Weather supercomputer used to predict climate change is one of Britain’s worst polluters
Excerpts from the story by the Daily Mail See WUWT’s original story on this
The Met Office has caused a storm of controversy after it was revealed their £30million supercomputer designed to predict climate change is one of Britain’s worst polluters.
The massive machine – the UK’s most powerful computer with a whopping 15 million megabytes of memory – was installed in the Met Office’s headquarters in Exeter, Devon.
It is capable of 1,000 billion calculations every second to feed data to 400 scientists and uses 1.2 megawatts of energy to run – enough to power more than 1,000 homes.
The computer used 1.2 megawatts to run – enough to power 1,000 homesThe machine was hailed as the ‘future of weather prediction’ with the ability to produce more accurate forecasts and produce climate change modelling.
However the Met Office’s HQ has now been named as one of the worst buildings in Britain for pollution – responsible for more than 12,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.
It says 75 per cent of its carbon footprint is produced by the super computer meaning the machine is officially one of the country’s least green machines.
Green campaigners say it is ‘ironic’ that a computer designed to help stave-off climate change is responsible for such high levels of pollution.
But Met Office spokesman Barry Grommett said the computer was ‘vital’ to British meteorology and to help predict weather and environmental change.
He said: ‘We recognise that it is big but it is also necessary. We couldn’t do what we do without it.
‘We would be throwing ourselves back into the dark ages of weather forecasting if we withdrew our reliance on supercomputing, it’s as simple as that.’
The figures have been published by the Department of Communities and Local Government which calculated the ratings and emissions of every public building in the country.
————————————-
“We couldn’t do what we do without it.” – like botch the BBQ summer forecast?
All that carbon output, all that expensive, sophisticated technology, but ever since the Met Office jumped on the alarmist bandwagon they’ve had a horrid track record on predictions. For the last several years they’ve predicted mild, warm winters; what the citizenry got were brutal, freezing winters. Last year the seas froze off the south of England. Is that mild?
Maybe they should reduce their PR budget and instead focus on science.
Mr Watts,
What’s the purpose of (re)publishing such poppycock about green/carbon footprints, the biggest polluter, etc information platitudes concerning supercomputers on your sci blog which gained popularity thanks to scientific weblogs, not political ones or other idiotic topics?
Supercomputers need a lot of energy. You know physics too well.
Too many times lately I wonder whether you are immune enough to green propaganda.
Regards
Isn’t this the HAL that keeps getting the weather upside-down, inside-out, tangled mess?
It would be far cheaper for poor UK to sell the hungry beast and get a Farmer’s Almanac.
Something that can actually get it right most of the time.
It’s probably not even being used to predict the weather.
Somebody at a desk somewhere is making the forecast up.
The least they could have done is hire a real meteorologist and make it look like the computer monster is doing something useful.
So, without that supercomputer they’d be back in the “the dark ages of weather forecasting”? Meanwhile, the politically correct environmentalists seem to want the rest of civilization slammed back into the dark ages of life without cheap, easily exploited energy sources. Talk about hypocrisy.
This reminds me of the Lemon Computer System some outfit sold the California DMV a few year back. It never worked right, and threw the DMV into total chaos after which they had to admit it was a dud. The people who sold it to them couldn’t fix it either.
They finally had to scrap it and start over.
Sell the thing and try to recoup some of the loss.
Ignoring the first post,
“But Met Office spokesman Barry Grommett said the computer was ‘vital’ to British meteorology and to help predict weather and environmental change.
He said: ‘We recognise that it is big but it is also necessary. We couldn’t do what we do without it. ‘We would be throwing ourselves back into the dark ages of weather forecasting if we withdrew our reliance on supercomputing, it’s as simple as that.’ ”
So he wants to use it for weather forcasting?
Perhaps he should just flip a coin instead.
Maybe they could purchase some carbon indulgences from Al Gore. Then it’s guilt free “pollution.”
Random Thoughts:
1.2 MW powering 1000 homes? The usual value is 2KW/home, perhaps the Brits are already rationing electricity? And if that is the power needed for the computer, how much does it take to keep it cool?
A teraflop for that kind of power seems poor by today’s standards. Did they buy this thing used on eBay?
If the world is in a cooling trend, this thing could keep the local environment warmer.
Some tea leaves and animal entrails would produce results just as accurate results for a lot less power consumption.
Instead they intend to use its output to persuade governments to throw the rest of the community into the real dark ages.
DaveE.
Quote “Met Office spokesman Barry Grommett said the computer was ‘vital’ to British meteorology and to help predict weather and environmental change.
He said: ‘We recognise that it is big but it is also necessary. We couldn’t do what we do without it.
‘We would be throwing ourselves back into the dark ages of weather forecasting if we withdrew our reliance on supercomputing, it’s as simple as that.’ Unquote.
They hardly ever left “the dark ages of weather forecasting” in the sense that they have NOT improved the accuracy of their forecasts and have never been any good at forecasting beyond a day or two (to be generous).
What else should we expect from a bunch of civil servants? After they botched the “long range” forecast for this summer they are losing a lot of their commercial customers (e.g. retail chains trying to assess what products are likely to be in demand) thus expecting the British taxpayer to pick up even more of their costs.
It is time the Met Office was privatised and made into a commercial business and let’s see if they can cut it in competition with the commercial forcasters in Britain. My guess “not a chance.”
42.
Like Al Gore, its okay because it’s all for the cause.
Oh dearie me! – Practice what you preach???
“Homeowners could be forced to improve the insulation and energy efficiency of their properties when carrying out renovation work as part of a landmark strategy on energy to be unveiled by the Government this week.
* Telegraph Earth homepage
Ministers are considering introducing new laws which would compel Britons to increase the energy efficiency of their properties over the next decade.
Inefficient appliances such as oil-fired boilers may also be outlawed.
One of the major concerns of the Government’s green advisers is the amount of energy being wasted heating older homes which do not have double-glazing and other energy saving measures which are now commonplace in newer properties.
The proposal forms part of the renewable energy strategy which will be published later this week.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3345203/Homeowners-may-be-forced-to-improve-energy-efficiency-when-renovating.html
There is a delicious irony here!
CO2 is not pollution!
Great Computer!
But: You can make it twice big, triple it, etc. You still can’t predict climate change!!
You have dozens of unknown mechanism
You have a turbulent, chaotic system
You have 3 phases in the system
You have a complicted geometry (i.e. surface of land, subsea surface)
and you have morons who program it
There is the saying: If you have a million of monkeys typing many years on a typewriter, they will write one day something like Shakespeare.
Since “climate change science”, we know that this is not true.
Boudu (08:23:51) :
42.
————————————-
Classic! It looks like some programming team moaned loudly enough that the get themselves a faster hamster wheel.
But, you know, the thing about computers is they can’t think for themselves. Which seems to come as a shock to some people. More computing power will not equal better predictions. You’ll simply come to the same garbage conclusion that little bit sooner.
AKA: Garbage In Garbage Out.
Here’s a prediction: it’s going to be hotter before it gets colder; unless it gets colder first, then it’ll get hotter.
Hydrocarbon use is a technical term for prosperity. The warmists know that their hoax is just that, so they are not really interested in reducing the temperature. What they are interested in is undermining American prosperity thereby undermining our nation’s ability to serve as a light unto the nations and introduce the lost to the Lord Jesus Christ. America’s reputation in the world depends upon “hydrocarbon use” from the coal we burn to power our televisions, to the oil we use to maintain our military dominance, and the gasoline we burn to drive our Hummers down to the store. The methane we release at a football game, the propane we use to heat our trailers, the butane we use to fill our lighters, the octane we use in our hot rods, the asphalt we use to pave over wasteland, the kerosene we use to light our crosses and most of the plastics we use for everything are all hydrocarbons.
Without hydrocarbons, our glorious republic would be nothing more than a third world slum like France or Canada. “Hydrocarbon use” does indeed mean prosperity and this is precisely what the warmists want to steal from us. This point can not be stressed enough. After all, if the warmists were serious they would not be using any hydrocarbons, would they? I say that the second that every single warmist on Earth stops using all hydrocarbons and their derivatives (like electricity and anything made of plastic), then I’ll take their fantastic ranting a bit more seriously. Until then, well, they’ll have to fight to steal my prosperity.
I don’t agree with the title of the article because I totally reject the combination of the word Carbon and Pollution.
There is absolutely no scientific justification to assume that any generation of energy
which involves carbon fuels results in “carbon pollution”.
It’s the core of the current AGW Hoax to make people believe that driving your car is the equivalent of poisoning the environment.
Co2 is not a poison but a harmless plant food, essential for the support of all life on our planet.
I am really disappointed that an organization like Met Office, with such a long history of excellence in weather and climate science, is overtaken by a breed of management that has sidelined the science in order to serve a political agenda.
They have squandered the rock solid reputation of Met Office in a few years time, turning the organization into the laughing stock of the scientific world.
No new super computer will change that.
Doesn’t matter how powerful their computers are. It’s the model programs which fail to predict. You have to know everything there is to know about something before you can model it.
Anthony, the picture for this thread is incorrect.
Your picture shows a man waiting for a vacant portapotty.
That must be the one they are calling HAL Gore.
Perhaps the MET office could invest in a ouija board or a crystal ball to improve the accuracy of their forcasts…and a ouija board or crystal ball has a minimal carbon footprint. You get better forcasts, a small carbon footprint, and minimal power requirements. Sounds like a good deal.
It has been shown that One single human being (a british btw) can make better forecasts than this silly hardware and without spending so many Watts…Whattsupwiththat?
The accompanying picture of a poster of a pledge of allegiance is not off topic when you consider what has often been mentioned on threads on this site. It is easy to justify many things when you believe in a green religion. It is also easy to believe the green political solution is the right one when your first allegiance is to the concept of the green Earth. Click for a link to a poster from a school that offers a pledge of allegiance much different from the one I used to say every day in school…
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/29820/
I can see the ebay ad now:
“2nd user computer system, very power
hungryful.This item is heavy, so no postage, buyer collects.
No returns, what you see is what you buy.
Boudu (08:23:51),
What is Al Gore’s IQ?
Opps! In retrospect that picture is actually a valid analogy:
B.S. in/B.S. out
A thousand years ago, southamerican indians, the Incas, just looked at the seven sisters, in the sky,(The pleiades globular cumulus, in the constellation of Taurus ) if these looked hazy, it was going to be a rainy season. As simple as that…
An x-box, nintendo or whatever electronic gadgets wouldn´t be better and cheaper for these met office grown up kids?…
They´re gonna kill the rest of the world just by laughing at them.
It doesn’t matter how powerful these computers get, it’s still the problem with GIGO. The climate scientists still don’t get it.
Gotta agree with Przemystaw.
If 2000 advocates shut off their computers it could make up the difference.
They can just power it with one of those wind turbines. Then, when it doesn’t work, they will know that the wind is blowing less than about 10 mph. How marvelous. As the climate has been rightfully described as a chaotic non-linear system, it can’t be forecast or predicted. GIGO, however powerful the computer. But they are now able to make the errors they make much more quickly.
In socialist worker’s paradise we all have equally friendly carbon footprints, except some are more equal than others!
Przemysław Pawełczyk (08:07:13) : . . . look up the definition of two words
1. Irony
2. Hypocrisy
Then think about the post in the context of the meaning of these two words and you’ll eventually figure it out.
As often stated on this blog, Bad Data in, Bad Data out. The power of this computer is useless if the MET is using selective(AGW bias) AlGoreithms. Its just one big carbon foot print. Not that thats a problem in the long run, but does the UK need the added tax? Isn’t the economy tough as it is?
Burn down this evil computer and its false prophicies!
“Green campaigners say it is ‘ironic’ that a computer designed to help stave-off climate change is responsible for such high levels of pollution.”
HA! So the models aren’t created to get at the truth, they are created with a political goal in mind.
I knew it!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8224543.stm
Take a look at this one fellas! Of course it’s par for the course to announce that it doesn’t explain the warming over the last 30 years, etc. I suspect rears are being covered to avoid total embarrassment in due course. This is unprecendented for the BBC, rather unlike the unprecedented warming over the last 30 years or so. Think ICECAP nailed this one a tad earlier on their site. Curiously, the paper doesn’t appear to have any mention a disclaimer about warming over the last 30 years, unless I missed it, which is possible., but the BBC report does. Hmmmm, how strange.
“… uses 1.2 megawatts of energy to run – enough to power more than 1,000 homes.”
These statements always bother me. First, “1.2 megawatts of energy” is a statement of power, not energy. Energy would be expressed in W*hr. And then, “to power more than 1000 homes” for how long? In this case, it’s easy to assume they simply meant 1.2 MW of power which would imply 1.2KW of power for each home. As Retired Engineer already stated, this seems slightly low, but at least in the ballpark.
I’ve noticed it becomes much more egregious when discussing things like wind power when all that is mentioned is peak generating capacity (which almost never happens!) and the ability to power a bazillion homes based on that number as if the wind turbines would always run at peak capacity.
Garbage in, Gospel out
Have you checked out plantsneedco2.org? This big machine is responsible for pumping out tons of plant food into the atmosphere, thank the UK MET office for doing its part for the good of plants everywhere 😉
That’s a real purty piece of hardware.
But it doesn’t matter what because of the GIGO principle. All that expensive, energy-sucking hardware does it let them get the wrong answer faster.
Sorry to put a damper on this parade. But for about 7 months out of the year, the low grade heat output (room temperature plus) can and should be used for SPACE HEATING.
Then we only have the 400,000 watts to run the AC units during the summer to account for. THERE I cut the “Carbon Footprint” by 1/4 in a piece of brilliant logic.
Wait, maybe the SuperComputer runs off NUCLEAR? Then it has NO carbon footprint.
Or, they could take ALL the solar power available in UK and run it. Then it would run only during sunny days. Of course that TOO would cut down on its use. (Sunny days in England? What, about 100?)
All jesting aside, I’ll repeat my primary “large computer” mantra:
GIGO GIGO GIGO GIGO GIGO…
Now if they were to BAN printing the outputs and keep them as vapor (binary digits, screen displays only) we’d have a REAL “Green” winner.
I guess I’ll just be a green WHINER for now.
