Friday
Feb152013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Diary date
Feb 15, 2013 BBC Climate: WG2 Royal Society Storms, floods and droughts: predicting and reporting adverse weather
- 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm on Monday 04 March 2013
- at The Royal Society, London
David Shukman, Science Editor for BBC News, in conversation with Professor Tim Palmer FRS and Liz Howell. Cynics might suggest that the trick is to place the words "global warming" or "climate change" in every second sentence. I, of course, would never suggest any such thing.
More details here.
Reader Comments (9)
Luke 21:11 - There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.
Perhaps an attendee could ask Mr Shukman why he was qick to report the scare of Arctic melting
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19675912
But as of today is yet to report that it's re-freezing.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/12/sea-ice-news-volume-4-1-arctic-ice-gain-sets-a-new-record/
The details page mentions climate in this sense
- "Liz Howell previously secured the commissioning of 12 highly successful BBC1 documentaries on the 2012 drought."
HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL ?? that would be the 2012 drought that never was, cos although levels in underground chalk aquifers were low by the end of February the rains that made 2013 one of the wettest ever years had started.
- "She is Head of BBC weather and develops weather forecasting and presentation through the use of new platforms and technologies. "
"She [Liz Howell] previously secured the commissioning of 12 highly successful BBC1 documentaries on the 2012 drought."
Isn't that rather overdoing it? What were the huge effects of the drought which makes it worthy of such coverage?
[Edit: sorry about being redundant with stewgreen's comment above. Should refresh before posting.]
I saw that too about Liz Howell. Good job she wasn't around in 1976. If 2012 produced 12 programmes, how many would she have bored us with for 76?
stewgreen , its worse than that in most of the UK there simply was no drought it rained all dam year .
The '28' is still proving very effective .
'Professor Tim Palmer FRS is a Royal Society Research Professor in Climate Physics at the University of Oxford. He has pioneered the development of techniques to quantify uncertainty in weather and climate forecasts.'
That'll be the 33% above average (rainfall, snow, temperature or anything else), 33% near average, 33% below average and 1% extreme anything worth whipping up as being an indication of what we can expect more of.
Do we really need twelve BBC 1 programmes on the 2012 drought? Seems like overkill to me. How much money did that cost from our licence fee.
Qn..Your jobs are about improving the prediction of the weather. In 2012 you all failed to predict the year of floods, but rather chose to hype up the possibility of "drought until Christmas". So do you think that yout predictions will improve if you DROP your FAITH in "global warming theory" ?