On the Hot Seat

This video of the head of the UK Met Office being grilled on the BBC raises a number of interesting questions:

• Given that short-term prediction is really pretty good (in the UK and elsewhere), should weather forecasting agencies be in the seasonal forecasting business (where they are just rolling dice)?
  
• Should weather forecasting agencies be in the climate change prediction business (where everything is so political)?
• In the late 1990s, did the UK Met Service really predict a "leveling off" of temperatures (as seems to be claimed in the video near the end)?