From the GWPF, here’s a collection of articles that are collectively ripping the Met Office a “new one”. And, it is easy to see why. Here’s the Met Office supercomputer enhanced model output forecast from October 2010:
The map and this below are from Autonomous Mind: The piece even goes on to name the Met Office employee who spoke about the map and talked up the effort that had gone into producing the start point for a ‘seasonal forecast‘:
Helen Chivers, Met Office forecaster, insisted the temperature map takes into account the influence of climate factors such as El Nino and La Nina – five-yearly climatic patterns that affect the weather – but admits this is only a “start point” for a seasonal forecast. She said: “The map shows probabilities of temperatures in months ahead compared to average temperatures over a 30-year period.
Click the links in stories below for more at each website.
Let’s hope Santa isn’t relying on weather forecasts from the U.K. Met Office. The British deep freeze of recent weeks (which has also immobilized much of continental Europe) is profoundly embarrassing for the official forecaster. Just two months ago it projected a milder than usual winter. This debacle is more than merely embarrassing. The Met Office is front and centre in rationalizing the British government’s commitment to fight catastrophic man-made global warming with more and bigger bureaucracy, so its conspicuous errors raise yet more questions about that “settled” science. –-Peter Foster, Financial Post, 22 December 2010
Dave Britton, the Met Office’s Chief Press Officer, e-mailed the following statement to the Global Warming Policy Foundation:
Following the entry on your blog regarding the Met Office please find the Met Office response below:
The Met Office has not issued a seasonal forecast to the public and categorically denies forecasting a ‘mild winter’ as suggested by Boris Johnson <http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/> in his column in the Daily Telegraph.
Following public research, the Met Office no longer issues long-range forecasts for the general public; instead we provide a monthly outlook on our website, which have consistent and clearly sign-posted the very cold conditions.
Our day-to-day forecasts have been widely recognised as providing excellent advice to government, businesses and the public with the Daily Telegraph commenting only today that ‘the weekends heavy snow was forecast with something approaching pin-point accuracy by the Met Office’.
The public trust and take heed of our warnings and it is misleading to imply that the Met Office did not see this cold weather coming.
Dave Britton Chief Press Officer, Met Office – FitzRoy Road Exeter EX1 3PB United Kingdom, E-mail: dave.britton@metoffice.gov.uk – http://www.metoffice.gov.uk
GWPF Note: The Met Office’s track record of forecasting mild winters can be found here: Warm Bias: How The Met Office Mislead The British Public
The Met Office denial of a forecast is fatuous and their temperature map demonstrates clearly their computer models, featuring the global warming bias that undermines the Met Office’s predictions, are as much use as a chocolate fireguard. –Autonomous Mind, 20 December 2010
The economic impact of the freezing winter will deepen this week as Britain prepares for more travel gridlock, and millions of workers, travellers and shoppers were expected to stay at home in the run-up to Christmas rather than brave the icy conditions. Estimates from the insurer Royal Sun Alliance (RSA) have put the cost of the weather to the economy at £1bn per day, a sum that is thought to be hitting retailers, restaurants and bars the hardest. The total cost is expected to be around £13bn. –Jonathan Brown, The Independent, 20 December 2010
The row over the need for a multimillion-pound investment in snowploughs, de-icing equipment and salt stocks deepened this morning with the publication of a government-backed report using Met Office predictions that successive hard winters are rare. But the findings of the government-commissioned study were contradicted by Sir David King, the government’s chief scientific adviser from 2000 to 2007, who warned that ministers should plan for more cold winters. Quarmby said the Met Office remained convinced that the severe cold snap is a one-off phenomenon. –Dan Milmo, The Guardian, 21 December 2010
This is the third winter running when we have had very cold and snowy conditions hitting the UK. It comes at a time of continued, unusually weak, solar activity. Perhaps we all need to get used to colder winters across the UK in the next few years.—Paul Hudson, BBC Weather, 20 December 2010
It turns out that Dr. Viner of the East Anglia Climate Research Unit was flat-out wrong when he told the Independent in early 2000 that within a few years snow would be rare. In fact, snow has been abundant during every year but one since then. — Donna Laframboise, No Frakking Consensus, 7 January 2010
Somebody should be in trouble for leaking the forecasts. They are so wrong.
Ooops, I guess they are paid to forecast. How is that going for them?
Big LOL at the name of the Met Office employee. “Helen Chivers” – I bet she is right now!
I would be nice if someone could predict the weather or climate, but they can’t.
Predicting mild winters, only to be followed by record breaking cold, is all the proof that someone needs that they can’t.
Hindcasting that the jet stream changed, is only more proof that that didn’t predict it, and even more proof that they don’t know what they are talking about.
Problem is, you can always find someone that got the prediction right. There’s going to be someone out there that predicted a cold winter, and lucked out on their prediction.
But the fact that some predicted warm, some predicted cold……….
That is even more proof that they can’t predict the weather or climate…………
London Heathrow did not buy enough anti-freeze, based upon the Met Office’s predictions. Thus LHR was blocked by snow for three days, and thousands of passengers delayed.
I think the Met Office should give compensation, for everyone who was delayed, throughout the country. And the BBC can help out with further payments, for being such a keen cheer-leader of AGW.
.
Is the yellow snow at some mythical temperature scale. Yes, everyone loves yellow snow.
As Santa might put it:-
HoHoHoHoHoHoHoHoHoHoHoHoHoHoHoHoHoHoHoHoHoHoHoHoHoHoHoHoHoHo
They got Greenland Sea right, temperatures were above average (on minus side they gave it lowest probability).
This is just absurd. What the MET has done is used their AGW hypothesis to create a European temperature template that slowly shows a natural increase in temperatures based upon their supposition that temperatures will increase by 4C per century. Then they introduce what they consider to be effecting variables, such as the La Nina ‘cycles’. Of course they will always be wrong. The bias is built in the model. In fact in a mere few years of existence this model is obviously wrong in every respect.
The Independent was claiming the Met office had predicted the big freeze in October.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/the-uk-may-be-cold-but-its-still-a-warm-world-says-met-office-chief-2165492.html
I not sure where Steve Connor the Independent’s “Science” editor got that from?
Speaking as a Brit, I must say that the Met Office are a joke with regard to their long term forecasts. Met Office short term forecasts (1-2 days) are in general reasonable, but to be honest not much more accurate than can be gleaned by looking at the surface pressure charts, tapping ye olde barometer and looking out the window. Some of their forecasts for prolonged heavy rain have been way off the mark and the scary warnings of extreme weather events are coming thicker and faster than all this global warming induced snow we’ve been having for the last three years. Reading some of the recent Met Office statements in the media makes me wonder if there is a portal to an alternative universe located somewhere in Exeter.
This just means they need a more expensive computer!
Come now Antony, a choco fireguard would be much better in this circumstance as it would predict warmth and cold directly from its constitution – something the MET office appears to be unable to do.
Excelente trabajo
Muchas felicidades y Próspero 2011 Don Antonio
I’d prefer a chocolate fire guard to the met office; at least you could eat it whilst huddled round the fire for warmth. A huge amount cheaper too.
That’s the problem with fudging (adding warming trends), cherry picking source data and statistical butchery of data (to get hockey sticks). Any model you build on this might as well have been constructed on blancmanche foundations.
Then you add climatologists (they are not worthy of being called scientists) that play with the parameters of models that they don’t understand in order to get apocalyptic ‘forecasts’. The models being written by incompetent hacker-monkeys, not engineered. (ref Harry read me file).
And on top you add politicians hijacking the subject to add mountains of taxes, laws and inappropriate technology to the crumbling edifice. “We’ll save you” say the PPE graduates.
As an atheist, even I am tempted to thank ‘god’ for the hacked emails.
The guy who did that deserves the Nobel prize for services to science. While you’re at it, take Gore’s off of him. Even watermelons must see the depth of the fraud, theft and incompetence inflicted on us plebs.
You warmistas should be ashamed of yourselves, why not retire in disgrace right now?
It is quite simple, any temperature forecast should be multiplied by -10. Just change one string in the model software and Voila!
That Dave Britton guy just flat out lied to them… a bald faced liar. He says one thing and the facts show the opposite…… In my book…. That’s called lying.
The taxpayers need to have these useless, thieving bureaucratic departments shutdown and the government funding and grants for all climate science, environmental programs and renewable energy, stopped.
The taxpayers are being virtually enslaved by a parasitical bureaucratic elite that think they have a right to everyone else’s money, time and productivity….. Time it was stopped.
What they meant is this:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MetOff.htm
(just reverse whatever they forecast)
They just can’t get it right, and wont admit they’re ever wrong. Reminds me of the forecasts for a red hot summer every year, which fails to materialise. Last year we were all supposed to paint our houses white to protect us from the unbearable heat! In England! Yeah right.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1184563/Now-Government-wants-paint-houses-white-beat-global-warming.html
Well if the tall forehead types that run the MET are too stupid to know that this Interweb thingy never forgets and always remembers what was published just a few months ago and too ignorant to believe they can bluster and lie their way out of theri abject failure to provide an accurate forecast then they deserve to canned.
Fire the lot of them –
Charge 1 . . . Incompetence
Charge 2 . . . Fraud
Charge 3 . . . Lying
We used to keep criminals busy doing Public Works . . . the Dufus Brigade running the MET should all be given shovels and put to work clearing snow at Heathrow for a few weeks.
Its a case of what do believe what the AGW fan club states or you own eyes.
Obviously the science behind the AGW is to promote the fairy tale agenda. The AGW agenda requires that believe that somehow limiting CO2 will help the world in any manner.
As the feedback (cloud cover increases when the planet gets warmer rather than decreases) is negative rather than positive the planet will warm less than 1C due to a doubling of CO2.
Further more, CO2 increases in beneficial for the biosphere. The biosphere increases in size and productivity when CO2 levels are higher. Commercial greenhouses inject CO2. Plants eat CO2. Plant growth rates and yields increases for CO2 levels up to around 2500 ppm. CO2 is at the lowest level in the last 500 million years. (since life appeared on the planet.)
We are at the end of the interglacial cycle. There has been 22 glacial/interglacial cycles. The interglacial cycles have all ended abruptly. The biosphere expands and is more productive when the planet is warmer. Rainfall increases when the planet is warmer, as 70% of the planet is covered with water.
Send better chicken entrails soon!
Or more money now, I like to think some met office boffin is on the bat phone to Cameroon and huneyloon saying “they’re on to us gov, the game’s a bogey, deploy plan 10:10 while you still can” or words to those effect.
The Met has reported instances of snow where I live and where I work (a fair distance apart) in this second bout of bad weather. Unfortunately, it has not materialised at either location, but we have been very cold. I would dispute the pinpoint accuracy myself. But maybe I am expecting too much?
Denial ain’t a river in Egypt, there Met Office, they ought to hire Corbyn…
“An Engineer says:
December 22, 2010 at 8:35 am
Speaking as a Brit, I must say that the Met Office are a joke with regard to their long term forecasts. Met Office short term forecasts (1-2 days) are in general reasonable, but to be honest not much more accurate than can be gleaned by looking at the surface pressure charts, tapping ye olde barometer and looking out the window. Some of their forecasts for prolonged heavy rain have been way off the mark and the scary warnings of extreme weather events are coming thicker and faster than all this global warming induced snow we’ve been having for the last three years. Reading some of the recent Met Office statements in the media makes me wonder if there is a portal to an alternative universe located somewhere in Exeter.”
Spot on, Engineer. I have said this here several times that the Met Office dish out warnings of heavy rainfall like confetti and then we might have an hour of drizzle. I am convinced this is all part of their extreme climate disruption scaremongering.
Hey ho, off to Yorkshire for Christmas from the south-west. Usual journey time 4.5 hours. Have a bet with my husband that it’ll take 7 hours. Will gladly cough up if I’m wrong. Son has managed to change his flight into Heathrow to Manchester. I think BA were happy to accommodate him given the chaos at Heathrow.
Happy Christmas everyone. Here’s to the end of global climate disruption (whatever) in 2011! Cheers!
I don’t know the rules of cricket, but in baseball it’s “three strikes, you’re out”.
I think the Met Office need to change some of the details in their Google Earth add on feature. I see no extreme cold events on there…but warming is causing the cooling?
I notice their map only has a scale for probability of HIGHER than average temperatures. No provision for the merest inkling of consideration of the remotest possibility that temperatures might even consider trying to decrease.
As the appliance repairman might say upon discovering the refrigerator unplugged, “Waaaal, here’s yer problem.”
And yet, the mantra marches on, as witnessed in the NYT just yesterday…
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/science/earth/22carbon.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&src=twrhp
Clearly hoping no one will look behind the curtain, oblivious to the current scientific theory and observational raging debates….the commoner, it is hoped, will read only this and continue as a loyal believer.
Here in the northwest US a few months ago, I looked at the gov’mt’s mid-range weather prediction and it indicated a relatively warm, wet winter. I then checked out what The Farmer’s Almanac had to say, and they predicted basically the same thing. So far, that’s what the weather here has been, but I believed the gov’mt’s prediction only because TFA said so. (Maybe the US gov’mt’s “scientists” are copying TFA?)
Merry Christmas, everybody. And may an abundance of fluffy white stuff grace your holiday (hey, even in Australia!) Might as well adopt a positive view on the inevitable.
First they deny a forecast was ever made, then they say it does not represent the official view of the met office. In that case what use is any information they provide if you don’t know what the hell it’s supposed to mean? Is it a forecast or a probability envelope?
Now, the met office equivocation only serves to undermine public confidence still further.
These folks at MET have demonstrated over and over they cannot even get short term seasonal forecasts correct. Perhaps there’s some truth to the meme that weather is not climate, but at some point enough weather, enough seasons, surely must become climate, by definition. So, if MET cannot get multiple seasonal forecasts correct (i.e. only weeks or months in advance), how can we be confident they can get long term multiple weather (hence, climate) forecasts correct?
Don’t answer. It’s a rhetorical question that any clear thinking person already knows the answer to.
Following public research, the Met Office no longer issues long-range forecasts
I think he should have said: “Following public humiliation, the Met Office no longer issues long-range forecasts
The sooner politics are removed from weather forecasts the sooner the Met Office will be able to restore their credibility.
“The Met Office has not issued a seasonal forecast to the public and categorically denies forecasting a ‘mild winter’”
“Following public research, the Met Office no longer issues long-range forecasts for the general public.”
Note that the Met Office doesn’t issue these forecasts to the public. But it does issue them to the government, local councils and anyone who wants to pay for them.
These statements are disingenuous. They are meant to mislead – some would say this is deceptive.
The probability maps are prefaced “Raw data are displayed…….”
Surely, these are computer predictions of future temperatures, not raw data?
GIGO.
If those at the MET were true scientists, would they not recognize that real observed data is more valuable than modeled data and admit when they got it wrong? They are behaving more like crooks caught red-handed (not just red faced). “No Officer, I wasn’t me. I don’t know how the gun got here. I’ve been good.”
I think Norway’s met.no uses the same modeling tools, and they’re constantly forecasting too warm weather. For instance, in October, their forecast for November – January was above normal. January has to get subtropical temperatures if they were right 😉
http://met.no/?module=Articles;action=Article.publicShow;ID=7508
But – kudos to them! – they’re discussing their forecasts in retrospect:
http://met.no/?module=Articles;action=Article.publicShow;ID=7538
(run the pages through Google translate from Norwegian if you like, but the maps should tell a lot)
No, Climate Scientists – Weather forecasting and climate forecasting are not the same…. The weather forecasters usually get it right!!!
Aren’t they using those ultra high-tech computers they installed a few years ago that use more energy and contribute more CO2 to the atmosphere than many small towns?
Where can the original of the MetOffice graphic shown above be seen? A google search is circular with all references leading back to the disputed article. An article cannot be self-referencing and still considered vetted so I’d like to see the original on the Met site. Without that I’m going to have to accept Dave Britton’s refudiation <- my new favorite non-word.
Same here. According to their charts, which I looked at this morning, we were due some very heavy snow at around 3pm. We got a light flutter.
I can’t help but have the feeling this is all a little unfair on them though. I mean the weather in this country is extremely unpredictable compared to many other places around the world, isn’t it?
A Scientist, His Work and a Climate Reckoning
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/science/earth/22carbon.html?ref=global-home
“Climate-change contrarians do not accept these numbers.
The Internet has given rise to a vocal cadre of challengers who question every aspect of the science — even the physics, worked out in the 19th century, that shows that carbon dioxide traps heat. That is a point so elementary and well-established that demonstrations of it are routinely carried out by high school students.
However, the contrarians who have most influenced Congress are a handful of men trained in atmospheric physics. They generally accept the rising carbon dioxide numbers, they recognize that the increase is caused by human activity, and they acknowledge that the earth is warming in response.
