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During today's "Why Climate Models Fail" talk, the audience was stunned to 
find out that IPCC climate models don't rely on actual data, but only on 
modeled output. The IPCC has no credibility - none.

Prof. Chris K. Folland Former IPCC lead author, head of UK's "Met Office" for 
Climate Variability and Forecasting Group, and modeling expert.

"The data doesn't matter. We're not basing our recommendations on the data; 
we're basing them on the climate models."

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Dear Mr Battig,
 
Thanks for your request. You are about the fifth person to ask me this in the 
last ten years or more.
 
What you quote a very abbreviated report of a much longer discussion at least 
22 years ago! - soon after the 1990 IPCC report and possibly around the time 
of the 1992 Supplementary Report. I cannot be sure to which skeptical 
scientist it was made but it may have been Pat Michaels - and possibly others 
with him. Please check with Pat. 
 
At that time, the key driver for nations' concern about climate change WAS 
INDEED MOSTLY DRIVEN BY MODEL PROJECTIONS of global warming. The attached 
published letter written in an Institute of Physics journal by myself and one 
of the then IPCC Working Group 1 coordinators tried to accurately reflect the 
general view at that time (1993). It reflects accurately what I was trying to 
say the year or so before. Please quote these words as appropriate - but they 
were only appropriate in the early 1990s. This view was soon to change 
greatly; notice that the letter looks forward at its end to a greatly 
increased importance of climate data to the climate change debate, and to 
nations' policy actions and concerns.
 
The situation is now very different and has been since about 1995. Up to 1993, 
there were no published detection and attribution studies. The situation had 
changed by the 1995 IPCC report with the first published detection and 
attribution studies and since then the many results of these studies have 
become the most quoted and influential aspect of all the IPCC Reports. 
Detection and attribution depends critically on observed climate data as well 
as climate models. It had centre stage of course in the 2001,2007 and 2013 
IPCC reports. So climate data started to move to centre stage by the mid 1990s 
and was definitely right there by 2001 when I was a convening lead author of 
the 2001 Report. Observed data and climate models are now equally important 
and vital to each other. This was further helped by the fact that in 2001 the 
first error estimates of observed global mean temperatures were published (I 
lead the first paper) - much been improved conceptually but not greatly 
changed quantitatively in recent years - and now available for everywhere 
location in the world. So great efforts continue to go on into improving data 
by the leading climate scientists of the world using ever more advanced 
statistics. I, of course, have devoted considerable time since 1990 to climate 
data, uncertainties, and assessing the climate changes, and importantly, the 
variations, that they show. 
 
You might notice that some sceptics have a bad habit of quoting, or going 
after, very out of date stuff, such as the conceptual curve of global 
temperature back to the Middle Ages in the 1990 report, as if climate science 
stands still. Thus another development for which climate data are essential is 
the relatively new subject of decadal to multidecadal prediction (now in the 
fifth IPCC Report as a stand alone chapter). I co-authored the first widely 
quoted decadal prediction paper 2007 in Science. Here I was particularly 
responsible for the use of observed data methods to test the veracity of the 
early part of these predictions. Moreover all decadal prediction models have 
to be initialized with climate data. So decadal forecasting is actually 
impossible without observed global climate data. But decadal forecasting did 
not exist in 1992. 
 
Monitoring of what is happening is clearly essential to see how climate change 
and variability are unfolding - such as the current observed "pause" or 
hiatus, now that climate predictions have long been made and need continuously 
evaluating. Thus the observed climate warming "pause" is leading to new 
insights into climate variability which will likely eventually lead to 
improved ability to make decadal to multidecadal predictions. Not 
surprisingly, the greatly increased interest and range of applications of 
global climate data has lead to an explosion in the development of many kinds 
of such data sets since the mid 1990s, and developments continue to accelerate 
as the observed data now matter very much!. 
 
So climate data are now very much key to the climate change debate as the 
attached published letter foretold! 2014 is very different from 1992!
 
Please feel free to quote the attached published letter in the context of the 
above remarks in any publication - I encourage you to do this.
 
I hope this helps
 
Chris
 
 
Professor Chris Folland
Research Fellow
Met Office Hadley Centre
FitzRoy Road Exeter Devon EX1 3 PB
Tel: +44 (0)1647 432978
chris.folland@metoffice.gov.uk
 
Hon. Prof. School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia
 
Guest Prof. Faculty of Science Univ. of Gothenburg Sweden
 
Adjunct Prof. Dept of Sustainable Catchments Univ. of Southern Queensland 
Australia

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October:

China's Arctic Blast Begins Today
France's Bumper Ski Season
Arctic 'Meltdown' Myth Collapses
'Climate Change' Is Dead

I think logic is prevailing... 

30+ Cold Records Fall In British Columbia
Major Cold Blast For China
Deep Winter Forecast Across South Asia
Vostok Crashes To -65C (-85F) In Mid-October
U.N. Climate Tax

The last time free people were taxed without representation, they started a 
revolution.

Arctic Air Crushes Century-Old Records Across Western Canada
Northern Hemisphere Snow Above Average
UK's Energy Woes
Lewotobi To 44,500 Feet

The seasonal pendulum has swung hard to winter. 

China To -22.6C (-8.7F) As Early Arctic Blast Hits
North America Pattern Flip
Coral Scare - Again
New Study Sinks AMOC Collapse Fears

"Such cold is extraordinary for the first half of October."


Delhi Shivers As Early Himalayan Snow Builds
NASA "Prophet" Said Arctic Would Be Ice-Free By 2018
Spain's Grid Operator Asks For Emergency Powers
+ Cold To Grip Europe Amid Gas Storage Concerns
October 13,2025 Cap Allon

Practically ALL of Russia is colder-than-average, with early snow cover 
building rapidly.

Early Season Cold Sweeps Thailand, China, India - And Beyond
Western Energy Back On Track?
+ Solar Wind Stream Incoming
October 10,2025 Cap Allon

Beijing just posted its coldest early-October day since 1951.

Siberia's Deep October Chill
Snow In Bulgaria
Polar Vortex Struggling To Form
Global Sea Ice Recovery
Palisades Fire: Arson Not "Climate Change"
+ Spain's Grid Operator Warns Of New Instability

Southern Asia's Early October Snow Intensifies
Romania's Peaks Under Deep October Snow
New Report: Renewables Caused Spain's Blackout
+ Startup To Reflect Sunlight To Earth At Night

Rare October Snowstorm Strikes Tibet And India
Antarctica Colder And Icier Today Than At Any Time In 5,000 Years
'Truth Map' Exposes Australia's Net Zero Madness

Big Freeze For Canadian Rockies
Historic Cold Stretch In Russia
1,000 Trapped On Everest By Rare October Blizzard
Arctic "Death Spiral" That Never Was
Met Office Deletes 'Phantom Station' Data After Exposure

Balkans Shiver Through Historic October Cold
Early Freeze Drives Record Gas Demand In Russia
Michael 'Hockey Stick' Mann Booted From UPenn Position

Poland's Tatras Blanketed
Reinsurers Rake In ¤2 Billion As 'Climate Crisis' Goes Missing
Pope Leo XIV Blesses A Block Of Ice

Romania's Mountain Snow
Heavy Dumps On The Way For North America
U.S. Summer Days Barely Warmer Since 1985
UK's Power Prices Lead The World - And So Does Its Decline

Arizona's September Snow
Blue Planet
First Snows Sweep Kazakhstan
Carpathians Covered
Southern Hemisphere Polar Vortex Weakens Sharply