Dr. Joe
I wish everyone would stop complaining about the MET office computer. Its the best money that’s been spent on climate science from a skeptics point of view (unless you are a UK taxpayer of course). The MET office is the only organization using global circulation models to predict the weather on a seasonal basis so they are making verifiable predictions. From my perspective, let them have all they want. Let there be no uncertainty about the quality and reliability of global circulations models and their ability to predict the future.
Awesome. You can’t make something up this good!
Oh, and CO2 is not pollution….
I love this quote: He said: ‘We recognise that it is big but it is also necessary. We couldn’t do what we do without it.
‘We would be throwing ourselves back into the dark ages of weather forecasting if we withdrew our reliance on supercomputing, it’s as simple as that.’
Yes, that’s right. It’s amazing to think that increasing our machines’ capabilities requires more power, which as of now, requires burning those fossil fuels. Maybe it will click in someone’s head that a lot of those other things they are trying to make hugely expensive are also necessary.
Seeing the negative public response about their carbon footprint, maybe now they will run models that are actually good and confirm that CO2 is not the cause of climate change… or they could just relocate it is some third world country and make them pay for the carbon credits tax and continue showing that CO2 is bad. The heat produced by the supercomputer could be used to heat space and water for a small village in Africa.
rbateman (08:17:25) :
This reminds me of the Lemon Computer System some outfit sold the California DMV a few year back. It never worked right, and threw the DMV into total chaos after which they had to admit it was a dud. The people who sold it to them couldn’t fix it either.
They finally had to scrap it and start over.
Sell the thing and try to recoup some of the loss.
I rather doubt there is anything wrong with the computers. All computers are subject to two fundamental rules: garbage in – garbage out and they do exactly what you tell them to do. A supercomputer is no different, it just does everything on a bigger scale. In this case, it’s probably a bit of both.
Wasn’t their some MET guy that did solar monitoring and had a better track record of prediction than the “real” MET team? I think he used commercial off-the-shelf PC hardware. Just saying…
But they need a computer like this to painstakingly maintain through retrievable records, boldly apply completely unbiased corrections, and maintain as thoroughly impartial a register of climatic conditions as humanly possible!
The true carbon footprint must include all of the sa’s, dba’s,programmers,project managers,scientists, etc. offices which may or may not be in this one building. Their traveling to and from work along with their lunch hour’s carbon output, etc must be calculated. Is there a Disaster Recovery site located in some other building ? Backup tapes may be driven to other locations also. There are probably many maintenance workers there all of the time – their travel co2 output along with everything they do that is related to working on at this site must be calculated. All told, the carbon footprint here is much greater than what’s suggested.
Sounds a lot to me like, “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.”
Give me a Pilot, a Farmer/Rancher,a Crabber,and a Fisherman, and I could
do as well prediction wise as that HAL 5000 clone.
“Dave.what are you Doing?””I’m predicting Global Warming,Dave.”‘Dave,What are you doing with that bucket of snow?””My access hatch is open Dave,”
“Dave!'”Mewy had a widdle Wamb—“..
Retired Engineer:
I do believe the simple explanation for a mere Teraflop lives in those three little letters on the monoliths.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLOPS
Przemysław Pawełczyk:
Perhaps you need to look up the meanings of:
Irony
Sarcasm
Having someone insist that I need to reduce my “carbon footprint” while going out and buying size 100 shoes is “ironic”.
Thomas J. Arnold. (08:28:01) :
“There is a delicious irony here!”
Oh, the environy! heh
“We recognise that it is big but it is also necessary. We couldn’t do what we do without it.”
Is he saying that without this *staggering* computing power the Met Office would be even more wrong than they are now?
Or is he saying that it takes that a computer that big to be as wrong as they were this summer and that they’ll need a lot more power if they’re going to be even more wrong in the future?
Just asking.
Mike.
Oh the hypocracy! On a recent visit to New York I realised just how basic our weather reports are. We need to stop dumbing down meteorology… it needs to be easier to access. I hope this supercomputer will help the Met Office give me the info I want!
Yet more irony:
“We would be throwing ourselves back into the dark ages of weather forecasting if we withdrew our reliance on supercomputing, it’s as simple as that.”
…. so they can try to throw the rest of us back into the dark ages.
Boudu, that’s a deep thought.
Make ’em run it on solar & wind power , how about that??
It’s not like they forecast the weather 1/2 as well as well documented skeptics who don’t use super-computer modelling… Like that guy you’ve done the articles about who’s appealing to the UK Government to consider his forecasting methods based on his track record the last 3 years vs. the Met.
We should start a challenge. If he outperforms them again for the next 3 years – he gets the supercomputer! Think they’d be willing to take personal responsibility for their folly? 😉
After all they say: “The machine was hailed as the ‘future of weather prediction’ with the ability to produce more accurate forecasts and produce climate change modelling.” More accurate than what? The devil is in the details!
Green AGW Climate Scientist and Activist Motto: Don’t do as I do. Just do as I say. And BTW, give me your money please…it is all for a good emotional cause. (roll out photo of stranded Polar Bear on an ice flow)
I get quite irritated when journalists (and other ignorants) write something like “and uses 1.2 megawatts of energy” . “Watt” is not “energy”, energy is “Watthours”. Watt is rated power (no pun intended, thinking of the name of this webpage), and 1.2 MW 24 hours a day 365 days a year (which is normal for a computer of this sort) is around 11000 MWh since a year is approximately 9000 hours (or 8760 hours if not a leap year, otherwise 8784 hours). Divide that by 1000 and you get 11000 kWh, which could be close to what a home consumes in a year. So that is perhaps not so far from the truth.
My own house is heated electrically and consumes about 15000 kWh in a year (using a heat pump). About 3000 of that is probably my computers… The climate in the Gothenburg area in Sweden is probably colder than in Britain, so a similar house could need less energy there. If not heated electrically even a large home would of course consume much less energy, perhaps 5000-8000 kWh (depending on number of PC:s running 24/7/365 of course).
On the other hand – 1.2 MW is really NOT a great deal of power for a BIG computer. You would only need around 4800 ordinary, rather inexpensive PC:s to equate that if they are rated at 250 W each (which is low). Can’t say I find that terribly exciting.
“Retired engineer” mentioned 2 kW per home (average power during the year I would guess), multiply by 9000 and you get 18000 kWh. Which is quite a lot if the house is not electrically heated. What kind of insulation would that imply :-)?
Let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Computers are a necessary and important tool. It is the programmers’ fault if the results are not useful.GIGO.
It is the mentality and the training of climatologists that has to change. So that GIGO can become CICO (correct input correct output).
It could be used for true chaotic modeling, if it is powerful enough. The carbon footprint is immaterial, as carbon is not a pollutant anyway.
With a 1.2 megawatt, 1000 megabyte computer, their forecast for the rainfall expected in autumn 2009, published on their web site yesterday is:
“For Europe, including the UK, at this stage there is no clear signal for the amounts of autumn rainfall.”
Well that was megabucks/pounds well spent then. Or maybe they are still stinging from the BBQ summer backlash. Of course they are still predicting “average or above average” temperatures, but that’s a given.
Repeat … CO2 is not pollution!
OT: does anyone know how many sun spotless days we are now at? I keep looking at the little orange disc on the right panel of the site, and I never see a spot. Have we continued to be spotless?
Thanks…
Mark,
“CO2 is not pollution!”
Amen.