But they doubt that it will warm nearly as much as mainstream scientists say, arguing that the increase is likely to be less than two degrees Fahrenheit, a change they characterize as manageable. “
I think there are two issues here which explain why the top graph shows a forecast for a mild winter.
1. The baseline used is 1970-2000 which, because of global warming, is colder than what would be an average year now. I believe that the basis for the claim in the Independent that the Met Office predicted a cold winter is based on an analysis that compared the seasonal forecast to the average since 2000 [a warmer baseline].
2. Although the seasonal forecasts do show a little skill in being able to replicate the year-to-year variability, when you use them to recreate the past, the anomalies they produce are generally much weaker than those observed.
It’s perfectly possible that the Met Office did predict a colder than 2000 – 2009 winter, which is shown in the above maps as a warmer than 1970-2000 winter.
Being an avid reader of WUWT can I just say it’s an honour to have my humble blog featured in this way on the site. Many thanks indeed!
REPLY: You are welcome, Merry Christmas, Anthony
For those who are thinking the weather has these folks on the run a little dose of reality from the Obama adminstration
EPA to double down on climate
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46697.html
The Met office habitually gets it wrong. One of our local major seaside resorts lost £millions due to totally wrong forcasting.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/may/28/bournemouth-met-office
Interestingly – this article is from the Guardian – not a paper that likes to knock those that advocate catastrophic AGW is just arround the corner.
Better still is the fact that talk to most people in Bournemouth and you find that they are highly sceptical of the spin and hype generated by the likes of the biased Met Office.
Nothing like losing £M’s in trade to focus peoples attention. And this is just one town.
It puts into perspective the huge potential loss if the crazies have their way and squander £B’s.
People here clearly don’t understand probability.
Oh, and the recent weather forecasts provided by the Met Office have been just fine. Last night they forecast a band of snow for parts of the middle of England which duly arrived and on time. We had snow a few days ago – also forecasted well. OK, some brits like to whine but the reality is the Met O have done a very good job recently.
Interestingly, with the very cold weather likely to continue, it’s possible the December might be the coldest in the CET instrumental record. And you know what? Not one of the kind of people WUWT likes to detest (‘warmers’) will start waffling on about some nit pick or other to try cast doubt on the figures. But, if we see a very warm month next year I can guarantee this blog will have a post casting as much nitpicking doubt about as it can…
“The Met Office predicts it will be “mainly dry” from Christmas Eve”
http://www.channel4.com/news/forecasters-say-snow-and-ice-should-clear-by-christmas
Let’s see how that pans out.
I’d love to know how much money the BBC (funded by the BBC telly tax everyone with a telly in the UK has to pay) spent on the newish weather maps the God awful organisation use on their weather forecasts. The government mouthpiece BBC weather forecasters appear able to pinpoint where the rain, and more recently snow, will fall to an area the size of a small town. They are, more often than not, wrong when it comes to where I live in London. The temperatures are wrong too. It appears to be part of a dumbing down exercise.
The day the BBC stopped showing isobaric charts was the day I wept a little. The reason they gave was that few people understood them. Perhaps if they showed them and explained what they meant more people would come to understand them!
I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that their weather charts are a vehicle for showing off the latest trendy graphics (provided by private profit-oriented companies which my telly tax has gone towards paying for and no doubt people in the BBC and/or the Met Office feasting at an expensive restaurant to seal the deal with) rather than an honest appraisal of what proper meteorologists collectively think the weather will be like in the near future.
Do the BBC have any trained meteorologists giving the forecast? I think they are more likely hired from an agency where cleavage counts for more than clarity.
There is a definite propensity toward minimising the cold and accentuating the warm weather (events!) when I watch a BBC ‘forecast’. I detest the BBC for it’s slavish on-message and completely biased political profundity too but that is for another time.
/rant
Mr Britten seems to be getting his scripts directly from the old TV sitcom ‘Yes Minister’ where deniability was the mainstay of every utterance from any arm of government. To insist that a three-month projection is not a forecast is idiotic and betrays the Met Office as being without the faintest trace of ethics. The scriptwriters of ‘Yes Minister’ were much more clever than the current lot of civil servants and the term ‘Bungle Jonnies’ seems marvellously appropriate.
Ah yes, yet another BBQ winter without snow.
Don’t ya just love ’em?
/sarc
[snip – bogus email address, see policy page]
HadCrut3 published its November anomaly (0.431). That assures that
1) 2010 will not be a record year
2) February 1998 stays the warmest month
3) The trend has been going down
Will the MET dare to tell us these are signs of global warming?
mmmmmm. So they’re ok with day to day forecasts.
I’ll just look out the window…..
Red sky at night……
Red sky in morning…..
Do I get a bonus now????
TreeHugger says at 9:32 am: “The Internet has given rise to . . . challengers who question every aspect of the science — even the physics, worked out in the 19th century, that shows that carbon dioxide traps heat. That is a point so elementary . . .”
Hugger would do well to better study the history of early climate science and CO2, particularly Arrhenius, Chrowder, Chamberlin, Eckholm, and Ångström. Ångström concluded that atmospheric CO2 and water vapor absorb infrared radiation in the same spectral regions and that any additional CO2 would, therefore have little or no effect on global temperature. He published the first infared spectrum of CO2. It was thought that atmospheric CO2 had already absorbed all the long-wave radiation; thus any increases in CO2 would not change the radiative heat balance, but might augment plant growth.
