Weatherman keeps a sunny outlook when clouds gather

As Met Office chief executive for the last five years, John Hirst tells Sarah Freeman why he’s grown used to weathering storms of controversy.

In John Hirst’s briefcase there’s a cutting from a tabloid newspaper. It’s dated May 1, 2009 and the headline, which calls the public to prepare for a “BBQ summer” 
is one that could well have haunted a less self-assured Met Office boss.

In July that year, the heavens opened and the Met Office’s ability to deliver accurate long term forecasts was ridiculed.

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“I keep it as a reminder that we didn’t actually get it wrong,” says Hirst, who took up the post of chief executive five years ago. “While the headline may have been about the promise of a hot summer, the newspaper also accurately reported that we 
were offering no guarantees and in fact we said there was still a 30 per cent chance it could be a washout.

“The problem was that a few months later when the rains came, everyone had forgotten the details and all anyone remembered was the talk of a barbecue summer.

“ It comes with the territory. When the Met Office gets it right no one notices, when it appears to get it wrong, everyone does.”

Hirst was in Yorkshire this weekend to deliver a talk at Leeds University where he studied economics. His appearance came just a few days after the owner of a Devon tourist attraction had threatened to sue the Met Office, claiming overly pessimistic forecasts had cost him financially when visitors decided to stay away.

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“Every day we deliver 4.5m individual forecasts and despite what people think we are incredibly accurate,” he says. “The problem is that if you say it is going to be showery, there are some people who think you’ve got it wrong if it doesn’t rain in their own back garden.

“I understand that, the weather is very personal to people, but the Met Office doesn’t control it, we only forecast it. Research has shown that our medium-term forecasts are as accurate as our short-term forecasts were 30 years ago and alongside the Japanese we are the best in the world at what we do.”

While the public’s perception of the Met Office has never been the same since Michael Fish failed to predict the 1987 hurricane, in his five-year tenure Hirst has become used to weathering the occasional storm.

The organisation has been under constant scrutiny for what some have described as its climate change bias. Hirst has always rejected accusations the Met Office has somehow manipulated the data and the need to keep politics and science separate was the subject of his talk at the university.

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“I don’t think the Met Office’s position has ever changed, we deal in facts and always have.

“We know that we need greenhouse gases because they trap heat. Without them the Earth would be 30C cooler. However, from records dating back 160 years we also know that the rate of that warming has increased and it has a direct correlation with rising levels of CO2

“There are some people who 
say that similar temperature changes have happened in 
the past. They are right, but the rise happened over a period of 150,000 years not over this short time span.

“A recent poll said that only 25 per cent of the British public believe that global warming is happening and that it’s man-made and I do believe the Met Office has a role to play in education.

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“When I first started to go abroad in the 1980s, the holiday brochures would always have a climate panel. It didn’t mean that if you went to Benidorm you’d be blessed with sunshine every single day and we have to step back and realise that weather and climate are two very different things.”

Hirst doesn’t have a meteorological background. Before he was appointed to the Met Office’s top job, he was chief executive of Premier Farnell, but he has become a passionate advocate of the work his organisation does.

“From utility companies whose profits can swing hundreds of thousands of pounds a day depending on whether they can forecast temperatures correctly to our Armed Forces who need to factor in the weather when mounting operations, the expertise we have at the Met Office is vital.

“Last year Scotland was put on red alert following forecasts of gale force winds, schools were closed and roads shut. Those winds still caused a lot of damage, but without that early warning it would have been much, much worse.

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“When I took this job, a lot of people asked me, ‘Why?’ The answer then was that I’m British and by definition obsessed by the weather. Five years on that hasn’t changed, if anything I’m even more obsessed.”

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