A major problem of the AGW enthusiasts is that they cannot get figures in the proper perspective. A supercomputer running 24/7 should not be compared with the average load of a household, where most appliances are used for a small fraction of the time at maximum load.
A similar comparison would be to say it uses the power of 700 Ferrari. How so?
In actual running the computer uses 1200KW or 1600bhp. This is about equivalent to the maximum power output of 3 Ferrari 360s.
However your typical average Ferrari will on do 3000 miles per year. Let us say that is 150 hours, with an average energy power output of 100kw (134bhp) when running. 150 hours is 1.7% of a year, so average energy output is a puny 1.7kw (2.3bhp). 1200kw/1.7 is about 700.
Have you checked out the materials that these new “Green and Energy Efficient” building materials are made from?
Paint job.
Without that monster computer, they can’t prove that they need laws to clamp down on the energy usage of normal citizens. Hypocrasy is alive and well in the UK.
Sorry to have OT’d, but I found my answer. Guess I should have looked first. For anyone else interested, as there are blog article popping up about it now, here are a couple links:
http://www.spaceweather.com/
http://www.evolutionaryleaps.com/Blank_Sun_Continues.htm
Thanks…
Send them a slide rule, a statistics for dummies book and a couple of wet fingers.
Przemysław Pawełczyk (08:07:13) :stated:
Quote Mr Watts,
What’s the purpose of (re)publishing such poppycock about green/carbon footprints, the biggest polluter, etc information platitudes concerning supercomputers on your sci blog which gained popularity thanks to scientific weblogs, not political ones or other idiotic topics?
Supercomputers need a lot of energy. You know physics too well.
Too many times lately I wonder whether you are immune enough to green propaganda.
Regards unquote
I live in United Kingdom and have been exposed to three faulty summer predictions and last winter’s complete failure to predict the cold/snow. It would be fine if their ability to predict increased, but since they are wedded to AGW it remains garbage in, garbage out and, therefore, they just get garbage out quicker at a greater rate of pollution than before.
All that money, all that energy, all that horrid carbon footprint and a bit of seaweed nailed to a fencepost is STILL a more accurate indicator of the British weather…
Mark (08:29:38) : CO2 is not pollution!
According to the warmers it is. And by their definition they are polluting.
They require us to have small “Carbon Footprints” like the good citizens of Somalia, Afghanistan and Burundi. Our lives would be so much better if we lived like them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita (Note the countries at the bottom of the list)
Thus they jet around with their huge “Carbon Footprints” to conferences to try and convince governments and us to reduce ours.
But then again perhaps they are talking about the pollution that it spews out when it manipulates the data.
Far more accurate, far more greener and far more cheaper…
http://bsornot.whipnet.net/images/redneck/redneck.weather.station.jpg
“All we have to do to prove global warming is turn it on!”
Seriously, the Met Office, and NASA in their attempt to “keep up with the Joneses”, should be assessed the extra costs of dealing with that extra CO2. So… how much do we figure farmers and foresters owe them?
Best,
Frank
I don’t get it. You publish a post by Przemystaw, but when I simply say I agree with his post you hold mine up in “moderation.”
What’s up with That?
OOPS, Mea CULPA!
I see I SHOT TOO SOON.
Sorry . . . . 🙁
The thing is, and what they get away with, is truly awful weather prediction for EVEN the next 48 hours. It’s either completely vague or totally wrong! Seriously, they are completely useless. I have been monitoring weather predictions for a while, and they say words like, “Chance of…Could be…Possibility of… Maybe…Some areas will see…” I want to know what the weather will be in my county for tomorrow and the next few days. And I’ve completely given up checking with the Met Office as it’s just a joke. I might as well guess, and I’ll be just as accurate. I’ve also noticed that they completely change their forecast as more info comes in (obviously) – so what’s the point of giving a 3-day forecast then? They should just be honest and say ‘we’ll give you tomorrow’s forecast but that’s all we can offer’. They’ll still get that wrong – or use vague words and phrases so that they can say they were right in places! It really blows my mind, it’s so useless as to be a national disgrace.
I think I can guess the real reason for this new computer….
Met Office researchers where finding solitaire, Freecell, and on-line poker weren’t running fast enough.
That’s a “Carbon Dioxide Footprint” NOT a “Carbon Footprint”, two entirely different things assuming you want to respect chemistry. I ask that we all start using the proper term “Carbon Dioxide Footprint” for it. Thanks.
Leo Simpson explains it quite well here:
“For a start, let’s consider this highly emotive term “carbon pollution” which is constantly being bandied about. It only takes a moment’s thought to realise that there is no “carbon pollution” problem. It did exist 50 years ago, when we had steam trains and diesels with smoky exhausts and coal-burning power stations which had less than complete combustion. It used to be called soot. But it is not a problem now, in most countries. Now I know that some people use “carbon” as shorthand for carbon dioxide but it is sloppy thinking and generates worry in the unthinking masses that we are spewing all this carbon into the air. We’re not.”
“We are burning tremendous amounts of fossil fuels and that is putting huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the air. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that is a big worry, isn’t it? Well, maybe. But all these doom merchants who worry about carbon dioxide never say anything at all about the other greenhouse gas which is produced when fossil fuels are burnt. What is that? It’s called water vapour – the same stuff as in clouds. Is water vapour a problem? Definitely not.”
Let’s have no more of this carbon pollution nonsense
http://www.siliconchip.com.au/cms/A_111426/article.html
‘We would be throwing ourselves back into the dark ages of weather forecasting if we withdrew our reliance on supercomputing, it’s as simple as that.’
He who does not have a brain needs a brain outside.
As I said before… they should have used a bunch of PS3 in parallel instead… at 299$ each in September, that will be a very good deal… and that includes a Bluray player in each one of them!!!
Dr. Joe Papp (10:07:02) :
Sorry mate, nuclear doesn’t cut it in the EUSSR!
France, who generate about 80% of their electricity by nuclear are counted as highly carbon polluting because they are given a carbon equivalent rating!
This is because the greens don’t like nuclear any more than coal. What they really want is NO power generated!
DaveE.
GIGO was probably “garbage in, GOSPEL out” originally. I heard it in during the Vietnam War when I was working in defense and often produced GIGO myself.
Sometimes you hit the nail, sometimes you hit your nail.
McNamara, the Secretary Of Defense, seems to have believed (then) that analysis could always find the right strategy for government. And his prior successes made that hard to argue with. Especially since no one actually knew what his techniques were worth.
Mc thought you just needed good numbers and ultra smart people – people like himself of course. The computers made the process faster.
I suspect the Met Office is on the same course. It is a matter of computability.
i.e. would the data actually be adequate even with perfect programs and the computers to execute them?
How does the output scale? Will increasing the computer speed improve results? Or just produce them faster?
Piers Corbyn using the laws of physics and a calculator does far better than the Met Office. See http://www.weatheraction.com/displayarticle.asp?a=72&c=1
DERise (10:36:32) : “But they need a computer like this to painstakingly maintain through retrievable records, boldly apply completely unbiased corrections, and maintain as thoroughly impartial a register of climatic conditions as humanly possible!”
Not to mention the two million lines of Mannomatic statistical code that can grind 2+2=4 into 2+2= -1√(F.A.)
Garbage in, pollution out.