Nearly two decades following Chamberlin’s early work, the CO2 climate hypothesis had fallen out of favor. In a letter to Charles Schuchert of Yale’s Peabody Museum he wrote, “I greatly regret that I was among the early victims of Arrhenius’ error.” Towards the end of his career, Chamberlin thought in 1922 that the role of CO2 had been overemphasized.
Mr. Hugger, the physics had been worked out in the early 20th century. The physical properties of the CO2 molecule have not changed.
I have over the years had numerous conversations with this one weatherman who is as big a AGW alarmist as there is. He once sent me some of the maps he used. These maps looked pretty with all the colors and had very precise numbers for temperature and humidity ect. The only way to tell a forecast map from current or past conditions is to read the time, which is printed very small. I can well imagine that if one spent all one’s time looking at these maps one could easily get confused as to what is reality and what is a forecast. The Met office is so sure their computer models are right they ignore the reality that is staring them right in the face.
Ed Caryl says:
December 22, 2010 at 8:53 am
While Cricket is likely the grandfather of just about all bat and ball games, Baseball included there are different rules.
The inning of the team batting isn’t over until either 10 out of 11 of the team are out or they say it is over which is called Declaring.
In the case of AGW the Team are unlikely to declare so we’ll just have to keep getting them out one at a time.
You can be out by being run out (caught between bases).
Being bowled out when the ball hits the wickets.
If you accidentally hit your own wicket with a ball or bat and knock off the bails.
Being caught out on a fly ball
Being stumped because you have gone too far away from the wicket i.e. you are at bat but have left the batters box.
By Leg Before Wicket – leaving your protectively padded leg in such a place that if it hadn’t been there then the Umpire believes that the ball would have hit the wicket.
When a batsman is given out in Cricket the Umpire raises one finger. Sort suitable eh ?
Roger Longstaff says:
December 22, 2010 at 9:19 am
“The probability maps are prefaced “Raw data are displayed…….”
Surely, these are computer predictions of future temperatures, not raw data?”
Well, it is technically “data” and it must be the “raw” output from their computer models, but I still think it demonstrates that they have difficulty distinguishing between observed data and derived data – and they obviously think higher of the latter.
Perhaps they think the more difficult something is to do the more accurate it is – and it is certainly harder to snag a supercomputer to play “global thermoclimatic war” than it is to write down what the thermometer says outside.
Peter H says: December 22, 2010 at 9:55 am
People here clearly don’t understand probability.
————————————————————————-
Well Peter H whether they do or don’t my question is why play about with ‘probability’? IMO, that should be left to the bookmakers who know how to use it.
—————————————————————————
Interestingly, with the very cold weather likely to continue, it’s possible the December might be the coldest in the CET instrumental record. And you know what? Not one of the kind of people WUWT likes to detest (‘warmers’) will start waffling on about some nit pick or other to try cast doubt on the figures. But, if we see a very warm month next year I can guarantee this blog will have a post casting as much nitpicking doubt about as it can…
————————————————————————
Are you a ‘turf accountant’ Peter H?
Douglas
Peter H,
“Last night they forecast a band of snow for parts of the middle of England which duly arrived and on time. ”
They didn’t make the forecast until the previous evening. Earlier that day – less than 24 hours out – the forecast for today was clear skies and sunshine. In other words, they failed to forecast until it actually appeared on the radar maps. I call that pretty poor, since xcweather had made the forecast a day earlier.
Alistair Ahs says:
December 22, 2010 at 9:38 am
“It’s perfectly possible that the Met Office did predict a colder than 2000 – 2009 winter, which is shown in the above maps as a warmer than 1970-2000 winter.”
That is some of the best spin I have seen to date. If there were a Golden Globe/Pulitzer Prize for media spin, I nominate your comment in its entirety.
I think you are right about the modeling tools. They are totally insane, and not just too warm. For example, just a few days ago, their long term forecast looked rather strange for early this morning (Dec 22) and one week on.
The black line is the predicted temperature, and the light and dark bands signify 80% probability, this is according to met.no itself. Trouble is, this graph shows that they predicted the temperature this morning at 6:00 AM to be -10C, and at 7:00 AM it would be -30C !! At the same time the 80% probaility should all the time stay near -30C.
My own temperature measurements (granted, not at the exact same location but 30km away) showed that at 6AM this morning it was -19C and at 7AM it was about -18.5C.
These forcasts are just total garbage. Met.no claims that there is “systematic error” in their long term forecasts. Indeed there is. But the short term forecasts are also in error, sometimes by 10C.
Unlike what the Met Office says, Met.no still issues seasonal forecasts and have predicted that central Norway should be 2.5C above normal for December-January-February. Trouble is, the measured average temperature so far in December is more than 10C below the prediction, and to get the seasonal forecast right we are going to need above freezing temperatures from now on through February.
But my thermometer shows -13.9C right now. Last night it was -21.5C. Just a few more days, and we are going to need tropical temperatures i January and february to meet the met.no target.
The Met Office has apparently concluded there is only a 1 in 20 chance of severe winter weather in Great Britain in any one year. Upon what detailed analysis is this important conclusion based? Is the analysis available for the public to review? What climate experts signed off on the analysis?
latitude says:
December 22, 2010 at 8:21 am
I would be nice if someone could predict the weather or climate, but they can’t.
——————————
Piers Corbyn does pretty well, at predicting extreme weather events in advance.
Don’t miss this one:
“12.14 For the purpose of this report, the following summarises what we understand:
The probability of the next winter being severe is virtually unrelated to the fact of just having experienced two severe winters, and is still about 1 in 20.
The effect of climate change is to gradually but steadily reduce the probability of severe winters in the UK.
However, when severe winters come, they could still be extreme – in terms of snowfall, wind and storms, though not necessarily in relation to temperature.
