In article ,
Adrian D. Shaw writes:
Felly sgrifennodd John Hall :
In article ,
Les Hemmings writes:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf.../fair-weather-
friends-met-office


There was a very good full page article by Philip Eden in yesterday's
Telegraph covering much the same ground:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/we...er-wished-you-
could-fire-the-Met-Office.html

That is a fascinating article. I disagree with Philip on one thing
though:

quote
But research, especially in its early stages, should be described in
peer-reviewed journals, not in the tabloid press. There is absolutely no
need for the Met Office to publicise this work, particularly when skill
levels are demonstrably so limited, and it will probably be decades
before the accuracy of seasonal forecasts is useful to the general
public.
/quote

It is not the Met Office's fault that we have such an irresponsible
tabloid press. Admittedly maybe the Met Office should have been more
vocal about the health warnings, and had a standard reply to the press
somthing along the lines of "This is experimental; please don't make too
much of it", but to hide the information from us just because the
tabloids might egg it up too much really doesn't seem to be the right
approach.

If the Met Office didn't publish this information, I can see the
headlines:

"This summer's heatwave was predicted by Met Office models, but they
didn't warn us!"

Adrian

I suspect that the main problem is that there is a lot of pressure from
the utility companies, big business and councils for seasonal forecasts,
especially for the winter quarter, and that if the Met Office refused to
provide them they would be ignoring a big source of revenue. And if you
release a forecast to a large number of customers, there's no hope of
keeping it from the media so you might as well release it to them as
well.
--
John Hall
"Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people
from coughing."
Sir Ralph Richardson (1902-83)