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Alarmist Met Office Attacks ‘Misleading Apocalyptic Climate Predictions’
The Guardian ran a lead story with the headline, ‘Apocalyptic climate predictions’ mislead the public, say experts
Experts at Britain’s top climate research centre have launched a blistering attack on scientific colleagues and journalists who exaggerate the effects of global warming.
In an article published on the Guardian website, Dr Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office, calls on scientists and journalists to stop misleading the public with “claim and counter-claim.”
Pope makes an interesting claim about Arctic sea ice:
“Recent headlines have proclaimed that Arctic summer sea ice has decreased so much in the past few years that it has reached a tipping point and will disappear very quickly. The truth is that there is little evidence to support this. Indeed, the record-breaking losses in the past couple of years could easily be due to natural fluctuations in the weather, with summer sea ice increasing again over the next few years. This diverts attention from the real, longer-term issues. For example, recent results from the Met Office do show that there is a detectable human impact in the long-term decline in sea ice over the past 30 years, and all the evidence points to a complete loss of summer sea ice much later this century.”
Ah! I think I get it now – apocalyptic claims are short-term and can be verified as being false within a decade. Climate alarmism concerns claims made by the Met Office for the end of the century that are unverfiable, being immune from being proved to be true or false within a decade.
Nice try Vicky!
See related CRN articles:
Yawn! UK Met Office Predicts Demise of Scottish Ski Industry
Mystic Met: A Review of UK Met Office Predictions and Statements
February 13th, 2009 at 11:39 am
It’s getting hard to keep a straight face.
Obviously the hysteria is hurting the cause, so stop all you hysterics and let us be the one voice of reasonable hysteria, or something ….