Five months after the IPCC ruled that the infamous RCP8.5 doomsday climate scenario was “implausible”, the Met Office is still whipping up unjustified Net-Zero convenient fear, says Chris Morrison.

Five months after the IPCC ruled that the infamous RCP8.5 computer scenario responsible for most mainstream climate doomsday copy over the last 15 years was “implausible”, what news can I bring you of the Met Office’s UK Climate Projection 2018 report (UKCP18) that based its predictions on the now cancelled modelling nonsense? Good news: the Met Office immediately withdrew UKCP18 with a fulsome apology for all the harm caused. Everything from the compromised geography A level syllabus to numerous Net Zero rules and regulations that relied on its claims have been withdrawn pending future alteration. Sorry, I must have dropped off for a moment and started dreaming. Of course, the report has not been withdrawn; of course, no apology has been forthcoming, and of course, UKCP18 is still up to all its old tricks.
On June 23rd, the Met Office produced a weather forecast for 2055 showing how the summer temperature in England under a “plausible” computer model scenario could hit 45°C along with nine consecutive days where 40°C was recorded somewhere in the country. Not bad going in 30 years, given that the UK temperature ’record’ of 40.3°C produced on July 19th 2022 by the runway at RAF Coningsby was somewhat challenged in its veracity by the fact that Typhoon jets were attempting to land at the time. The claimed record was a 60-second 0.6°C spike and over a five-minute average – recommended by the World Meteorological Organisation to reduce ‘noise’ – the temperature fell below the magic, headline-grabbing 40°C.

The Met Office did not specifically identify which “plausible” scenario it used but the figures were remarkably similar – in fact slightly hotter – than claims in UKCP18 that summer temperatures could rise by 5.1°C by 2070. Furthermore, Chief Scientist Professor Stephen Belcher, who called the illustration “scientifically plausible”, noted: “By using data from Met Office projections, we can glimpse into what an event like the 1976 summer would look like in the 2050s. It is a stark realisation to see the maximum temperature reach 45°C.”
The ‘maximum invented temperature’ would have been a more accurate statement, but such a reasonable scientific qualification was not made by Belcher, who is on record as stating that Net Zero will “stabilise” the climate.
The less charitable might suggest that the Met Office used implausible forecasts to whip up BS climate fearmongering during a glorious summer (albeit a tad inconvenient at times for those without the joys of air conditioning) in its relentless political drive to boost climate psychosis in the general population and promote the Net Zero fantasy.
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Now take a look at this pack of panic-inducing poppycock published last June by Comic Cuts, or as it is sometimes called, the Guardian.

The Guardian story was based on a report from the British Geological Survey (BGS), which is designed to help town planners, property developers and financial companies assess future climate risks. Maps of the UK are produced using geological information with the highest-resolution climate change data from the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, “which is derived from and builds upon Met Office UKCP18 climate projections”. By 2070, the BGS noted that over four million homes could be affected by subsidence under the high-emission scenario RCP8.5. This pathway was the only one used by the Met Office in UKCP18 and its findings are highlighted in bold type in the report. Due to computer cost considerations, other lower emission scenarios were said to be statistically derived from RCP8.5.
Oh dear, the BGS published alarming subsidence conclusions in June using fanciful Met Office projection that had been stinking up the science joint since April’s ‘Implausible Day’. Did nobody see fit to tell the BGS before it published its geological garbage? Was Comic Cuts unaware that its story about housing foundations being dragged down beneath the soil was a load of climate-catastrophising conkers? Nevertheless, we must have sympathy and understanding for the Guardian at a difficult time. The Greenland ice sheet is in net balance this year so the newspaper cannot run its regular and ever popular ‘London houses beneath the waves’ routine.
Subsidence has always been a problem in the London area where old brick buildings sit on a heavy clay soil that shrinks and expands as water levels change. The BGS is supposed to give future guidance to help mitigate this problem. It might be better off in future making realistic projections based on accumulated evidence and observations, rather than raising fear based on duff computer modelled climate guesses.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor. Follow him on X.
OCTOBER PUBLICATION: new book by Chris Morrison with a foreword by Toby Young: IMPLAUSIBLE: How scientists, activist politicians and journalists invented a climate crisis, weaponised junk computer model findings and claimed a fake consensus to promote the collectivist Net Zero fantasy.
The Met Office has always been a laughing stock in Britain. So no change there.
“Implausible” Met Office UK Climate Projections Still Whipping up Unjustified Net Zero-Convenient Fear
The Met Office writes… (to me)…
Whilst SSP5-8.5 is now considered implausible, it is important to note that higher levels of warming still might be reached if some feedbacks in the climate system turn out to be stronger than current estimates, or there are additional feedbacks not included in typical climate model simulations. The plausibility of future scenarios also changes over time. We cannot rule out that scenarios currently considered implausible could become more likely again in the future. For instance, a widespread return to investment in very high fossil fuel use and back-tracking on current climate policies could increase the likelihood of higher emissions.
