Fascinating interview - I found out several things I didn;t know. 1) Julia Slingo got a BsC from Bristol University in Physics. She started her career at the met with only an undergraduate degree in Phyics!!! She has since been awarded a phd in 1989 for published work, and 2 honorary doctorates. Nevertheless she is not as highly qualified as some would have you believe. 2) It may be due to her lack of scientific qualifications, but Dame Slingo apparently believes that heat moves downwards in fluid. "the ocean moves heat from upper layers to deeper layers" Interesting, she didn;t quote any evidence for this assertion, and I am not aware of any reputable measurements which give evidence of this peculiar mechanism. 3) She admits that when the AGW thesis was being formulated " we knew virtually nothing" " we didn;t even know what clouds looked like from space" 4) She admits not knowing why there has been such a long pause in global warming and is not willing to say when it will likely end, beyond stating that there is a pattern of cooling in the pacific which shows heat has moved form the upper to lower levels. So a cooler ocean show that the naughty heat is hiding in deeper levels, how astonishing, And yes I know all about Kelvin waves, and the fact that there is an El Nino brewing, its natural variation linked to the PDO. 5) She maintains that the Met Office went form being the least knowledgeable to the most expert body on volcanic ash, and chastises the airlines for not believing there was volcanic ash in the atmosphere because they couldn't see it. As I recall, the airlines got so fed up with the invisible ash, they sent a plane up with sensors to show that not only was it safe to fly through, there wasn;t even much measurable ash. So not only was the ash invisible, it didn't cause crashes, and couldn;t be measured. But hey, the mighty Met Office must not be criticised for its unevidenced and unproveable allegations right? 6) She believes that weather systems now hold more water than 50 years ago and therefore cause more devastating storms. Well what about 40 years ago or 90 years ago or 99 years ago. The figures for Dec/Jan temps are 2013/14 6.2,5.7 1974/75 8.1,6.8 1924/25 6.8,5.3 1915/6 5.3, 7.5 according to CET. So she's cherry picking and not applying science. In addition,. surely by her logic December and January would be the least likely time to have record rainfall, as they are generally much colder than say September/October in the Northern hemisphere. 7) She states that extreme weather is getting more extreme - with no supporting evidence. Judy Currys work on the other hand will show that hurricane activity in the US is at a very low level and has been diminishing recently. So all in all, pretty much what you would expect from a party apparatchik - not at all what you would expect from a scientist. But then as we discussed in point 1, she isn;t all that familiar with science.