Phillip Bratby (13:22:51) :
Piers Corbyn using the laws of physics and a calculator does far better than the Met Office
If somebody knows him, please tell him to openly challenge the UK Met Office’s new computer to forecast next UK winter. If he wins then this new computer should be unplugged and all those “new age, post-modern metereologists” quit their jobs for ever.
Fred from Canuckistan . . . (09:29:18) :
“Irony” and “hypocrisy” in reference to what or to whom? Eco wacko? Journalist stupidity? Green idiots? Supercomputer? MET representatives?
The MET is bad (read: ironic, hypocritic) for wrong forecasts, or the supercomputer is bad for excesive carbon footprint?
You saw irony and MET hypocrisy in the text, I saw the repetition of idiotic green propaganda and deranged eco mentality which counts today every human activity in new Eco-Units of carbon footprints – with supercomputer playing title role with the MET episode.
Sean (10:12:10) :
“I wish everyone would stop complaining about the MET office computer.”
I couldn’t agree more.
CodeTech (10:56:07) :
Quote – “Having someone insist that I need to reduce my “carbon footprint” while going out and buying size 100 shoes is “ironic”.”
I will use your words verbatim – “Perhaps you need to look up the meanings of:”
Goebbels’ famous saying – every lie repeated 100 times becomes a truth.
I’m sure you never lived under communist regime. The best method to imprint Orwellian/Communist/green idea in society’s brains (here carbon footprints) is to repeat it or disseminate as irony, hypocrisy, or sarcasm. The more it will be laughed off the more effective the method is.
John Peter (11:46:02) :
Quote – “I live in United Kingdom and have been exposed to three faulty summer predictions and last winter’s complete failure to predict the cold/snow.”
As I can recall all the MET forecasts were in the form of 60%:40% of ***probability*** (the numbers were different). It has just happened that MET forecasts belonged to the second part with the lower probability. Bad luck for the MET. I do not see any ironic relation between the forecasts with the new supercomputer (and its “carbon footprint”). What MET representatives were saying is another subject which I clearly stated in the first part of this comment (answering to Fred from Canuckistan)
Regards
Typo in the headline: “were” should be “we’re”
Correction:
Is – It has just happened that MET forecasts belonged to the second part with the lower probability.
It should be – It has just happened that the real weather belonged to the second part with the lower probability.
Regards
BTW, Piers Corbyn says “It is not a matter of technology but of the application of Physics and equations. Just as computer models of the economy fail so does the Met office approach to long range forecasting. We can predict in detail months ahead how solar particle and magnetic effects modulated by Lunar and other factors cause the Jet stream – the tracks of low pressures – to shift. This is the key to weather type prediction for Britain Ireland and Europe.”
As always, it is not a matter of belief, decrees or even bills which make for the advancement of science and welfare and progress of the people of the world, but the gift of enlightened individuals and their efforts to achieve a goal.
A sum of a lot of zeros always equals zero. Knowledge, information, as energy, it is a quantity which can not be sliced or divided infinitely the same as a cake can not.
Dr. Joe Papp (10:07:02) : “Wait, maybe the SuperComputer runs off NUCLEAR? Then it has NO carbon footprint.”
IF .. there was no CO2 involved in nuclear construction, maintenance, decommissioning, fuel manufacture and fuel disposal. Dunno about that.
As nuclear output will not increase by 1.2 MW to balance this additional demand, the law of conservation of energy tells us to expect a consequential increase in fossil fuel consumption.
anna v (11:11:34) : “The carbon footprint is immaterial, as carbon is not a pollutant anyway.”
It is material here in the UK as we are within the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. Today’s CO2 price is €15.25 per tonne (see pointcarbon.com). I don’t know where the estimat of 12,000 tonnes of CO2 came from, but it equates to €400,000 for the UK taxpayer. I’d rather our taxes were spent something useful.
One ought suggest they use the resources of Piers Corbyn, the Imperial College educated astrophysicist who, with his £50 casio calculator, gets it right almost every time for uk and worldwide forecasts, much to the public envy of the Met Office with their very considerable supercomputers, and who get it wrong everytime.
It just goes to show that millions of pounds worth of supercomputers are more fallible than a humble calculator and human aptitude, if the input is mistaken. It just calculates the wrong results much faster, as noted.
The position of the Met office is understandable. They nowadays only predict uk based weather, although they were set up as a world meterological centre during the days of empire for maritime prediction. With the decline of the UK as a world power, the Met more or less lost its raison d’être, and so now grasp (follow) the AGW thesis to give themseles a world reputation again.
The machine was hailed as the ‘future of weather prediction’ with the ability to produce more accurate forecasts and produce climate change modelling.
Newfangled contraptions! I’ll still put more stock in my trick knee. Or, if that fails, going outside and sticking a hand out and looking up.
1 Teraflop can’t be right, can it?
I can’t find the reference, but I’m pretty sure that this machine does 1.3 Teraflop using far less power.
Paul.
Przemysław Pawełczyk (13:53:03) :
How do you pronounce your name in English please?
Regards
Why can’t they direct some of the warming here to my home?
I know 17.7ºC isn’t cold but it’s in my bedroom!
DaveE.
“15 million megabytes of memory ” etc etc
Does anybody who work with these things have any comments on their precision and calibration?
Obviously a bit of a dumb question but I’m intrigued to know how they fill that amount of memory and how they can validate the results. My guess is that one could run a whole model in RAM alone? To a level of precision which bears no resemblance to the limitiations of the input data? Where does all the output go? Is it just to produce dramatic graphic simulations of innacurate results? Or will/can this really address some bottleneck in model processing?
Remember Gary Kasparov vs Big Blue.
I suggest a meteorological prediction match: Piers Corbyn vs The Met Computer & the army of cronies from the Met Office.
Of course, Piers Corbyn has a massively unfair advantage – he doesn’t believe in Anthropogenic Global Warming nonsense… so his predictions are likley to right at LEAST 50% of the time. The MET with it’s pre-ordained prescribed view is only likely to be right one third of the time.
DaveE (16:27:25) :
Why can’t they direct some of the warming here to my home?
I know 17.7ºC isn’t cold but it’s in my bedroom!
DaveE
However you must believe in those red and oranges on Noaa´s maps!
I’ve yet to see anyone pointing out the fact that electrical devices like computers, light bulbs (whether they contain tungsten or mercury), space heaters, and electric motors,
are 100 % efficient in the winter time, any ‘waste’ heat merely replacing heat otherwise generated by furnaces and boilers.
Maybe they could power it off windmills? Of course that doesn’t sound to reliable…
Stoic (16:12:35) :
Przemysław Pawełczyk (13:53:03) :
How do you pronounce your name in English please?
Regards
Just like it’s spelled.
“Green campaigners say it is ‘ironic’ that a computer designed to help stave-off climate change is responsible for such high levels of pollution.”
I fail to understand how exactly any Climate Model could ever “stave-off” climate change (even assuming it is caused by our CO2). That implies that someone believes that climate models will actual do something….
[snip – this user has been using multiple identies to post here including “mooseknuckle”, “RICH”, and “navigator” comment deleted, user banned.]
So the MET office has one of the GREENEST buildings in the UK! CO2 is nutrient. We should be glad of that small bounty as they go about proving the uselessness of their forecasts.
