Who The Heck Is Piers Corbyn, Or: Why Has The Denialist Movement Turned On One Of Its Own?

Piers Corbyn, according to his Wikipedia entry, is a a maverick British weather forecaster[2]. He runs WeatherAction, a company which makes weather forecasts up to year in advance, and publishes/sells these forecasts though his website. In fact, he has a

...wide range of weather sensitive customers, including gas and electricity companies, farmers and retailers.[6] - for example, PolyGram staggered their release dates and promotional tours for the motion picture Bean around Corbyn's predictions

While Corbyn's forecasts often resemble a horoscope--they are, that is, vague enough to be unverifiable--recently Piers has been making some fairly precise predictions that have clearly been proven wrong by actual weather events. As Corbyn himself writes:

Forecast errors in Jan and mid Feb and advances in the Solar Weather Technique which are coping with the present hypersensitivity on Sun-Earth weather links (a situation we reported at the Oct 16th 07 WeatherAction Press event).

Now, note the reference here to the "Solar Weather Technique". Piers is a hard core AGW Denier, and puts it all down to those ubiquitous "solar cycles", knowledge of which his "technique" (the methodology is a closely guarded secret) employs in crafting WeatherAction forecasts.

Corbyn's apparent successes have been oft-touted within the Denialist community, where they have been taken as evidence that the "solar cycles" explanation of recent global temperature changes has empirical support and predictive power.

However, as his recent forecasts have failed, so too has his reputation taken a hit within that community, the whole sad process currently playing out in discussions at the Climate Skeptic Cafe.

The grouching kicked off with the arrival of Corbyn's March forecast a few days ago, and this gusty blast from Hans Erren:

Piers missed today's severe gale. Combined with the absence of a forecast cold winter in holland I think there is not much confidence left....

This opinion was 2nded by Arthur Rorsch:

My problem is, however, that Piers forecasts, which where not sufficient accurate, has been used against me in the national (Dutch) debate on climate change. I did never refer to Piers. But it was assumed that I support his view, (as a sceptic) which weakened my own case, because the Piers forecasts where seriously questioned and he has not as yet been prepared to show the basis for his forecasts.

Of course, Corbyn still has a few supporters. Sweet Kristen, the Tiniest Denier, has leapt to his defense:

I recall Magnus explaining that the sun is not behaving as Piers expected and thus inaccuracies in his forecasts. I also recall that Piers gives degrees of accuracy. His forecasts all come with a probability of being correct. But when the sun does behave as he expects his forecasts are accurate.

Nice girl, but she oughtta be out rebelling someplace.

In any event, the upshot of all this is that, for the time-being, Corbyn has stopped publishing his forecasts. I do have a copy of the March version, however, and if anyone wants one, they can drop me an email.