December 5, 2009
Britain's government meteorlogical office to review temp record
In a process estimated to take years, Britain's Met Office is opening up all its climate records and reevaluating them in light of the East Anglia CRU disclosures
Ben Webster of the TimesOnline:
The Met Office plans to re-examine 160 years of temperature data after admitting that public confidence in the science on man-made global warming has been shattered by leaked e-mails.
The new analysis of the data will take three years, meaning that the Met Office will not be able to state with absolute confidence the extent of the warming trend until the end of 2012.
The Met Office database is one of three main sources of temperature data analysis on which the UN's main climate change science body relies for its assessment that global warming is a serious danger to the world. This assessment is the basis for next week's climate change talks in Copenhagen aimed at cutting CO2 emissions.
The Government is attempting to stop the Met Office from carrying out the re-examination, arguing that it would be seized upon by climate change sceptics.
One can understand why the very thought of the re-examination is frightening to the Labour Government. For heaven's sake, why wait for facts that might well prove it wrong?
Clarice Feldman