”
found on
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100069327/climate-change-there-just-arent-enough-bullets/
Per Prof Slingo from the The Independent article referenced above (my emphasis):
Professor Slingo said other factors may also be affecting the weather, such as the current in the tropical Pacific Ocean, called La Nina, which is disturbing the jetstream over the north Pacific and North America.
At the same time, the diminishing Arctic sea ice may be influencing a change in the weather patterns that are still not understood, she said. A final complication is that a regular pattern of natural climate change over the North Atlantic, called the multi-decadal oscillation, may be about to enter a cooler phase, just as it did in the 1960s, when Britain also experienced colder-than-normal winters.
With this much obfuscation, how can they have the gall to tell us what will happen to climate in 100 years?
If the Met is using a forecast model based on a linear trend, there is no way that they will be able to predict cyclic events.
Per Prof Slingo from the The Independent article referenced above (my emphasis):
Professor Slingo said other factors may also be affecting the weather, such as the current in the tropical Pacific Ocean, called La Nina, which is disturbing the jetstream over the north Pacific and North America.
At the same time, the diminishing Arctic sea ice may be influencing a change in the weather patterns that are still not understood, she said. A final complication is that a regular pattern of natural climate change over the North Atlantic, called the multi-decadal oscillation, may be about to enter a cooler phase, just as it did in the 1960s, when Britain also experienced colder-than-normal winters.
With this much obfuscation, how can they have the gall to tell us what will happen to climate in 100 years?
The old phrase “even a broken clock is right twice a day” comes to mind. I had another thought taking it a little further along to demonstrate the prophetic power of the phrase. That broken clock is right 730 times per year (not accounting for leap year), however that same clock is wrong 99.9619 percent of the time when considered by the minute. Now how often are the MET clowns wrong???
The Heatrow saga is all over the telly here in Oz. I hear the airport boss is going to forego his 2010 bonus, bless his cotton socks.
So how about those bonuses for the Met Office this year? They pocketed enough last year didn’t they? Any MetO wag humble enough to forego his/her bonus?
Sarf of the River,
If you have Freesat, at 6.55ish every weekday look at the weather forecast from BBC Scotland, and most days you will see a N. Atlantic isobar chart.
[snip – trying to make it look like you are in the UK, with a bogus email address, while the IP address comes from NASA in Pasadena, certainly doesn’t work. Again, see the policy page]
It’s not just the Met Office which needs roasting – all the politicians, government agencies, airport agencies, local councils, railways, highway agency and their top managers need a jolly good bashing as well.
After all, if London’s Mayor Boris Johnson manages to look at Piers Corbyn’s forecasts and acts upon them (or so he said), then why can’t the other top-notch managers and bureaucrats do so as well?
On the other hand, let’s take the Met Office and their warmy acolytes, like Monbiot, at their word. After all – haven’t they been preaching to us that harsh winters are a feature of global warming?
Which means, obviously, that with AGW there will be more harsh winters, no?
Therefore all those who have made life a misery for us all for the last five days have acted irresponsibly by not getting more snow ploughs, de-icers, sand, grit and salt. And that, equally obviously, runs very much counter to the precautionary principle which the AGWers, the Met Office, the politicians etc so love, and never stop using so that we shell out even more taxes for their windmills.
Goose – gander: meet sauce!!
Jo Nova has similar observations about the Australian equivalent to the MET. Same programs/ers at work??
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/12/could-the-australian-bom-get-it-more-wrong/
December 22, 2010 at 8:21 am JOhn of KEnt … Not too bad yourself…
Peter H says:
December 22, 2010 at 9:55 am
People on here understand probability just fine.
If you look at most long-term forecasts they are most often based on something like a 40% probability of warmer than average temperatures, a 30% probability of average temps and a 30% probabilty of below average temperatures. The same with precipitation.
Forecasting a “mild, wet winter” on that basis (it would actually have a 16% chance of happening) is completely meaningless. No wonder they end up with egg all over their faces.
I would agree that the Met generally do a good job of predicting the weather up to 3-5 days in advance, but beyond that it is pretty much guesswork, so why bother? Why try and pretend that they know a lot more than they actually do?
By consistently getting it wrong, they are achieving nothing more than damaging their reputation, and having articles, like the one above, heaping ridicule and scorn upon them.
Serves them right, IMO.
TreeHugger says:
December 22, 2010 at 9:32 am
“even the physics, worked out in the 19th century, that shows that carbon dioxide traps heat”
A CO2 molecule absorbs heat then re-emits the heat in equal directions.
Please explain in detail how the heat remains ‘trapped’?
Even someone who has had a class in thermodynamics knows that a CO2 molecule ‘traps’ nothing.
Paul Hudson’s blog is now showing pictures of rivers frozen over in central England, something that hasn’t happened for many decades. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/
Must be that climate chaotic cooling brought on by the chaotic warming, or something.
Peter H says:
December 22, 2010 at 9:55 am
“Interestingly, with the very cold weather likely to continue, it’s possible the December might be the coldest in the CET instrumental record. And you know what? Not one of the kind of people WUWT likes to detest (‘warmers’) will start waffling on about some nit pick or other to try cast doubt on the figures. ”
Of course they won’t cast doubt on the figures because their chicken brains have already decided that this is more proof for AGW. Exhibit A:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/20/uk-snow-global-warming
Peter Hearnden,
“People here clearly don’t understand probability.”
Yes clearly. The Met Office said there was a 80 to 100% chance of a warmer winter, so they got it correct.
What’s up? Floating icebergs on rivers that should be 6c or 7c not enough to dissuade you from your religiotic stance?
‘..their temperature map demonstrates clearly their computer models, featuring the global warming bias that undermines the Met Office’s predictions, ……’
Aren’t all computer models based on programs written by people who may have some inherent prejudices that will bias the outcome of any predictions produced by a theoretically unbiased machine?
