The Met Office has defended its forecast for a hot, dry summer despite some areas looking set to have the most rain since records began. As summer officially came to a close amid extreme downpours on Monday, the forecaster was left facing questions about why it predicted a ‘drier-than-average’ season even though a strong El Nino climate event was expected. In May the Met Office said that it ‘wouldn’t expect (El Nino) to be the dominant driver of our weather’ in the summer months. Yet this weekend Met Office chief scientist Professor Dame Julia Slingo said that the El Nino phenomenon had disturbed weather patterns, which might have been predicted. “We all know that forecasting months and seasons ahead is still in its infancy and much more research needs to be done.”–Sarah Knapton, The Daily Telegraph, 31 August 2015
The Met Office’s prediction for the summer issued at the start of June led us all to believe it would be hot and dry. Instead, it has been one of the coldest and soggiest holiday seasons for nearly 30 years. The level of rainfall was already up 13% on average across Britain by last Wednesday, at 11in. It means it has been wetter than all but five summers since 1988 and the wettest since 2012 ‚Äì which was the soggiest for 100 years. At the same time, temperatures have fallen to an average of 14C, which is 0.4C down on normal. It means it has been colder than all but four summers since 1988 and the coldest since 2012’s average of 13.9C. –Alistair Grant, Daily Star, 30 August 2015
The chief reason why the Met Office has been getting so many forecasts spectacularly wrong, as reported here ad nauseam, is that all its short, medium and long-term forecasts ultimately derive from the same huge computer model, which is programmed to believe in manmade global warming. Hence the fun we’ve all had with those “barbecue summers” when rain never stopped, and “warmer than average” winters, which promptly saw Britain freezing under piles of snow. –Christopher Booker, The Sunday Telegraph, 30 August 2015
In September 2008, the Met Office forecast a trend of mild winters: the following winter turned out to be the coldest for a decade. Then its notorious promise of a ‘barbecue summer’ was followed by unrelenting rain. Last year, it forecast a ‘drier than average’ spring — before another historic deluge that was accompanied by the coldest temperatures for 50 years. Never has the Met Office had more scientists and computing power at its disposal — yet never has it seemed so baffled by the British weather. But there is no paradox. It is precisely the power of this technology in harnessing climate scientists’ assumptions about global warming that has scuppered the Met Office’s predictions — and made it a propagandist for global warming alarmism. It has become an accomplice to a climate change agenda that now affects where and how we travel, the way houses are built, the lights we read by. And its errors are no laughing matter to tourism industry chiefs in Cornwall and the north-west, who say the Met Office’s false warnings of dire summers cost hundreds of millions of pounds in cancelled bookings. ‚ÄìRupert Darwall, The Spectator, 13 July 2013
Another Bank Holiday, another washout! It was not meant to be like this! Back in 2006, climate genius David Viner told us: Climate change could “dramatically” change the face of British tourism in the next 20 years, with European tourists flocking to the UK to escape unbearably hot continental summers, experts say. Research shows that European tourists may choose to holiday in Britain as resorts nearer to home become too hot.Weather changes may provide revival opportunities for northern seaside towns such as Blackpool and put new strains on roads and development in southern coastal resorts, a study in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism said. Academic David Viner, a researcher at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in Norwich, produced the report after analysing the work of experts around the globe. “The likelihood [is] that Mediterranean summers may be too hot for tourists after 2020, as a result of too much heat and water shortages,” the study said. Apparently nobody thought to tell the tourists! –Paul Homewood, Not A Lot Of PPeople Know That, 31 August 2015
A decade ago, Hurricane Katrina slammed Florida and then the Gulf Coast, creating a humanitarian catastrophe in New Orleans. While memories of that devastation remain vivid, there would be 16 more named storms before that year was out, more than in an entire typical Atlantic hurricane season. The record level of activity in 2005 exhausted the traditional alphabetic list of names, ushering in Alpha through Zeta. It might seem disasters on the ground would become financial ones for companies that shoulder those risks. But, if anything, the opposite is true. —Spencer Jakab, The Wall Street Journal, 31 August 2015
European Union bureaucrats sank more than ¬£10 million into subsiding television shows last year, it was revealed yesterday. The money went to make programmes promoting the merits of the EU and warning of the dangers of climate change as well as to support popular series that are already highly successful. A number of the subsidised programmes have been seen on British television ‚Äì and one, The Great European Disaster Movie, was broadcast by the BBC to widespread derision from critics. Other shows backed by Brussels included one in which a climate change activist searches the world for ways to save the planet. –Steve Doughty, Daily Mail, 1 September 2015
