Piers Corbyn

Piers Richard Corbyn (born 10 March 1947) is a British weather forecaster and consultant best known for his ability to predict the weather up to one year in advance through the study of solar activity particularly charged particle and magnetic effects. His scientific advances and independently verified forecasting skill and his ‘climate sceptic’ views on CO2 based theories of global warming have caused distress among some ‘green campaigners’ who frequently spread and inaccurate information about him and his forecasts. This unacceptable activity includes inserting false statements in his biography in Wikipedia so if you are reading this please keep a copy for future reference before it gets falsified. If you want to check anything for yourself please contact Piers Corby himself via the WeatherAction website.

Early life

Corbyn was born in Chippenham Wiltshire on 10 March 1947. On that same day, one of the largest recorded sunspots occurred, which became a template for his later life. He began recording weather and climate patterns at age 15, complete with homemade observation station, and entered the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine in London at age 18 and gained a first class degree in Physics in 1968. His first scientific papers were published while he was an undergraduate for work done while still at school and were published in the Royal Meteorological Society's journal Weather discussing his brine-filled barometer; in the Journal of the British Astronomical Association for his home-based measurements of the eccentricity of the earth's orbit; and in the Geographical Journal (of the Royal Geographical Society) for a study on the Size and Shape of Pebbles on Chesil beach in Dorset. He became the first democratically (by ballot of the whole student body) elected President of Imperial College Student Union in 1969.

In 1979, following some years of activism, he studied astrophysics at Queen Mary College, London, and wrote scientific papers on the mean matter density of the universe and the Cosmic string loop theory of galaxy formation. He subsequently investigated the relationship between the Earth's weather and climate and solar activity. His theories and his political activities lead him to his first trial long-term prediction - of the cold winter 1984/85 (The winter of the Miners strike). He eventually formed Weather Action in 1995, his organization that uses his techniques to make the long-range predictions. Weather Action forecast production and research is entirely funded from the sale of long range forecasts and does not receive state subsidy.

Political activism

Corbyn was a leader of housing campaigners and squatters in the north Paddington area of Westminster City Council in the mid-1970s. In 1974 he fought for a seat on the council as a "Squatters and Tenants" candidate; in 1978 he and a colleague fought as 'Decent Housing' candidates. In the 1977 GLC election he was the International Marxist Group candidate for Lambeth Central. He and all the squatters in Elgin Avenue were - as a result of their campaign which included the building of barricades against eviction - rehoused to Southwark, South London, by the GLC in 1975. He later moved from that rehousing in Rust Square to the Alvey Estate in Southwark where he became a leader of the Tenants Association. He was a member of the Labour Party and a campaigns organiser, but has since left it. His brother, Jeremy Corbyn, has been Labour MP for Islington North since 1983.

Weather Action

Corbyn applies the power of his predictions to create and sell long range forecasts and act as a consultant for various businesses and many farmers.

Apart from peer-reviewed independent work the skill of his forecasts was proven by significant returns (about 40% profit) on a total of around 4000 weather bets placed on a monthly basis with William Hill at odds devised by the Met Office between 1988 to 2000 at which time William Hill banned his (too profitable) betting account. Some of these results were reported on the BBC2 ‘QED’ documentary (June 1996) about Piers and WeatherAction.

Former clients of Weather Action include - for example - General Accident insurers (now in Norwich Union) and Yorkshire Electricity Group, now part of npower. A former employee of YE, Mark Bailey, estimated Corbyn's forecasts as correct 70% of the time.

Weather Action website (www.weatheraction.com ) refers to "proven skill verified by independent academic statisticians and published in scientific literature," -in Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics. The Journal study, the single academic work conducted involving Corbyn's work, was done by Dr. Dennis Wheeler of the University of Sunderland and took Weather Action 'likely damaging gale periods' predictions for the island of Britain for October 1995 to September 1997. Corbyn's enlisted work then (which was carried out for a consortium of insurance companies) was only for the most likely periods of the strongest winds and specifically not a full forecast to include lesser winds (although some commentators later try to present it as such as if the periods for which there was no forecast issued amount to failures of forecast). Wheeler used a variety of statistical techniques to come up with success rates and concluded, "that forecasts prepared by Weather Action would repay further attention. The results provide little evidence to dismiss the observed success rates as being attributable to mere chance or good fortune. Indeed the balance of evidence indicates that the system performs better than chance although it is recognized that the margin of success differs greatly between the seasons and is lowest in winter when gales are most frequent.”

