Met Office forecasts show something wrong

The Met Office forecast of annual global temperatures for 2013 was published yesterday.  History suggests it should be taken with a pinch of salt.

The problem is not that the Met Office is a long way out.  Rather it consistently forecasts a warmer year than the figures eventually show.  They have overshot in 12 out of the 13 years between 1999 and 2011.  By the 31st December this year that will almost certainly be 13 years out of 14.  Here are the figures:

Year   Forecast  Actual
1999  ...0.38    ...0.26
2000  ...0.41    ...0.24
2001  ...0.47    ...0.40
2002  ...0.47    ...0.46
2003  ...0.55    ...0.46
2004  ...0.50    ...0.43
2005  ...0.51    ...0.47
2006  ...0.45    ...0.43
2007  ...0.54    ...0.40
2008  ...0.37    ...0.31
2009  ...>0.40  . .0.44
2010  ...0.58    ...0.50
2011  ...0.44   ....0.35
2012     0.48   ....0.45 (Jan-Oct)
2013     0.57    ...

It is not clear why the Met Office make their annual forecast given that it is so consistently flawed.  However, it may be in order to get these headlines year after year:

"UK's Met Office sees 2013 as likely to be one of the warmest on record".

Certainly the recorded annual temperatures are higher this century than for most years of the 20th century.  But the trend from today back in time - where there has been no statistically significant warming - now stretches back for 16 years.  Although comparatively high temperatures temperatures have been sustained, that is in contrast to the expectations contained in the four IPPC assessment reports which have all indicated with a 90% certainty that temperatures would by now have risen steeply.  The contrast is all the sharper given the steady rise in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.

There is something wrong in the models and forecasts.