Calls for Met Office to retract false ‘more intense storms’ claim
By Paul Homewood
London, 13 February – The UK Met Office has been accused of seriously misleading the public about climate-driven storms in the UK.
On 22nd January, the day after Storm Isha, a senior meteorologist from the Met Office stated on BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast that “when we see these storms they are more intense and that’s down to climate change”.
However, after being challenged through a FOI request to provide evidence for the claim that storms have become more intense, the Met Office was forced to admit they have no such evidence.
In its response, the Met Office also referred to its own UK Storm activity report which clearly states that “there is no compelling trend in maximum gust speeds recorded in the UK since 1969.”
We call on the Met Office to publish a full retraction of what is evidently a false and misleading claim.
Notes for editors
Met Office: Recent trends and future projections of UK storm activity: “This report found that there is no compelling trend in maximum gust speeds recorded in the UK since 1969, measured as the number of days more than 20 weather stations recorded gust speeds above 40, 50 or 60 knots.”
Met Office: State of the UK Climate 2022 (page 47): “Storm Eunice [in 2022] was the most severe storm to affect England and Wales since February 2014, but even so, these storms of the 1980s and 1990s were very much more severe.”
Paul Homewood: Met Office cannot provide evidence for “more intense storms” claim
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Well done Paul
We call on the Met Office to publish a full retraction
Suppose they do . . . I know, that’s crazy talk. They will still be staffed by the same climate mania cult. It would be one apology in a sea of lies. Nothing will change.
Demand more than a retraction. Leverage an obvious lie.
They lie to us.
We know that they lie to us.
They know that we know that they lie to us.
Met Office need to provide a full explanation as to why Claire Nasir made a public statement that is not backed by any evidence and is, in fact, in direct contradiction to the peer reviewed Met Office papers in 2018 and 2023 published in the Journal of the RMS.
Furthermore, why are the Met Office not required to correct the public record when newspapers and other sundry weather idiots (think Jim Dale on GB News) proclaim something so obviously wrong in respect of “extreme weather”?
Agreed. Nasir is a symptom, not the problem.
Calls for his resignation would be more appropriate.
I wonder who is behind it all.
This has been my thought for a while. The Met Office is deliberately putting out disinformation that directly contradicts their own data. Why? I can’t think of any logical reason without putting my foil hat on. Maybe as well as calling for a retraction we should be demanding an explanation as to why they are knowingly lying to the public.
I am in total agreement with you.
On FOIs. You could write to Keir Starmer when he was at the DPP with a FOI request. Can you do the same with public statements he makes as leader of the opposition. For example the “renewables 9X cheaper than O&G” in January 2023. Could he be forced to explain how this is true through a FOI request
Good question. I wonder what my MP will tell me in reply to my request.
If you don’t get a reply, Malcolm, I’ll ask the same of mine – the one who thinks CO2 is a pollutant!
Start here:
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/voting-and-elections/campaigning-election/online-campaigning/claims-made-online-political-ads
You’ll want the OSR:
https://uksa.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/contact-us/
As soon as there is a linkable version of the 9 times claim made by a political party/politician particularly in relation to an election I plan to set out a detailed complaint giving sourced facts, and asking them to issue a public rebuke and correction.
IDAU multiple mentions in a search of the Labour Party website on that term
“renewables 9X cheaper than O&G”
That means they are scamming off much more than 8X the cost of O&G
Great work, Paul.
worth a try but expect shoulder shrugs all round. Meanwhile in the Guardian
Climate experts sound alarm over thriving plant life at Greenland ice sheet | Greenland | The Guardian
and Great Lakes average ice cover drops to 6%, one of lowest levels ever recorded | Climate crisis | The Guardian and
From turtles to fruit bats, migratory species increasingly under threat, says UN | Endangered species | The Guardian and
‘We are in an era of megafires’: new tactics demanded as wildfires intensify across South America | Wildfires | The Guardian and
Atmospheric river storms are getting stronger, and deadlier. The race to understand them is on | Meteorology | The Guardian
they have been very busy. we’re doomed… dooomed !!
Gawd. Junk science writ large.
Paul Hudson 4 min clip ends by saying there are too many named storms ..cos the criteria is lax
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0h86ttm
another PH tweet, this time the other way
Met Office will crack down on wild claims in the press
They shot their coerced messenger., add corruption to the charge sheet.
called thier bluff, I hope he keeps going!!