Met Office

House of Lords written question – answered at on 3 July 2013.

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Photo of Lord Donoughue Lord Donoughue Labour

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether there has been an independent audit of the accuracy of the Met Office's recent forecasts of (1) wetter winters, (2) dryer summers, and (3) higher global temperatures.

Photo of Lord de Mauley Lord de Mauley The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The methodology for the projections in the summary statements from the UK Climate Projections 2009 (UKCP09) and from the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC AR4) was peer reviewed prior to launch and has since been followed by further publications in leading journals.

Projections are fundamentally different from forecasts. The Met Office has not issued a forecast for wetter winters or drier summers. Long term projections, such as those included in UKCP09 and IPCC AR4, by their definition cannot be audited for accuracy until the period the projections cover has passed. For UKCP09, time periods are in 30 year slices and the earliest such projections are for 2010-2039.

It is possible to compare the existing projections against results from new climate model studies as these emerge, to check whether or not the projections remain consistent with the latest understanding and capabilities available worldwide. The next opportunity to perform such a check will be provided by the forthcoming publication of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report and the Met Office Climate Programme contains effort to do this.

The Met Office provides an annual forecast on the expected difference, from the long term average, of the world's global average temperature for the year ahead. This is publicly available on the Met Office website. For example, the global average temperature for 2012 fell well within the range forecast by the Met Office on 4 January 2012, which had a most likely value of 0.48 °C above the long term average. The independent body of the World Meteorological Organisation stated that global average temperature in 2012 was 0.45°C above the long term average.

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