Met Office may call in Press Complaints Commission over Daily Mail climate change article
The Met Office has published a blow by blow rebuttal of a Daily Mail article which called into question the weather agency's competency.
In a typically combative piece titled ‘The crazy climate change obsession that’s made the Met Office a menace’ Mail writer James Delingpole made a series of disparaging claims about the organisations track record.
But the Met Office has hit back, pointing out the Mail article itself was riddled with errors, pointing out that the Press Complaints Commission had already addressed the ‘fallacy’ that the Met Office ‘failed to predict snow in 2010’ – first aired by The Daily Telegraph, pointing out that 5-day forecasts accurately forecast 12 out of 13 snowfall events’.
The Met Office had in fact issued a cold weather warning in early November 2010.
Addressing claims that it had conceded that there was no evidence for global warming the Met Office added “…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.”
A litany of further incorrect Mail statements were also corrected, including claims that the Met said Britain was experiencing more rain than at any time since records began and for quoting David Whitehouse, a climate change sceptic, who said the Met ‘thinks weather forecasting is beneath it’.
The Met pointed out that weather forecasting is its bread and butter.