30th January - Today's News: Daily Mail Deliberately Mislead Readers

A little bit of snow in Wales and the West Country yesterday and today - nothing at all in Evesham and currently nothing on the horizon. January will now certainly be our 4th consecutive winter month without sleet or snow - a remarkable record. It does look like being cold this week though as Britain buttons up for big freeze as temperatures plummet. Uncertainty as to how long it may persist and whether we get any snow next weekend.

3 people die in freezing weather in Serbia

In WA, Iggy threat wanes and cyclone Iggy tracks Pilbara coast whilst flooding eases across northern NSW. But drenched Queensland braces for more rain.

Deadly tornado attacks on Indonesia - triggered by Cyclone Iggy

3,000 displaced as cyclone hits Madagascar

At 10 degree celsius, Mumbai witnesses coldest January day in 10 years

Strong earthquake hits Peru's central coastline

This has to be one of the worst pieces of misleading, non sequitur journalism I've come across in the mainstream media. According to the Daily Mail we should forget global warming - it's cycle 25 we need to worry about alleging that:

... figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th century.

.... the data was issued last week without fanfare ..... It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.

Utter poppycock. The story was widely reported in the press last week under a slightly different headline: Sun's changes unlikely to slow global warming and although the Mail contacted the MetO, they totally ignored what they were told and printed a wholly contradictory story! According to a Met Office response:

This article includes numerous errors in the reporting of published peer reviewed science undertaken by the Met Office Hadley Centre and for Mr. Rose to suggest that the latest global temperatures available show no warming in the last 15 years is entirely misleading.

Despite the Met Office having spoken to David Rose ahead of the publication of the story, he has chosen to not fully include the answers we gave him to questions around decadal projections produced by the Met Office or his belief that we have seen no warming since 1997.

The full response given to the journalist is published on the Met Office blog.

Clearly what the Met office had to say did not fit the intended agenda and was therefore ignored. The actual story is that we don not have to worry about solar cycle 25 and the ongoing warming trend is now is expected to continue to do so regardless or any drop in solar activity. But why base a story on facts when you can make up a load of rubbish instead? And people wonder why I am so cynical about the media!