Category Archives: BBC bias

Storm Desmond brought out the scaremongers and ‘storm chasers’ who want to blame it on man-made causes….the rainfall was said to be the heaviest ever recorded…and of course temperatures generally said to be record breaking.

However things ain’t what they seem, it depends on which statistic you look at.

The highest temperature in the UK was in 2003 and if you look at record temperatures by month they are spread right throughout the last century and the highest wind speeds were in the 1980’s to 1990’s.

And what of that record rainfall?

Highest 24-hour rainfall totals for a rainfall day (0900-0900 GMT)

Country	Rainfall (mm)	Date	Location
England	279	18 July 1955	Martinstown (Dorset)
Scotland	238	17 January 1974	Sloy Main Adit (Argyll & Bute)
Wales	211	11 November 1929	Lluest Wen Reservoir (Mid Glamorgan)
Northern Ireland	159	31 October 1968	Tollymore Forest (County Down)

The highest 24-hour total for any 24-hour period is 341.4 mm from 1800 GMT on 4th to 1800 GMT on 5th December 2015 at Honister Pass (Cumbria).

That record rainfall of 341.4mm (on a gauge only active since 1970) was not in the offical 24 hour period of 0900 to 0900….just how do they measure it?  Surely they must make a continuous measurement of rainfall every hour, record it and then they are able to assess any 24 hour period.  How long have they been able to do that work which seems very labour intensive if done manually?…which suggests it is a modern innovation and such records don’t exist for earlier periods….maybe even as late as the 50’s.

If such records could not be kept in previous eras how can the Met. Office claim such a record when it is just as likely that any random 24 hour period in a previous era, if recorded, could have shown similar rain levels?

The Met. Office itself says a record is only a record if standardised…

Weather extremes

The tables show the national weather records. To ensure consistency, these weather records are only given for stations with standard instruments and exposure. Although some records have been broken by non-standard stations, these are not accepted as official records for this reason.

You have to suspect similar rainfall in previous periods especially as the 1800’s had periods of very heavy rain….one random 10 year period being the wettest on record to coin a phrase.

From the Met. Office:

The wettest year on record…1872….2012 two places behind.

The driest year on record….1788…2003 is ranked only 25th driest.

We’re going to look at the BBC Trust’s politically driven decision to censure, silence, Quentin Letts and his programme about the Met. Office.  In light of that here’s a warm up with some questions about the Met. Office’s conclusions drawn from the ‘science’……

This is the key paragraph in a Met. Office report on climate change….

In UKCIP02 we showed results from experiments (Stott et al., 2000) which indicated clearly that recent temperature rises could not be explained by natural causes. In that paper, the Met Office Hadley Centre climate model was driven over the period 1860-2000 firstly with only changes in natural agents (solar output, volcanic aerosol); the modelled temperature rise was in poor agreement with that actually observed, especially over the last few decades. Only when changes in forcing from human activities (greenhouse gases and sulphate aerosols) were added could the temperature rise over the last few decades be replicated by the climate model.

It explains that any global warming after 1970 or so is due in the main to man-made causes and not fom the likes of soalr output or volvanic activity.  It is the essential ingredient in the IPCC’s case for global warming and the attribution of that to man-made causes.

Not sure how they come to that conclusion as the rate of warming post 1970 is the same as in previous periods……something even the CRU’s top boffin and climate alarmist, Phil Jones, admits to Harrabin….not the answer Harrabin was looking for methinks…

RH – Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?

PJ – In answer to the question, the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.

So if the rates were similar how is it that the most recent period is attributed to man-made causes?  The Met. Office says solar output and volcanic activity have decreased…..if they were the same plus man-made warming the warming would be even higher than it is…however it’s the same as those other two periods.

You can see and compare the periods here……

Here’s CO2…..note not the same path…CO2 rising in 1880 but temperatures dropped for decades….

As for solar and volcanic activity dropping…hmmm…doesn’t look like it and the infamous sunspots seem to have a good correlation with temperature…….at least as much as CO2’s correlation…..

This graph of solar irradiance seems to follow temperature patterns as well…..

I’m pretty sure this graph shows volcanic activity has risen and again has quite a correlation with temperature….

So is the Met. Office wrong to claim that there is little to no natural agency in recent warming?  Looks like it is as the rate is the same as those previous periods…..you may conclude actually thinking about it that CO2 stops warming….if solar and volcanic activity have increased it should be warming at a higher rate than those other two periods…it’s not.  Why not?  What else has gone up?  CO2.  Must be a connection with cooling!  Just joking.  LOL.

Curious that no one mentions the obvious thought when during ‘Storm Desmond’ a waterfall burst into life….the first time in maybe 200 years or longer…….the obvious thought being there must have been ‘unprecedented’ rainfall back then….how is such an ‘extreme’ explained away 200 years ago?  What trick do they use to hide the decline in credibility of claims of unprecedented rainfall?