Garbage In – Garbage Out.
Global Warming In – Global Warming Out?
How do these models work?
My old ankle injury can do better forecasts than their super-computer.
They are forgetting a couple of the great laws of forecasting:
1. If you can’t forecast well, forecast often.
2. Give them a date or give them a number, never give them both!
The local paper in Norwich had a 2 page spread today, talking about rivers freezing over for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century. A small column down the side has the following “Weather is not Climate” explanation.
Climate Chat
During any period of extreme cold, you can bet someone will point to the wintry conditions outside and say “So much for global warming, eh?” But this nugget of saloon bar wisdom fails to differentiate between weather, the day-to-day condition of the atmosphere, including temperature, rainfall and wind, and climate, the average weather conditions of a place, measured over a longer period of time, typically 30 years.
Dr Tim Osborn, a reader in climate science at the climatic research unit of the University of East Anglia, said atmospheric circulation this winter had been very unusual.”When you get cold air moving down from the Arctic, air from somewhere else is moving to the Arctic. In recent weeks Greenland has been very warm, while we have been very cold. Global warming is not just moving heat around, it’s increasing the heat content of the atmosphere. Last winter was extremely snowy and pretty cold here, but when you take the measurements from weather stations across the world it was one of the top five warmest.”
“Someone in the UK would never have thought that, but it was exceptionally warm in northern Canada, parts of Asia and north Africa.” Dr Osborn said that climate records for England dated back to 1659 and that while last winter may have seemed quite extreme to us, there were 56 colder winters on record. “Climate is the average weather over a 30-year period. Compared to other 30-year periods, the current one is the warmest of those, but there are lots of year-to-year fluctuations,” he said.
I’m reminded of the revelation, a couple of years after the fall of the Berlin wall, that the official German Democratic (sic) Republic’s forecasts were always manipulated to try to give a feeling of well-being. If it was going to be unbearably hot they’d knock a couple of degrees off their predicted maximum, and vice-versa for very low temperatures. Maybe the Met Office thinks that was a brilliant idea and is following the GDR method of trying to fool all of the people all of the time.
My view of the accuracy is that they’re quite good for 24 hours; mediocre for 48 hours; and I ignore anything further out.
I have the perfect solution…sell ALL of the expensive supercomputers now engaged in generating the useless seasonal forecasts, and use the proceeds to buy salt, sand (aka “grit”), and snow shovels. At the least the people will get something for their tax money…
BTW – if the early winter HAD been warm, don’t you think the Dave, the MET Press Officer, would have been crowing about how accurate the official seasonal forecasts were (which, of course, they ALWAYS provide…but only when they’re right…)?
Steeptown says:
December 22, 2010 at 9:16 am
“….But it does issue them to the government, local councils and anyone who wants to pay for them….”
———————–
So, given these are public bodies then FOI requests should be able to ‘release’ these not-for-public-consumption forecasts, if they are not already available?
Back to the idea of secret weather data I suppose. The absurdities make my head spin sometimes. And I just read the NYT article linked above – well, only a few paragraphs actually. That is some real hardcore alarmist crap they’re spewing. Like I say, I can’t read that kind of stuff for much more than a couple of paragraphs because it starts to make me mad, because I’m being so blatantly lied to and it is so blatantly propaganda.
AutonomousMind – nice blog
Sarf of the River – good rant
Hmmm … a classical LTCM (Long Term Capital Management) moment.
To wit, (from here):
In 1994 … Meriwether founded a hedge fund called Long-Term Capital Management.[he] assembled an all-star team of traders and academics in an attempt to create a fund that would profit from the combination of the academics’ quantitative models and the traders’ market judgement and execution capabilities.
… investors, including many large investment banks, flocked to the fund, investing $1.3 billion at inception. But four years later, at the end of September 1998, the fund had lost substantial amounts of the investors’ equity capital and was teetering on the brink of default. …
The lessons to be learned from this crisis are:
– Market values matter for leveraged portfolios;
– Liquidity itself is a risk factor;
– Models must be stress-tested and combined with judgement; and
– Financial institutions should aggregate exposures to common risk factors.
.
It’s got to be depressing for the Met Office to realize that they could up their average forcast accuracy by replacing climate models and super computers with a monkey throwing darts. Not only would it save money, but their forecast would at least be in the ball-park half the time.
It’s become our Guardian.
At the web pages for the Norwegian Met Office, there is a pointer to a problem with the results from the temperature models coming out of the Reading center (ECMWF) in that:
“The temperature prognosis in the long term forecast often show errors at the time being. The prognosis will in most cases produce colder forecasts than real measurements will show. The biggest error will be during night and when there is little cloud cover and little wind. They believe the error stems from the models calculating more radiation of heat from the ground than what is actual, and that the errors in the prognosis are higher for landscapes with complex topography than for flat land countries like Denmark.”
http://www.yr.no/nyheter/1.7428184
Peter H says:
December 22, 2010 at 9:55 am
People here clearly don’t understand probability.
I think we understand proability very well. People are not interested in what might happen – we can read reams of climastrology papers for that. People want to know what will happen with, say, 95% probability. That is a useful yardstick for decision making. A 60% probability is just about useless for making decisions. You can’t buy 60% of the worst-case amount of de-icing fluid for your planes because the forecast is a 60% probability of colder than average conditions.
I was in Geneva last Friday night when my flight to London was canceled. The Heathrow aviation forecast (Met Office) for the next day was a 60% probability of poor visibility and low cloud in heavy snow. Accuweather said a band of snow would move across the south of England from north to south.