Best regards…
That kind of says it all: higher levels of warming still might be reached if some feedbacks in the climate system turn out to be stronger than current estimates, or there are additional feedbacks not included in typical climate model simulations.
[Positive] feedbacks they haven’t, er, conceived of yet. That is the official reaction (or is that the ‘official’ rejection?) of the demise of RCP 8.5. One cannot help but detect the utter desperation and the very forlorn hope in that email response, that somehow at some point 8.5 will be restored – and the Met Office lauded.
They are sticking with RCP 8.5 and keeping it to themselves.
“higher levels of warming still might be reached if some feedbacks in the climate system turn out to be stronger than current estimates”
MIGHT IF
pseudo science
I’m still waiting for them to find some of these positive feedbacks.
So far, all of the strong ones have been negative.
Nature is very resistant to change. Clearcut a forest and it’ll grow back very quickly. I wonder if there are any positive feedbacks in nature.
“They are sticking with RCP 8.5 and keeping it to themselves.”
They are not.
See below.
They are giving a projection for the UK, not the Globe.
And for land not land+sea
Ah, Mr Banton
Any projection the MO puts forward is fabricated and not worth any paper it might be printed on.
“We cannot rule out that scenarios currently considered implausible could become more likely again in the future”
RCP8.5 assumed a 5 times increase in coal use, more coal than is actually available worldwide!
For some reason they can always rule out the cooler scenarios.
That’s probably the biggest mystery of the science of the mays,ifs,cans and coulds.
The neato word “implausible” has thus fallen victim. They’ve sacrificed more English language for three yards and a cloud of dust.
Remember, the “science” is settled.
So they can predict the weather in 2070 when they cannot accurately predict the weather next week?
R-r-right.
That’s the triumph of faith over reason.
They are giving a projection of a possible range of temperatures based on pausible CO2 concentrations going forward.
Very, very different from forecasting weather on specific days (max 5 reliable and another 5 a reasonable guide) depending on the chaos in the current synoptics.
(estimated via ensembles of possible outcomes from initial conditions)
FYI: Weather is inherently chaotic in the climate system that functions within an energy envelope necessary having a metric of GSAT (climate).
8.5 isn’t plausible according to the IPCC
“pausible” ???
Is that a combination of possible and plausible? 🙂
It’s an oblique reference to either the global warming pause from 1998 to 2013 (ref: the “Climategate scandal” that revealed emails to “hide the decline”), or perhaps the even-longer global warming pause from 1945 to 1975 that caused scientists in the early 1970’s to issue warnings of a “coming Ice Age”.
Ah ha– so Banton is only pretending to be a climate nut job when he’s actually astutely aware of the problems with that lunacy. 🙂
So they are so unsure of their answer, that it isn’t called a forecast. What is the probability of the “projection” occurring? Don’t give a wishy washy prose answer, give a number defining the probability. If you are confident in the “projection”, that shouldn’t be a problem.
So that big “45” northwest of London is a range of temperatures? Hmmm….
Stand by . . . they’ve been “tuning” the weather/climate models being run on those hundreds-of-millions $USD supercomputers for the last 20 or so years, and I’m sure those “atmospheric scientists” are “just around the corner” from getting it right with respect to forecasting.
/sarc
What’s sad is that Britain could cease all fossil fuel burning for any reason tomorrow and it would make not one iota of difference. It not a reason to destroy the country. They should be screaming in the UN General Assembly for the large emitters to cease and desist using fossil fuels today.
But that won’t let Britain’s politicians exert any power and control over their populace will it?
It would make a difference to the ordinary net zeroed person
Yes, as they shiver in the cold it sure would!
The whole world could stop burning fossil fuel and it would still not make any measurable difference.
“The Met Office did not specifically identify which “plausible” scenario it used but the figures were remarkably similar – in fact slightly hotter – than claims in UKCP18 that summer temperatures could rise by 5.1°C by 2070.”
There is only around a 0.5C difference by 2050 between RCP8.5 and RCP4.5 – with 4.5 considered the most likely path now.
Also the values are global and observations show that….
Land is warming faster than ocean.
Europe is the fastest warming *continent*.
“According to data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service and the World Meteorological Organization, Europe has warmed by roughly 2.5°C above pre-industrial levels, compared to a global land average rise. Since the mid-1990s, temperatures in Europe have risen at a rate of about 0.56°C per decade, outpacing other continents like Asia (0.46°C), North America (0.42°C), and Africa (0.36°C), as well as the global landmass average of 0.40°C per decade. (Only the polar Arctic region warms faster).”
“Land areas generally show about twice as much warming as the ocean.”
So taking a mean as representative on the global RCP temp graph – then that eliminates the 0.5C Delta between paths 8.5 and 4.5.
Without considering the faster warming the UK may continue with by the 2050s
Averaging fantasy models and circular reasoning.
Along with circular models and fantasy reasoning. 🙂
No the reasoning is based on observations.
(that you do not accept them is the self-fulfilling prophecy made by most denizens here and can be ignored).
The RCP8.5 is what it is/was.
A worst case scenario now considered redundant, and not going to happen.
The models (RCP8.5) has been accepted as just that for the basis of this missive by Morrison, so the “circular models” comment is also irrelevant.
That worst case scenario was produced by YOUR wonderful scientists- now that things aren’t looking so bad, they backed down a bit.
“”The RCP8.5 is what it is/was.
A worst case scenario now considered redundant,””
Redundant? Just can’t bring yourself to admit that climate science stooped to using an IMPLAUSABLE scenario can you?
Why did climate scientists refuse to use something implausible? Maybe they don’t know as much as you profess they do!
If it was a “worst case scenario”, why was it referred to over and over, as “business as usual”.
“The Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 scenario came out in 2011.”
Western economies was working okay in 2011. For some, okay is not okay.
Just the typical desperate response with motivated reasoning.
The UK is not the Globe – which is what the metric on the RCP8.5 Global and not regional).
The UK is part of the continent of Europe that is warming fast than the global average (currently by around 1C).
In addition the metric is for both land and ocean combined.
The UK IS land which is warming twice as fast as ocean.
Hence the Uk MetO’s projected temps are indeed entirely plausible.
“Just the typical desperate response with motivated reasoning.’
You describe yourself well !
A more correct statement would be “Land areas generally show about a degree more warming than ocean areas…2 degrees more for urbanized areas, mostly due to the sunlight energy absorption characteristics of soil and asphalt compared to water”
I once stood in a Walmart parking lot waiting for someone. When I got home, in a wooded area, it was at least 10 degrees F cooler.
A Walmart parking lot?
You’re lucky you made it out alive, Joseph. 😲😱
IN Tucson AZ, they’ve done tests to show that a walkway with an avenue of trees overhanging can be 25F cooler than a public walkway out in the direct sunlight.
Can you grow trees in Tuscon? What species? Palms? That reminds me, way, way back in ’76, I went cross country with 2 buddies. After a month of camping out and hardly ever washing ourselves or clothes- we were in Tuscon and walked the state university campus. Entered through a nice gate from a strip development. Were shocked to see that the campus looked very nice- like a town in Spain. We were eyeing the hot babes of course, but we looked like filthy bums. After admiring the campus, we left and got back into the strip. All I could think of is it’s too bad Tuscon doesn’t all look like that campus.
Give up on the UHI “is causing it” get-out.
Anthony Watts has (unwittingly).
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/09/14/wrong-usa-today-hottest-summer-ever-claim-ignores-the-most-important-temperature-record/
The *pristine* USCRN shows that the US summer was warmer (by 0.4F) than the ClimDiv data for max temps and that for min temps they were both the same within 10ths of a deg F (If you bother to go to the NOAA link and investigate here).
NB: He says …. “One plausible explanation is the urban heat island effect (UHI).”
No, if anything it shows that the UHI effect compensation on ClimDiv data is introducing a cold bias.
The MO is half weather forecaster and half climate crisis propaganda bureau.
Huxter knows, as do any critical thinking people.
“could”. Time to stop reading- that word has place in SCIENCE.
4.5 has become the highest scenario and not the “most likely” except in your mind. Actually, 2.5 is the lowest which some would consider unlikely also. That leads to somewhere in between, which leads to a likley value in the range of 2.0 – 2.5°C since preindustrial. Not CAGW by any means.
Could it be that Europe’s temps have increased as a result of all those hordes of immigrants & refugees arrivals from tropical & sub tropical countries, each adding 98.6 degrees F to the area?
And is GB next in line for this effect?
“Europe is the fastest warming *continent*.”
Well, that depends on which blood sucking rent-seeking ‘scientist’ you ask:
“Europe has warmed by roughly 2.5°C above pre-industrial levels,”
No it hasn’t.
“So taking a mean as representative on the global RCP temp graph – then that eliminates the 0.5C Delta between paths 8.5 and 4.5.”
Are you saying that since 8.5 can’t be used the next thing to do is average it with the nearest option?
Since we’ve now exceeded it, I’m just wondering when the IPCC will get around to admitting that a “tipping point” associated with a 1.5 deg-C rise in average global temperature above the “pre-industrial” value is also “implausible”?
ROTFL.
It amazes me how all those ice ages and interglacials happened when there weren’t any humans around. AND that the warming up was sufficiently huge to cause an interglacial between two of the ice ages.
Where DID Nature find all the nefarious tools to cause such extraordinary warming and cooling, eh?
In a just world we should start hearing and reading that the Met knew you know kind of like Exxon knew. The Met knows RCP8.5 is garbage they should be held accountable for misleading their followers in the past, today and in the future.
Hey they like their glass walled palace and need to look busy to pay the high utility bills at a place with poor insulation.
MET:
“On June 23rd, the Met Office produced a weather forecast for 2055 showing how the summer temperature in England under a “plausible” computer model scenario could hit 45°C…”
Web search:
“The highest temperature ever recorded in England (and the UK) is 40.3°C (104.5°F), set on 19 July 2022 at Coningsby in Lincolnshire.”
Common sense check:
45C = 113F
How hot is it in Phoenix, AZ, USA at that time?