It is odd how the BBC et al trumpet ‘extremes’ in the UK and either insinuate or blatantly claim the cause is climate change regardless of whatever else is happening worldwide but when they don’t happen in the UK and the weather is average then somewhere else in the world is having extremes and the warming trend continues….

Is it to do with climate change?

We can’t say for certain that this spell of warm weather is directly linked to global warming, although it could well be a factor, BBC Weather’s Steve Cleaton says.

“Although we have seen a particularly mild spell of weather, the UK spring and summer of 2015 were relatively cool, meaning that for the UK in isolation 2015 is likely to end up being a fairly average year in terms of temperature, rainfall and sunshine statistics.”

However, on a global scale, 2015 is set to be the warmest year on record, consistent with current thinking on climate change, he says.

Warm weather a consequence of climate change?  ‘can’t say for sure…could be a factor.’   Really?   Thought the science was settled and the rise in temperature since 1950 0r so was definitely man-made.

The BBC and fellow alarmists have to play it safe due to El Nino….just how much warming is really attributable to that phenomenon?

Tropical air from the Azores and beyond is blowing in from the south west.

As is often the case in meteorology, no one specific factor can explain what has caused this influx of warm air – but this year’s strong El Nino weather phenomenon is thought to play a part.

The event occurs when the waters of the Pacific become exceptionally warm and distort weather patterns around the world.

This almost continual warm stream has also been the source of all the moisture and strong winds that brought such devastation to parts of the UK with Storm Desmond.

El Nino ‘thought to play a part’.  Talk about dodging the issue.  Here the BBC hypes not actual temperatures for 2016 but guesstimates from models and statistics……and whilst hyping climate change still tries to give the impression of considered reasoning so that you don’t think they are just scaremongering…

Met office says 2016 ‘very likely’ to be warmest on record

A new global temperature forecast from the UK’s Met Office says that 2016 is likely to be even warmer than 2015.

This year has already been provisionally declared the warmest on record thanks to a combination of global warming and a strong El Nino.

The new forecast, a combination of computer models and statistical methods, says that the global average temperature for the next 12 months is likely to be 0.84C above the 1961-1990 average.

However check this final bit of butt-covering…

The Met Office says that the rise in temperature predicted for next year may not continue indefinitely – and may slip back under 1 degree over the coming years.

But they argue that the growing warming signal can combine in unpredictable ways with smaller natural fluctuations leading to “unprecedented events”.

‘Temperatures may slip back under 1 degree over the coming years’..Really?….What?  The warmth may not continue?  Why not if it is due to man made causes?  Things may cool? Surely a cooling would indicate the warming was due almost entirely to El Nino?  Still, get the scaremongering in whilst you can making as many associations with man-made causes as possible and then retract those in later years when the alarmist propaganda has already done its work.

Here’s a curious statement from the Met. Office….

Annual mean precipitation over England and Wales has not changed significantly since records began in 1766. Seasonal rainfall is highly variable, but appears to have decreased in summer and increased in winter, although with little change in the latter over the last 50 years.

So we’re actually getting no more rain than is usual over a year…since 1766….winter rain may possibly have increased and summer decreased….but not in the last 50 years.

Hang on…not in the last 50 years?  Ermm…isn’t the last 50 years when the effects of man-made global warming were supposed to be arising…such as dry summers and wetter winters?  Didn’t happen though did it?

And what to make of this…

Severe windstorms around the UK have become more frequent in the past few decades, though not above that seen in the 1920s.

So windstorms are no more frequent than in the 1920’s and yet we are always told that every gusty bit of weather is due to climate change.  So we had the same climate change in th 1920’s?

Some ‘official’ graphs of rainfall and temperature....some just for December….looks like little to no change to the mean in either over a century…..

David Dimbleby presents this week’s debacle from Slough. On the panel are Mark Reckless of Ukip, Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, journalist Piers Morgan and Labour’s Emily Thornberry MP. Yes she really still is an MP, her electorate voted her back in even after WhiteVanManEnglandFlagTwittergate. This week’s manadatory SNP representative is Hannah Bardell MP. Thank BBC Scotland for that.

Kick off tomorrow (Thursday) at 22.35

Chat here

Register here if necessary.

Joyful reporting from the BBC as my part of the world gets its first dosage of Syrian refugees. It does not appear to have crossed the BBC’s mind that since these “refugees” have been hoisted upon us not everyone shares the emulation! It also ensures voices of dissent are well and truly muted.

Here you go, on-time and for your completion. Detail the bias here!

