witches as well.
Very nice, we are headed the right direction. Hold these CAGW mongrels feet to the fire. They are liars and cheats.
If I stood on scale to weigh myself, got a reading, then picked up a ten pound weight, I know why “I” suddenly gained 10 pounds. I’m holding “the evidence” in my hand.
They have nothing to justify claiming any natural severe weather event is “severer” because it gained 10 pounds of CO2.
Yes, all change is bad, it’s the fault of the first world, guilt reigns supreme!
Oh, no qualitative proof required.
Keep us posted — not sure how UK laws for government agency accountability work.