On Sat, 09 Aug 2003 16:52:07 +0100, Gnube wrote:

Trying to get my head around this; we are saying that the Met Office
can be a couple of degrees higher than reality?

Yes.

... then why wouldn't the Met Office use the same method used to
determine the (correct) temp, which we used to decide the Met Office
is wrong, and then they too would end up with the correct temp?

Standards and models. The measurement of the atmosphere is governed by
international standards which are based on best available technology
from many years ago, there have been changes but not many. If you
change the data entering the model it won't come up with the "correct"
answer unless you change the model as well (ie the forcasts are even
less accurate).

Then there is all the old data (used to build/check models or
theories) using such "standard" measurements going back hundreds of
years in some cases.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail