A UK Met Office study that predicted temperatures would rise by up to half a degree centigrade over the past 10 years faces ridicule after it was revealed that temperatures actually dropped over that period.
The peer-reviewed study by Doug M. Smith et al, entitled “Improved Surface Temperature Prediction for the Coming Decade from a Global Climate Model” – and which featured in the journal Science – also incorrectly predicted that several years over the past decade would see record heat.
The paper says:
“…predict further warming during the coming decade, with the year 2014 predicted to be 0.30° ± 0.21°C [5 to 95% confidence interval (CI)] warmer than the observed value for 2004. Furthermore, at least half of the years after 2009 are predicted to be warmer than 1998, the warmest year currently on record.”
However, now we are able to analyse the data on how temperatures really changed, we can see that there was actually a cooling of 0.014 degrees over the past 10 years, which is below even the lowest estimate.
Also, not a single year was warmer than 1998, despite the paper predicting that at least three years would be.
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