To HM Environment Secretary Hilary Benn MP
27th April 2009
Dear Hilary,
Long Range Flood Forecasts to assist Flood Warnings for the UK
Congratulations on your continuing work as Her Majesty's Environment Minister.
I am writing from WeatherAction long range weather and climate forecasters to offer practical help to your new Flood Forecast Centre. Our long range forecasts would decisively improve flood warnings and help enable advanced measures to be put in place which will reduce potential disruption and loss of life caused by floods in the UK.
In the recent announcement of the new Flood Centre which arose from recommendations in the Pitt Review into the devastating summer flood of 2007 you said "[It] will help provide the best possible information and support to existing flood warnings and weather warning services".
This statement must mean that you should use the best available long range forecasts to help the public and it follows that you must move beyond that which has been exclusively relied on hitherto and that our forecasts are required. However despite the fact that we can now supply valuable detailed forecasts about flood and other extreme weather risk in the coming months and years we have not as yet been requested for such. As you may know WeatherAction's long range forecasts successfully predicted - in detail - from many months ahead - the serious flood events in both 2007 and 2008 as well as the very costly snow and ice events of winter 08/09. On the other hand the Met Office long range forecasts for summer 08, summer 09 and winter 08-09 were dismal failures and disarmed you, the emergency services and the public at great human and financial cost. Please see attachments and links below for letters to Gordon Brown and various MPs on these matters (1).
Of course I appreciate that you may be concerned that our rigorous scientific analysis has led us to support something other than the 'Climate Change policy' of HM Government. Contrary to the ideology which underlies that policy we fully support the peer-reviewed scientific evidence - using official data going back thousands and even millions of years - that neither CO2 in general nor mankind's CO2 in particular have been, are, or ever will be net drivers of world temperatures or climate change. And on this we note that the IPCC predictions for ongoing warming this century have all failed while all the contrary forecasts of WeatherAction and others for continuing cooling have been confirmed.
You may have been led to believe that the difference between the 'Climate Realist view' which WeatherAction supports and the IPCC ideology is just about differing peer-reviewed 'opinions' over the interpretation of data. This is not so. The peer-reviewed interpretations of the extensive available data all refute the CO2/man-made view. The IPCC on the other hand has no peer-reviewed data evidence which supports their view. They have films produced by politicians and numerous peer-reviewed papers on computer models, theories and opinions that say many things which they often quote, but none which show that their models, theories and opinions have passed the fundamental scientific tests of consistency with the extensive past data or of making confirmed predictions for world temperature change. On this it is notable that the UN/IPCC have still failed to respond to requests for such evidence from an international group of well-qualified scientists including three IPCC expert Reviewers - see (2).
Whatever your view, we must be very clear, that you do not have to agree with anything we have concluded about 'Global Warming' or 'Climate Change' to use our forecasts. For the good of the economy and safety of the public I beg you, in this the year of the 400th anniversary of Galileo sighting mountains on the Moon, to not repeat the errors of those times; and to put science before ideology, public safety before politics and as the Prime Minister has often said use all the best knowledge available for the greatest good.
Thank you
Piers Corbyn
Further Information
(1a) Letters to MPs & ministers including graphs showing general decline in world temperatures this century & links to letters to Gordon Brown in 2007 & 2008: http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/pdf/letter_to_ministers.pdf
(1b) Attached: pdfs of WeatherAction BI forecasts for August 2008 re UK floods and for recent reference March 2009 and April 2009 and assessment Reports of UK Summer floods 2007 & World extreme events forecasts March to Sept 2008.
(2) Letter from group of 13 international scientists including three IPCC Expert Reviewers to UN Sec General 14 July 2008 http://www.tech-know.eu/uploads/Letter_UN_Sec_Gen_Ban_Ki-moon.pdf
PowerPoint & Audio of Piers Corbyn's & Other Presentations at International Climate Change Conference New York 8-10 March 2009 www.heartland.org/events/NewYork09/proceedings.html - section V track 1 see slide 28 for world Temperature forecast to 2030. Scroll through for speeches by Prof Bob Carter, Prof Richard Lindzen, Lord Monckton and others.
Environmental Effects of Increased Carbon Dioxide (Robinson, Robinson & Soon): http://www.heartland.org/custom/semod_policybot/pdf/22434.pdf
World cooling has set-in warns astrophysicist - BBC & 'Global Warming apologists' challenged to end 'cover-up' (http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=3307&linkbox=true )
MUST SEE VIDEO: Weatheraction.Com Meeting & Warning of Extreme Weather Events for April 2009 - YouTube http://climaterealists.com/news.php?id=3131
The Next Monthly WeatherAction Press Conference Friday is on 1st May 12 noon at WeatherAction Offices London Bridge - at which this letter will be discussed; the 4 kinds of Climate Change hype considered; and long range forecasts of some extreme weather events around the world will be released.