BBC reports major error in climate prediction survey

Error forces re-start

20 April 2006 12:31 GMT / By Stuart Miles

The BBC has admitted that a "major error" has been discovered in the world's biggest online climate prediction project, backed by the BBC.

In a report on the BBC news website, The Corporation said "The fault in a Climateprediction.net model launched in February causes temperatures in past climates to rise quicker than seen in real observations".

The project scientists have supposedly now fixed the fault and say the data collected so far is still useful.

"At some point in the future, we may have done an experiment like this anyway", Myles Allan, principal investigator of the project told the BBC News website. "People have not been wasting their time."

Climateprediction.net was established more than 2 years ago, but a new computer model was launched in February this year in collaboration with BBC Four TV.

The error has now been fixed.

The results of the experiment were due to be announced as part of the Climate Chaos season of programmes on BBC Four this summer.

The season will still go ahead but the programme containing the results will now be delayed until enough people have had time to re-run the model the BBC said.

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