The latest Independent distortion on climate-change

Most of the papers have been responsible enough not to attribute the latest bad weather to climate-change, but guess which one is the exception? The Independent's lead story today is titled "After the deluge - scientists confirm global warming link to increased rain". They have got hold of a report that won't be published until Wednesday, which they claim "supports the idea [that recent weather is caused by climate-change], by showing that in recent decades rainfall has increased over several areas of the world..." These claims are repeated at several points in the article, always carefully phrased to refer to Britain (or even wider regions) as a whole and to avoid consideration of seasonal patterns. For example: "The computer models used to predict the future course of global warming all show heavier rainfall, and indeed 'extreme rainfall events', as one of its principle consequences".

I have sent the following letter in response, which they won't publish, of course, because dissent from their version of climate-change dogma is not permissible:

Sir, Can you point to any climate models, including the one to be published on Wednesday, that predict increased rainfall in England in summer? All climate models of which I am aware predict reduced rainfall in England in summer. Any increase in rainfall is either for winter or an annual average, where the winter increase outweighs the summer decrease. Your opportunistic distortion of climate-change science to suit the story you want to tell undermines the credibility of that science.

-- Yours, etc

As those who have read my posts on this issue will know, I am not an arch-sceptic of anthropogenic global-warming theory (I accept that there is a risk that we ought to take into account), but I do despise prejudice portrayed as hard scientific fact.