Bishop Hill mentions this book: Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction

He tells us…

Specialists are considerably worse at making predictions than generalists – is now quite well known, although less so among the general public and media than it should be.

The generalist forecasters were better than the experts because…’ It was more about independence of mind, the ability to constantly recalibrate and to question assumptions, the ability to think in terms of probabilities rather than in black and white terms.’

A comment on Amazon for the book summed it up…..

If you want to understand what will happen in the future, do you ask a distinguished tv pundit, or do you go to a chimp throwing darts at a board? Philip Tetlock’s very readable book explains that you’d be better off with the chimp. Sadly talking heads are mostly good at telling you what is going to happen, and then explaining afterwards why it didn’t – or insisting against all the evidence, that actually, it did.

Harrabin a ‘distinguished tv pundit’ or a climate lobby flunky?

Bishop Hill also notes….

The opposition have called a debate on the Cumbria floods tomorrow, and so the House of Commons Library has issued a briefing paper to MPs. There’s lot to amuse. For example, I read with interest that:

…there is a general understanding that climate change is likely to be linked to increased winter rain in the UK.

I think it’s fair to say that this is complete drivel.

Interestingly, the “Further Reading” section also includes, among other things, a suggestion that MPs might like to take a look at a paper entitled “Floods, Climate Change and Flood Defence Investment”, published by Friends of the Earth.

Which is odd, because the first-named author of the briefing – one Sara Priestley – turns out to have worked at Friends of the Earth before moving to the House of Commons.

What makes me think that MPs’ briefings have something of a bias?

To be fair she only worked there for two months….but it could I suppose indicate where her heart lies….

• Legal

  Friends of the Earth

  September 2013 – October 2013 (2 months)

Firstly, my thanks to Alan for putting up the Start the Week thread, I’ve had wifi problems this past few days so wasn’t able to post until now. I had the misfortune to listen to the Today programme this morning. It was a leftist fest, as ever. The BBC were ecstatic that the Front National had been ‘crushed” in the 2nd round of the French elections. (Little time spent considering the fact that the FN vote held strong but tactical voting by the establishment parties had gerrymandered the result.It seems the wishes of 25% of the electorate can be dismisses when they hold the wrong views according to the BBC) Then they moved on to their new poster boy, Shakar Aamer, who is being hailed as a true blue Brit. We’ve seen the BBC do this before over Moazzam Beggs so they have form. There was an item on the WRETCHED failure of Social workers to stop child abuse. The BBC line was this was because they are not paid enough and that the tax payer must splash more cash their way if they are to consider stopping industrial scale sex abuse of young girls. And so it went. Grim, relentless, biased.

Guess David is still a bit Daeshed and confused after his Xmas bash so I’ll do the honours….a new open thread….

A teacher in France has been stabbed but survived the attack….the BBC’s report is for once open about the culprit…though the BBC is still being ‘PC’ in the title…….

Teacher in France stabbed by man ‘shouting Islamic State’

A teacher has been attacked in a preschool class in Aubervilliers, a suburb of the French capital, Paris, by a man citing so-called Islamic State.

The attacker shouted: “This is for Daesh [Islamic State]. It’s a warning”, stabbing the teacher with a box cutter or scissors before fleeing.

The life of the teacher, 45, who was alone in the room, is not in danger.

‘Daesh’ does indeed mean in essence ‘Islamic State’ but when Cameron and his cronies all decided to take up the Muslim lobbyists’ call to hide the fact that the ‘Islamic State’ were Islamic and instead call them Daesh the BBC insisted in calling them ‘Islamic State’…good for the BBC, and somewhat of a surprise….though still calling terrorists militants.

However the BBC’s reason for continuing to use ‘Islamic State’ said it all…it didn’t want to upset supporters of the Islamic State….

BBC rejects MPs’ calls to refer to Islamic State as Daesh

The head of the BBC rejected the demands, saying that using Daesh would not preserve the BBC’s impartiality as it risked giving an impression of support for the group’s opponents, the Times reports. He is said to claim that the term is used pejoratively by its enemies.

Instead, it is reported, Hall said the BBC would use terms such as the “Islamic State group” to distinguish it from a true state, and continue to use descriptions such as extremist or militant for its members.

Got to be confusing when the Islamic State uses Daesh itself.  What’s Cameron going to do?  What’s the BBC going  to do?

Guess that’s what happens when you try to manufacture perceptions and not just go with  the truth and deal with the real problems rather than pandering to Muslim lobbyists.

Update:  Fun and games daeshed.…..#youain’tnoknifemanbruv

The BBC reported this story straight, the victim said the attacker used the name Daesh …..should have known something was wrong….apparently the herbert managed to stab himself accidentally.  Shame all ISIS/Daesh wannabe martyrs don’t try the same thing instead of the cliched suicide vest.