This morning’s instalment of the Mail on Sunday’s serialisation of David Rose’s latest piece of fantasy fiction is headlined as follows:

“US Congress launches a probe into climate data that duped world leaders over global warming”

David is a bit slow on the uptake, since we reported on the “US Congress probe” several days ago. He also seems not to have taken on board any of the copious quantities of evidence that his “climate data that duped world leaders over global warming” allegations are the purest fantasy. This time around Mr. Rose claims, amongst other things:

Last week Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring at the UK Met Office, admitted that notwithstanding the Pausebuster, it was clear ‘the slowdown hasn’t gone away’.

The ‘pause’ is clearly visible in the Met Office’s ‘HadCRUT 4’ climate dataset, calculated independently of NOAA.

Let’s see if we can discover if Peter Stott has any recollection of being interviewed last week by the Mail on Sunday and/or The Mail’s leading fantasy fiction writer shall we?

A quick question @StottPeter. Can you recall being interviewed by @DavidRoseUK last week? https://t.co/1IBBfmF976 @richardabetts #AFW™

— Jim Hunt (@jim_hunt) February 19, 2017

Here’s the HadCRUT 4 data we’ve been showing assorted “skeptical” fellows on Twitter this week:

Balderdash @scotpolitik! You assert that, but you still refuse to #WalkTheWalk! @EUEnvironment @nancysuzyq pic.twitter.com/VF2VLnxxwb

— Jim Hunt (@jim_hunt) February 15, 2017

Perhaps David Rose can assist them by pointing out where exactly the alleged “pause” is located?

 

[Edit – February 19th PM]

Peter Stott has confirmed my suspicions. David Rose’s “last week” was egregiously inaccurate:

Thanks @StottPeter. As I suspected. Not "last week", as asserted by @DavidRoseUK this morning! @richardabetts

— Jim Hunt (@jim_hunt) February 19, 2017

In addition John Kennedy, also from the UK Met Office, pointed out to Mr. Rose that:

Re: your final paragraph. January 2017 HadCRUT4 isn't out yet. @DavidRoseUKhttps://t.co/nkUtGwHDSL

— John Kennedy (@micefearboggis) February 19, 2017

Do you suppose that David & Judy have another “whistleblower” embedded deep within the Hadley Centre?

 

[Edit – March 4th]

The UK Met Office have at long last published the HadCRUT4 January 2017 update:

Global average near-surface temperature from HadCRUT4 for January 2017 was 0.74±0.16°C above the 1961-1990 mean https://t.co/nkUtGwHDSL

— John Kennedy (@micefearboggis) March 3, 2017

A theory is proposed that doesn’t involve time travel:

So where did GWPF get data point from? Is it a coincidence that their Jan 2017 looks very similar to that from a different dataset? 4/4 pic.twitter.com/va0hgAEiGA

— Gareth S Jones (@GarethSJones1) March 4, 2017

 

[Edit – March 18th]

The online version of the Mail on Sunday have just published a “correction” to the most egregious of their long list of recent errors and inaccuracies. It reads as follows:

On February 19 we reported a Met Office official’s announcement that the average global temperature in January 2017 was about the same as in January 1998. In fact, this was incorrect, and the temperature was 0.25C higher.

So there you have it. This buck doesn’t stop on David Rose’s desk, or Benny Peiser’s desk, or John Wellington’s desk, or Geordie Greig’s desk. We’re expected to believe it stops on an unidentified desk of an unknown official somewhere inside the UK Met Office.

We won’t get fooled again. Will we?

 

[Edit – March 19th]

The expert opinion of Peter Thorne (op. cit.) on the Mail on Sunday’s excuse for a “correction”:

Just repeating GWPF's 'excuse' here – an excuse w/o basis in facts AFAICT @richardabetts @micefearboggis @markpmcc @LeoHickman

— Peter Thorne (@climpeter) March 19, 2017