“England’s Five Year Climate Forecast Cycle“. Steven Goddard has England on his mind these days. He’s irritated that the Met Office’s predictions have changed. Is there anything more galling than climate predictions changing to incorporate new theories or more refined understandings? I didn’t think so.
The single day that the UK was covered in snow.
Wott's Up With That? 
Goddard enjoys misleading the readers of WUWT. The BBC article Goddard linked to was an article about a film by 20th Century Fox, rather than an article about the actual climate.
[Italics mine. Good catch! – Ben]
The quote he took from the BBC article was in response to a question like ‘could what happened in the fictitious film story really happen in the UK’, not ‘is this what is likely to happen’.
Goddard conveniently omitted the phrase ‘If the Gulf Stream did shut down…’, preferring to let his readers think that this was what the UK scientists thought might actually happen. (He’s probably on the mark in his guess about the lack of curiousity or inquiry among his readers, because I don’t think any of them read the BBC article itself, going by the few comments I read.)
Goddard also omitted the conclusion of the BBC article about possibilities for the future:
“Dr Jenkins said that some climate models indicate that the Gulf Stream could slow by 20-25% by 2100. However, when considered against the backdrop of Global Warming caused by the Greenhouse Effect, the UK would still see overall warming. In a simulation of a total shut down of the Gulf Stream, a fall in temperatures was only seen in a small area around the North Atlantic in the UK and north west Europe, while the rest of the world experiences warming.
Dr Srokosz said “Present day observations suggest that changes are occurring in the North Atlantic circulation… however existing observations are not adequate to answer the question of whether the THC is slowing down.”
“Rapid climate change is a low probability but high impact event, so we need to improve our knowledge of the processes involved and narrow the uncertainties on the prediction of potential future rapid climate change.” Which is what RAPID aims to do.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/science_nature/the_day_after_tomorrow.shtml