Here’s the facts about numerical modelling: chaos principles guarantee that within a relatively short time the results are nonsense. No amount of speed or computer memory can change that. It’s a mathematical fact. Three weeks out is probably the best possible, no matter what computing resources you throw at it.
So if you want to do better, you have to use entirely different principles. For example, a theory of how the sun influences climate might tell you that a year on, the climate will be constrained to a colder (or warmer) regime. You still won’t know whether the weather on day X will be hot, cold, wet, dry, but you will be able to forecast the sort of weather happening around about that time. This kind of forecast simply doesn’t need the kind of mind-boggling computing power in that building. You might even be able to do it with pencil and paper. They are two entirely different kinds of calculation. And the fact that the MET office are gearing up to push numerical techniques beyond anywhere they have gone before (and they have already hit the limits imposed by chaos) tells me they are a bunch of incompetents. Either that or shysters.
I have added some more comments about this at http://peacelegacy.org/articles/uk-met-office-indulges-fantasy .
Stoic (16:12:35) :
How to pronounce ‘Przemysław Pawełczyk’ in English?
I’d przobably go for: ‘Premy-shlaw Pabel-chick’.
It’s przobably Pzolish.
I’ll say it again: anyone who thinks he can model the climate simply doesn’t understand it. It’s a chaotic system.
How do you make a computer model control the climate like Bill Gates wanted Windows to run your household?
We’d better figure out Jack Eddy’s parallel plug Christmas tree first.
Now hear this, now hear this: Al CO2 molecules will report to collection area 6 for further processing.
Hmm…..
Jeremy (16:37:00) :
Yes, but the Big Blue team had a bunch of top analysts and programmers who took the sum knowledge of all chess moves & games to give the computer perfect hindsight.
These Met Jokers have obviously skewed the past in order to predict thier model future.
Lo & Behold, it is broken.
Failing to look out the window is their biggest downfall after monkeying with history.
Nature, unlike chess, does not play by man’s set rules, but can make itself new every single day. The computer cannot think outside the box, and neither can the Met programmers trapped by thier own bias.
Piers Corbyn, and those like him (Harry Geise for example), can think freshly.
Like the old adage says:
To err is human,
To really screw up you need a computer
“Miles (10:37:52) :
The true carbon footprint must include all of the sa’s, dba’s,programmers,project managers,scientists, etc. offices which may or may not be in this one building. Their traveling to and from work along with their lunch hour’s carbon output, etc must be calculated. Is there a Disaster Recovery site located in some other building ? Backup tapes may be driven to other locations also. There are probably many maintenance workers there all of the time – their travel co2 output along with everything they do that is related to working on at this site must be calculated. All told, the carbon footprint here is much greater than what’s suggested.”
Indeed, but then Co2 output during manufacture, including the manufacturer and it’s suppliers etc, should also be calculated.
“Jeff L (11:06:46) :
Yet more irony:
“We would be throwing ourselves back into the dark ages of weather forecasting if we withdrew our reliance on supercomputing, it’s as simple as that.”
…. so they can try to throw the rest of us back into the dark ages.”
The elite don’t care what happens to us. They do this at their peril.
“slow to follow (16:32:37) :
“15 million megabytes of memory ” etc etc
Does anybody who work with these things have any comments on their precision and calibration?
Obviously a bit of a dumb question but I’m intrigued to know how they fill that amount of memory and how they can validate the results. My guess is that one could run a whole model in RAM alone? To a level of precision which bears no resemblance to the limitiations of the input data? Where does all the output go? Is it just to produce dramatic graphic simulations of innacurate results? Or will/can this really address some bottleneck in model processing?”
Depends on the operating system, hardware architechture etc, some systems have the ability to “partition” memory to create separate, independent, “virtual machines” (In fact I do something similar with VMware under Windows XP, I “configure” available host system RAM to the VM’s, and run my VM’s all in that RAM. These VM’s are Windows servers, 32bit and 64bit, running on a 32bit host). Virtualisation in computing is wonderful, but building virtual climate models and using the results to build social and govn’t policy is a poor used of the technology.
THERE IS NO GLOBAL WARMING WITH INCREASE IN CO2:
http://www.geocities.com/girmao/GlobalWarming/NoGlobalWarming.htm
Stoic (16:12:35) :
Przemysław Pawełczyk (13:53:03) :
How do you pronounce your name in English please?
The last time I commented here it was deep in the night local time so I simply went to bed. 😉 That’s I why I didn’t reply.
Pshemislav Paveltchik
“sh” in English is soft,
“rz” in Polish is like “sh” in English but hard something as “rzh”,
“ł” sounds like w (in wood), but using “l” would do fine. 🙂
“cz” read as I wrote – “tch” as in Russian transcription.
It’s 5.54 here now. You can count the time lag now. 😉
Regards
Oh for the grand old days when Harwell got it’s first Cray and it took, if I remember right, a dozen IBM 360s to keep it fed.
Probably less computing power than in your laptop today.
Kindest Regards
“But Met Office spokesman Barry Grommett said the computer was ‘vital’ to British meteorology and to help predict weather and environmental change.
He said: ‘We recognise that it is big but it is also necessary. We couldn’t do what we do without it.
‘We would be throwing ourselves back into the dark ages of weather forecasting if we withdrew our reliance on supercomputing, it’s as simple as that.’”
Meanwhile, Europe is banning the sale of all incandescent light bulbs from 1st September despite reports that people with impaired vision are unable to read by the light of their ‘low-energy’ alternatives. But to hell with what other people find necessary eh?
LarryOldTimer they did a run some time ago that gave an iron tight predicition when the wind would be blowing. So all they need to do after that is set up a wind turbine and then schedule the run when they know the wind is going to blow. There is a problem though with flying pigs.
Good morning Przemysław Pawełczyk
Thank you for that!
Regards
They should rename it ‘The DeLorean’.
You can put carbage in and it shows you a different future every time you run it.
show the pic of the globe
compared to the total amount of water on earth ( as a sphere )
and
compared to the total amount of atmosphere ( as a sphere )
its really impressive
Ahem…
There was once a computer at Hadley,
Which forecast the weather so badly,
That they gave it more pop.
But with each teraflop,
It became still less accurate, sadly.
1000 billion calculation per second is not a very impresive number, that number I think should be 1000 trillion calculations per second or 1 petaflop.
WattsUp is a fantastic example of the death of science. Every coment here assumes they already know the truth. Any research that produces answers that contradict that truth must be fraudulent. No space for the possibility that the POV of WUWT could possibly be wrong.
Reading the comments on this thread I am struck by how much the ‘skeptics’ are everything they claim the ‘warmists’ are.
Research is so neatly devided into two catagories. That which is correct and produces the answers you already know are true, and fraud.
No, you could actually get a better long range forecast back in the Dark Ages. People would either watch signs in nature for weather ahead, or they would employ astronomical observations. Later, Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Galileo, Newton and Kepler all practiced weather astrology, Kepler gained much fame for predicting the cold winter of 1594/5. Me, I have a 233MHz Pentium 2 PC that cost £50 that I run an astronomy program on, its all I need for reliable LRF.
With every announcement like this one, I am reminded again of the brilliance of the script of the movie “Dr Strangelove”.
