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David Whitehouse: Met Office Attacks BBC On Global Temperature Standstill
Article Tags: David Whitehouse, Headline Story, Met Office, Met Office Decadal Forecast
The reporting of the Met Office’s new half-decadal prediction of global temperatures, which now forecasts no rise in warming over the next five years (in sharp contrast to previous record warm forecasts) – has highlighted two lessons in reporting climate change. One is the violation of the old maxim that people are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts – in climate change reporting it seems that facts can be flexible. The other is that it seems you can’t please anyone, anytime. Here is the BBC’s original broadcast of the recent Met Office forecast put out at 7.00 am Tuesday 8th January, BBC Radio 4.
Newsreader: The Met Office has revised downwards its projection for climate change through to 2017. The new figure suggests that although global temperatures will be forced above their long-term average because of greenhouse gases, the recent slowdown in warming will continue. More details from our environment analyst Roger Harrabin.
Roger Harrabin: Last year the Met Office projected that as greenhouse gases increase, the world’s temperature would be 0.54 degrees warmer than the long-term average by 2016. The new experimental Met Office computer model, looking a year further ahead, projects that the Earth will continue to warm, but the increase will be about 20% less than the previous calculation. If the new number proves accurate, there will have been little additional warming for two decades. The Met Office says natural cycles have caused the recent slowdown in warming, including maybe changes in the sun and ocean currents. Mainstream climate scientists say that when the natural cooling factors change again, temperatures will be driven up further by greenhouse gases.
I have said before that I did not think Roger’s script was very good, the use of figures was confusing in my view, but I think he did get the story basically right; that the Met Office has a new projection to 2017, based on a new computer model, and that will mean little additional warming for two decades (although I would have said none). He said the temperature slowdown was due to natural influences and that temperatures would eventually go up again.
Source: thegwpf.org/
2013-01-14 10:32:12
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