Met Office hits back at 'inaccuracies' in James Delingpole article

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jan/11/met-office-james-delingpole

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The Met Office has hit back at claims that it conceded there is no evidence for global warming and that its weather forecasts are inaccurate.

The forecaster has published a blog detailing an alleged "series of factual inaccuracies about the Met Office and its science" made in a Daily Mail article written by James Delingpole.

The blog provides a point by point rebuttal of the Mail story, headlined "The crazy climate change obsession that's made the Met Office a menace".

Delingpole writes that the Met Office "failed to predict snow in 2010" and adds that the floods last November were "forecast-defying".

The forecaster states: "Our 5-day forecasts accurately forecast 12 out of 13 snowfall events – as you can see in this article."

It goes on to note that the Press Complaints Commission has already addressed "this fallacy" in dealing with a complaint against the Daily Telegraph in February 2012.

As a result of the press watchdog's ruling the Telegraph published a clarification that highlighted that "the Met Office did warn the public of last winter's [2010/11] cold weather from early November 2010".

The Met Office also refutes Delingpole's claim that it had conceded that "there is no evidence that 'global warming' is happening":

"In fact, we explicitly say this was not the case in an article, posted on the home page of our website and widely circulated, which was written in response to articles about updates to our decadal forecast. Professor Julia Slingo, Met Office chief scientist, has also provided a more in depth feature on 'Decadal Forecasting – what is it and what does it tell us?'."

Delingpole is also taken to task for claiming that the Met said Britain was experiencing more rain than at any time since records began and for claiming that the Met said the past 10 years have been the wettest decade ever.

He is also reprimanded for quoting David Whitehouse, a member of Lord Lawson's climate sceptic group the Global Warming Policy Foundation, who said the Met "thinks weather forecasting is beneath it". The Met notes that "the vast majority" of its contractual work for the public is weather forecasting.

There was one aspect of Delingpole's piece that the Met agreed with: his quote of Whitehouse saying "when it comes to four or five day weather forecasting, the Met Office is the best in the world"."

This is not the first time that Delingpole has been criticised for his coverage of climate issues.

Last month he was rebuked by the Australian Press Council for a column in which he described an Australian renewable energy programme as a "Ponzi scheme", accused a law firm of gagging climate sceptics, and quoted an anoymous source who compared the wind-farm industry to a paedophile ring.

Delingpole was further criticised for making claims about the health risks associated with wind farms, which the watchdog noted were contrary to "extensive academic research" on the subject. However, the regulator decided his claim did not meet the "very high threshold" required to call it "untenable".