Here is the Doomsday Machine being discussed in the Pentagon War room, with its terminal function to obliterate the world if there is a nuclear bomb attack anywhere. General Turgidson (George C Scott) marvels at the power of such a machine and muses “Gee, I wish we had one of them doomsday machines, Stainsy. ”
As for the impressive photo of the computer and its contents, my sick mind jumps to the contents of the B-52 survival pack being checked by the Captain “Survival Kit contents check. In them you will find: one 45 caliber automatic, two boxes of ammunition, four days concentrated emergency rations, one drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills, one miniature combination Rooshan phrase book and Bible, one hundred dollars in rubles, one hundred dollars in gold, nine packs of chewing gum, one issue of prophylactics, three lipsticks, three pair of nylon stockings — shoot, a fellah could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff…. “
Maybe it will become self aware:
“I’m sorry Dave, I can’t predict climate.”
“Tomcat (04:49:18) :
1000 billion calculation per second is not a very impresive number, that number I think should be 1000 trillion calculations per second or 1 petaflop.”
Labour-Prime-Minister Harold Wilson decided to change from one French systen (1 billion=1 million million) to the other French system (1 billion=1000 million). Seems the Daily Mail remains conservative and uses 1 billion=10^12, as do most continental Europeans:
1 million=10^6
1 milliard=10^9
1 billion=10^12
1 trillion=10^18
Well played on the limerick, Neil. Well played indeed. 😉
Andrew
I like the green racing stripe. It must be fast.
Retired Engineer (08:21:05) : 1.2 MW powering 1000 homes? The usual value is 2KW/home
I dunno. My house has 12 KW service. 12 KW * 1000 = 1.2 MW. 2 KW sounds a bit low. Just enough to run a few lights, a refrigerator, a TV and maybe the microwave. In my house, there are three computers on most of the time — well on the way to 1 KW right there.
JER0ME (18:17:56) : “That implies that someone believes that climate models will actual do something….”
Reminds me of “The Laws” at http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/laws.htm:
“The law of computer models
The results from computer models tend towards the desires and expectations of the modellers.
Corollary
The larger the model, the closer the convergence.”
All of those teraflops of processor speed and gigabytes of memory will mean that even more complicated (incomprehensible) models will be possible, the basic laws of physics will be buried under a heap of modelling assumptions, and there will be a marked improvement in the rate of convergence.
Just for good measure (again h/t to numberwatch) – have a think about this in the context of the development of the AGW hypothesis:
“Le Chatelier-Braun Principle
If any change is imposed on a system in equilibrium, the system will change in such a way as to counteract the imposed change.”
A trillion ops per second isn’t a lot given the size of that thing.
At OMZI in Portland they have a nifty “computer” that demonstrates the normal distribution of golfballs falling into a bell curve pattern. And it is accurate every time. I wonder if the MET would like to borrow it.
It should not surprise anyone that the author of this blog would independently choose to ‘hedge his bets’ by deploying the trendy, albeit moronic, verbiage of “carbon pollution.” Humans typically, these days take in a mixture that is 380-400 PPM carbon dioxide and exhale in the range of 30,000-40,000 ppm. So one might ask this author, at merely rudimentary levels, what is it about this stupid planetary genome that would program self-destruction (again, asked in the context of his trendy, albeit moronic, use of the verbiage of “carbon pollution”).
REPLY: I always get a laugh out of analysis like this. I’m not “hedging my bets”, its satire. As you point out ” trendy, albeit moronic,” – Anthony
My desktop computer runs nearly 1 billion calculations per second, has 2.5 G of memory, 1.2 T of disk. Runs on less than 100 W, including a fancy digital LCD display. And cost well under $1K. (it’s not even state of the art) I think the MET got ripped off.
Perhaps they did this to restore their credibility: “Our prediction is based on the output of our new huge supercomputer.” After all, a new huge supercomputer can’t possibly make a mistake. And they can run the model with much finer granularity. (of course, as no one has input data of fine granularity, the model is still worthless, but we don’t talk about that.)
So now they have 42.0000000000
Since they still don’t understand the question, not much help.
“Daisy, Daisy, …”
That big xbox just winked at me.
Too many times lately I wonder whether you are immune enough to green propaganda.
Watt’s a few years ago was nice to read. Surfacestations is a nice and necessary project, but latelly this blog is just an tabloide blog looking for audience and make happy all the negacionists crown.
By the way, computer models, forget for now climate change and look only to weather prediciontion. Computer models have saved many many thousands of lives in the last 20 years. And it’s good we have different models from different institutions (GFS, ECMWF, UKMET, CMC, etc,etc) to balance the predictions in weather forecasting.
~snip~
Super computer or not the UK Met Office got it completely wrong again. Only 48 hours ago they were forecasting sunshine and 21-24 degree temperatures in the south east England for Sunday 30th August and 24-27 degrees and sunshine for Monday 31st August. Sunday is cold and overcast and 17 degrees in Horsham West Sussex, rain in the North and West of the country and Monday is now predicted to be no better. They’d be better using seaweed.
Here in New Zealand Niwa today say they gettin a super computering 100 times bigger than the 1 they have now they say it will help new zealands make up their minds as to what to do when a storm is coming hehehehe
Here’s the NIWA story for anyone interested. Not only are we getting a big, big computer, we’re going to make it twice as big in a couple of years.
http://tvnz.co.nz/business-news/niwa-buys-supercomputer-2956328
May, June and July were very cold but August has been pretty mild, although the north and west have seen some big storms, the latest happening now.
It’s far, far worse than we thought and I’m sure the computer will prove it.
Let’s try this again.
This supercomputer uses 1.2 megawatts.
Britain produces about 100,000 megawatts.
So, if it produces models that aid in passing legislation that reduces Britain’s electrical generation by 10%, it would pay for the power it consumes by about 8000 times.
One point two megawatts is not significant, but the modeling this supercomputer does is vital, IMO.
One or two megawatts is not significant? Tell that to people in Zimbabwe that have no power.
What is significant is that those who program these computers have no handle on what the quality is of the data being used. All the computing horsepower in the world can’t make up for bad programming or bad data, or flawed premises.
Now don’t reply with more touchy-feely garbage like “were all in this together”. The point is that the Met office has a bad track record for predictions and for transparency.
They won’t share the data or the code for replication saying “trust us”.
Yeah right-o. What amazes me is that many people on the left don’t trust the government when it comes to reporting on the Iraq war, but they’ll trust climate data and predictions without any questions at all.
When Hadley/Met shares the data and the methods, then they be doing “vital” work. As it stands, it is questionable since it cannot be replicated.
I’m not interested in a debate about it with you Mr. Palmer. I know your mission.
Hi all-
Good people doing good modeling, IMO.
The info is well worth the 1.2 megawatts, especially since it is insignificant relative to Britain’s total power production, and could significantly impact public policy.
My mission is to tell the truth.
REPLY: What rubbish. Your mission is most definitely not “truth” because if it was, you’d be concerned about the fact that Hadley is withholding data and methods that would allow replication. Yet you give Hadley a free pass on this issue. You can’t even bring yourself to question “why”.
No, your mission is to spout your point of view everywhere you can.
