Letters: The Met Office answers Rupert Darwall, and a defence of Bolívar

Wild weather

Sir: Weather and climate science is not an emotional or political issue — even though emotions and politics run high around it, as illustrated in Rupert Darwall’s article (‘Bad weather’, 13 July). However, it is important that opinions are rooted in evidence, and the article contains numerous errors and misrepresentations about the Met Office and its science. Here are a couple of points.

The assertion of the Met Office’s ‘forecast failure’ is just wrong. The Met Office is beating all of its forecast accuracy targets. We are consistently recognised by the World Meteorological Organization as one of the top two most accurate operational forecasters in the world. While no forecaster can be 100 per cent accurate, we are at the forefront of weather and climate science and are working to ensure the UK stays a leader in this field.

The Met Office did not ‘brace’ the UK for a ‘decade of soggy summers’. This is a misrepresentation of science from the University of Reading, which scientists made clear at the time should not be taken as a forecast. The Met Office provides impartial advice based only on evidence from world-class research which has been subjected to the rigour and challenge of peer review. Our scientists share those findings as they are, so people can make informed decisions — and form opinions.
John Hirst, Met Office Chief Executive
Exeter

Sir: Rupert Darwall is right about the Met Office, which has become an arm of the evangelical environmentalists. It accepted the Anthropogenic Global Warming hypothesis from day one and refuses to change direction, even though many highly qualified climate scientists have become sceptical. Not a single circulation model predicted the 15-17 year hiatus in global mean surface temperature. Yet CO2 emissions have increased year on year. It’s possible that the models contain false assumptions about a positive feedback mechanism in which warming from CO2 leads to more water vapour in the atmosphere (water vapour is a more aggressive greenhouse gas than CO2).