Since that demonstrated forecasting skill Piers Corbyn's Solar Weather Technique (SWT) of long range forecasting has advanced to provide much more detailed long range forecasts for the British Isles, Europe and other parts of the world. Corbyn's success has netted him and his company a wide range of weather sensitive customers. Filming crews look to him for example for information on weather to plan filming (PolyGram staggered their release dates and promotional tours for the motion picture Bean around these predictions), and his predictions have valued the company at £6 million at its highest point although the dot.com crash led Piers and his colleagues to leave the London stock exchange (AIM).

Predictions and advances in science

Corbyn's predictions are based on what is called "The Solar Weather Technique." The technique "combines statistical analysis of over a century of historical weather patterns with clues derived from solar observations." He considers past weather patterns and solar observations and sun-earth magnetic connectivity. Some claim that such influences cause minimal impact on the Earth's atmosphere, however WeatherAction's forecast success continues.

Corbyn has made available many presentations about his general approaches and also views on Climate Change (eg as at the Institute of Physics and Russian Academy of Sciences - available via WeatherAction) but the details of his methods are 'company property'. Nevertheless he says they will be published in due course.

Corbyn is also a global warming sceptic. His belief stems from the lack of historical evidence - in 22,000 years of data - that CO2 drives world temperatures or climate, and he's been quoted as a noted dissenter in reports about the storms in Europe in 2000 and in Martin Durkin's documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle.

Extreme weather in 2007

In December 2006 Corbyn predicted from 6 months ahead the British summer 2007 floods in detail (correctly identifying 11 flood periods 10 of which occurred in England and one of which missed England but caused landslips in Scotland). Details of these forecasts (some already verified and some in waiting) were sent in a letter to the Prime Minister Gordon Brown and later submitted, on request, to the Government’s Flood Review (copies and information via www.weatheraction.com or simple Email piers@weatheraction.com ) Corbyn also correctly warned the Reading festival organisers (Mean Fiddler group) of impending torrential rain and floods.

Corbyn predicted from 11 months ahead two major storm periods for parts of the British Isles and much of Europe (with the Netherlands on the edge of the core storm tracks) for November 2007: 'around 8th-13th' - which would include a dangerous North Sea storm surge; and 'around 25th-28th November' which would involve 'extremely stormy sea conditions and alarming build up of swell'ref>Daily Express: "Killer Storms To Lash Britain" Jo Macfarlane, 17 October 2007. URL accessed 20 November 2007.</ref> ( The full forecasts are available via www.lowefo.com )

The storm for the first period was excellently confirmed with the largest North sea storm surge in at least 30years on 9th November. The Yarmouth sea defences came within eight inches of flooding and the Government evacuated 2,000 people. In Holland ALL Flood defences were raised for the first time in 30 years (or first time ever for some). The Sunday Telegraph 11th Nov (Philip Eden page 38) headlined ‘Storm Surge gave UK a fright’ and sub-headed ‘It was one of the highest for several decades, but it didn’t compare to the catastrophe of 1953’

For the second storm period Piers announced that some solar events appeared to have changed to make the event come later so WeatherAction (www.weatheraction.com or for full storm reports www.lowefo.com ) extended the time period, in the medium range update circulated, by about 4 days into WeatherAction's next period which also included very unsettled conditions. The extended period event on 1st/2nd December well confirmed the general forecasted track. The Low centre track was excellently forecast and the main storm action was a bit further south yet within normal uncertainties. The event excellently confirmed the very extreme sea-state predicted from 11 months ahead - The 55ft waves on the Irish coast appear to be the largest in modern records. According to Met Eireann and the Marine Institute - see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7120574.stm the previous highest recorded waves quoted are 40 foot in 2005.

In the Netherlands, for the end Nov/start December storm forecast period the media and some meteorologists mislead the public by describing Corbyn's forecast for a 'superstorm' which they defined as an apocalyptic event and Corbyn's correction to their misleading information was edited out of TV reports (see www.lowefo.com ). WeatherAction did however warn Email enquirers that even though certain media had mislead people whilst Holland and Belgium were not in the core storm track strong some potentially damaging winds were very likely. Such winds did occur in parts of Belgium and Holland (and France, Ireland, Wales, England, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Germany etc), in excess of the expectations of standard meteorology from a few days ahead. WeatherAction subsequently received many Emails of congratulation from people in the Netherlands and elsewhere who had followed WeatherAction's actual forecasts. Piers later remarked "Businesses and farmers have warmly congratulated us on the skill of these storm forecasts for which the chance of getting either of them right by luck must be at least 100/1 against. Observers with no axe to grind recognise and use our work so it is sad that there are also churlish people around who seek to spread misinformation about our work which is at the forefront of forecasting science".