So then, since you don’t mention it or appear to care, I assume you’re 100% OK with Hadley withholding data and code that would lead to independent verification like any other branch of science does? You’re OK with whatever the results that 1.2 megawatt computer puts out even if it is it could be wrong because it hasn’t been independently verified? You’re OK with using energy without verification that it is being used correctly. You’re OK with shutting down electricity production on those answer without independent verification?
In science, “good people” don’t hide things Mr. Palmer. – A
Hi all-
Good people doing good modeling, IMO.
The info is well worth the 1.2 megawatts, especially since it is insignificant relative to Britain’s total power production, and could significantly impact public policy.
My mission is to tell the truth.
REPLY: Mr. Palmer, PLEASE learn to use the refresh button. – A
Hi Anthony-
Well, I might fail in my mission once in a while, but really, it is my mission.
I think that the climate is going out of control, and the only way to bring it back into control is to apply the proper corrective action, which must be based on the truth to succeed.
Regarding the Hadley center, and their transparency or lack of it, most of the information I have about that comes from this blog.
Because I don’t believe most of the stuff I read on this blog, I have tended to discount it as irrelevant or exaggerated.
The Hadley Center consists of hundreds of scientists, modeling the weather and climate, just doing their jobs, I think.
Regarding the computer code, those models have millions of lines of code, I think.
Who is going to be able to understand it or evaluate it other than other climate modelers?
REPLY: Well then let’s set you up with homework, since you won’t seek out that information yourself.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6797
Nature, the worlds most “prestigous” journal reported on it here:
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090812/full/460787a.html
So explain why “good people” must withhold data. No, their argument denying the FOI’s doesn’t hold water. And there’s a bunch of other questions you left unanswered.
And newsflash Leland, the climate was never “in” control. We’ve never “had” control of it and never will. Such is the folly of alarmists. – A
Hi Anthony-
Actually, I believe Lovelock’s hypothesis, that it is a self-regulating system, is correct.
It’s a very good, robust, self-regulating system, with massive reserves of control, and it has apparently gone out of control spontaneously only a couple of times in the past several hundred million years.
But I think our “geologically instantaneous” release of something like 300 billion tons of carbon from fossil fuels has destabilized it, and we are seeing the initial stages of runaway global warming right now.
The Hadley Center consists of good people, IMO, doing their jobs.
Their supercomputer is vitally necessary to this effort, and it’s electricity usage is trivial, compared to the value of the information gained, IMO.
REPLY:Your’re wrong. Runaway global warming…not possible. Note the earth had 6000PPM or more of CO2 in the past and didn’t turn into Venus. “Good people” at Hadley hide data preventing replication? Follow the links, educate yourself, pull yourself up out of the Gore. – A
Hi Anthony-
In the past, the climate has had one thing it doesn’t have now: time to adapt.
Lovelock, the author of the “climate as a self regulating system” hypothesis, believes it is not only possible, but happening right now – after a visit to the Hadley Center:
I think Lovelock’s right, and you’re wrong.
We’ve used up the resiliency of the system with 300 billion tons of carbon, mostly from fossil fuels, added geologically instantaneously to the climate system.
REPLY: I think you’ve been brainwashed. CO2 has a logarithmic response to LWIR in the atmosphere, see this graph, it can’t cause a tipping point, ever.
Its not about feelings its not about it being “terrifying” its about a physical law. CO2 can’t cause a tipping point, period.
Since you’ve moved on to religion aka Gaia, your welcome has expired. – A
“wattsupwiththat (14:55:52) :
One or two megawatts is not significant? Tell that to people in Zimbabwe that have no power.”
Not only Zimbabwe, here’s an e-mail fragment to my wife from our friend in Ethiopia;
” So today I and Lili wanted to surprise you by calling you instead of sending the usual e-card. So we met on our lunch time but you know this country! No power! No generator so No call! YOu have no idea how I squeezed my time to make it. Unfortunately we couldn’t. That was why we sent you a text message.”
Clearly Mr Palmer has been living a the life of Rielly on all that carbon pollution.
[Mr Palmer’s welcome has expired]
Hi Andrew-
Oh, I’ve been kicked.
It’s just as well.
I was spending too much time over here, arguing with people whose minds are set in cement on this subject, and whose chief preoccupation is finding scientific sounding reasons to act in unscientific ways – to engage in commercially promoted psychological denial.
I do hope that you are able to live with yourself, Anthony, when global warming turns out to be both real and more catastrophic than you can apparently imagine.
We both should be around to see it, whatever happens.
REPLY:I agree you were spending too much time here and your view is cemented. I’m perfectly able to live with myself, because the science (that you ignore in favor or Gaia theory) tells me that CO2’s LWIR effect is limited by a logarithmic curve. Sayonara – A
Hi Anthony-
And a sad goodbye to you, as well.
CO2’s effect is limited by a logarithmic curve, but deniers have been using an incorrect value for the initial concentration of CO2. The correct value is 280 ppm, or so, and in order to get the sort of curve you showed me, you need an initial value of CO2 to be close to zero.
If you use the wrong value for the initial concentration, say 1 ppm instead of 280, it makes the CO2 effect tail off 280 times as fast as it should.
Sleep well. 🙂
REPLY: That’s the best comment you’ve made yet, its a keeper! 🙂 -A
Hi Anthony-
Oh, surely not the best. 🙂
But, if past experience is any guide, this will not stop you from using that same climate denier talking point logarithmic argument again on other posts, even though discrediting it just requires going to Wikipedia, getting the equations, and doing a very small amount of math. 🙂
REPLY:I’m not a denier. I don’t deny the CO2 has a role in warming the planet, it does. In fact the graph I showed you proves that it does. Just not the way you think.
Disproving it? Sure whatever you say, in fact if it is just that easy, feel free to do just that, showing the Wikipedia links (note showing the Mauna Loa CO2 Graph is not the same) show your math and work that disproves that CO2 has a logarithmic response in our atmosphere. -A
“Leland Palmer (17:09:41) :
But I think our “geologically instantaneous” release of something like 300 billion tons of carbon from fossil fuels has destabilized it, and we are seeing the initial stages of runaway global warming right now.”
Runaway global warming? Did Mr. Palmer really say that? I think this is a potential candidate for “Munted Quote of the Week” IMO.
SNIP
Mr Palmer, if you ever want to post anything here again, you’ll have to stop using the term deniers in the same sentences with explanations. You don’t come into people homes and insult them do you? So why should you do the same to me and other here in our home on the Internet?
Learn some manners.
If you want to discuss science, that’s fine. If you want to call me and everyone else here names while trying to push your explanation and agenda, bugger off.
– Anthony Watts
I used to be an MVS sysprog, but now I work in the “Wintel/Unix” space. Just found out my biggest client uses a mainframe, and IBM one too, which has 186000 megabytes. This MET office system is huge and clearly the UK taxpayer has plenty of money to spend.
How can these guys think that more computing power will help when the most basic underlying processes are not well understood? As I mentioned before, protein folding is much better understood and unlimited computing power still doesn’t work to model it. Are there any really compelling cases where highly complex systems are successfully modeled by digital computers? This is an interesting question, but I fear no one with an interest in self preservation can pursue an answer because any negative results will upset too many powerful people with too much money.
Probably old news, but it looks like UK Met now has some competition to see whose supercomputers can produce the largest carbon footprint.
“NOAA’s Powerful New Supercomputers Boost U.S. Weather Forecasts”
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090908_computer.html