Would you have gone to the airport in Geneva the next day hoping to get a flight to London? After all there was a 40% chance the poor conditions wouldn’t happen.
I went by train based on the Accuweather forecast. I’d probably still be in Geneva if I’d hoped the 40% probability would conveniently pan out.
The Norwegian Met Office also reports that so far, December is competing with December of 1981 on being the coldest December in 110 years.
There is a table with the monthly mean per Dec 21 for a number of stations here http://met.no/?module=Articles;action=Article.publicShow;ID=7552
Table heading is Station, Mean per Dec 21 2010, Minimum recording ever, Year of min recording, Station data since.
Some of the stations have records going back to the 1860-ties.
Bewick swans arrived in England nearly three weeks early this year. Many more geese than normal were seen heading for France. Maybe they didn’t get the Met Office’s projection.
The Met offices statements, “The Met Office has not issued a seasonal forecast to the public…” and “Following public research, the Met Office no longer issues long-range forecasts for the general public…” strongly suggests that they are issuing seasonal forecasts to someone, perhaps the government? I wonder what those forecasts say. Could someone working in Government in the UK, perhaps the military, a mayor of a city or a transportation official who gets those forecasts that are not for the “general public” post them for us to see.
Is their super computer named Marvin?
I heard on the radio this morning that although Heathrow had closed up shop Copenhagen Airport had no problems.
Is this because the weather is better in Denmark?
They have learned a lesson since last year? or
They now have better forecasting and are better prepared?
I’m enjoying the “snip” lines on bemused comments.
The economic impact of the freezing winter ….. from the insurer Royal Sun Alliance (RSA) have put the cost of the weather to the economy at £1bn per day …. The total cost is expected to be around £13bn.
Hmmm? Do I hear a call for more CO2?
Captain Kirk: “Scotty!”
Chief engineer Scott: “Yes Captain?”
Captain Kirk: “We need more CO2! Shovel on the coal!”
Chief engineer Scott: “But Captain, ta be green they converted us to dilithium crystals and solar wind power!”
Captain Kirk: “Damn those fools! We’re going to freeze to death.”
Chief engineer Scott: “Aye Captain. Green – – and blue.”
As someone who runs models in hydrogeology all I can say is I continue to be in disbelieve at the total nonsense being generated by so called supercomputer “climate models” with their in-buildt warming trends. As for the denial comments there’s enough material there for an entire psychiatric conference. Who do they having running these “august” organizations ? Basil Fawlty ?
“bemused” in Pasadena – who you snipped – is presumably the vanguard of the Met Office’s exchange programme with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/news/ci_16810241
JPL’s director of Climate Science:
‘What sets Met Office apart, he said, is their “seamless” connection between weather and climate models. “This is very important because weather is a key component of shaping the climate system. You have to get weather right.”
Bwahahah.
“They are among the premier climate and earth systems (institutions) in the world”.
Oh, my aching ribs.
REPLY: Well then we’ll see if she has the courage to put her words and persona together here, I welcome comment provided the email address is valid, and not just made up on the spot. For somebody at NASA to make things up, well …that just…oh, wait. – Anthony
As the Danish physicist Niels Bohr said, “prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.”
Bohr did not actually go as far as to state explicitly that prediction about the past is easy. Climate modellers seem to find it almost as difficult as predicting the future according to a posting at this blog just over a fortnight ago.
New peer reviewed paper shows just how bad the climate models really are
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/05/new-peer-reviewed-paper-shows-just-how-bad-the-climate-models-are/
However even very intractable problems have been solved in the past. One of the most famous was the problem of determing longitude. After four ships from Sir Cloudesley Shovell’s fleet were lost off the Scilly Isles in 1707 ,because the navigators were not sure of their exact position, the British government offered a prize of £20,000, a huge sum in those days, for a reliable method of determining longitude. Eventually John Harrison solved the problem by developing reliable chronometers for telling the time but he was not given a prize until 1773 when he was awarded £8,750.
Perhaps it is time to have a similar competition for long term weather forecasts, or two competitions, one for long term forecasts (at least a season ahead) and another for forecasts of extreme weather, at least a month ahead.
These competitions should be open to all-comers, not just British citizens.
Jknapp, good catch. I hadn’t read between the lines till you brought it up. I am guessing Met Office long range stuff are still being issued to policy wonks. And filled with globalony.
At Bishop Hill’s blog, commenter “hmc” notes that the Met Office upgraded their seasonal forecasting system. The October forecast of warm weather, depicted in the main post, was apparently made with the former system, while a November forecast, which anticipates much colder weather, used the new system.
One can view these forecasts at http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/science/specialist/seasonal/probability/glob_seas_prob.html
Sarf of the River, traditionally the weather presenters on the BBC have always been Met. Office employees, not BBC employees. I assume it’s still the same as I’ve never heard anything different.
harrywr2 says:
December 22, 2010 at 11:28 am
TreeHugger says:
December 22, 2010 at 9:32 am
“even the physics, worked out in the 19th century, that shows that carbon dioxide traps heat”
A CO2 molecule absorbs heat then re-emits the heat in equal directions.
Please explain in detail how the heat remains ‘trapped’?
—————
Oh thank you Harry – most concise rejoinder to the “CO2, it’s like a blanket” I’ve every heard. I heard that ‘blanket’ crap from a teacher neighbour a year or two ago Now I guess she’s saying “It’s like somebody left the fridge door open”.
Honestly. Minds like jelly. How did it come to this?
HaroldW, I don’t doubt they have a new one. Business 101. When the product takes a hit, repackage it and call it new. Or better yet, copy someone else’s better product and market it under your own label as if the idea was yours.
HaroldW stated:
“At Bishop Hill’s blog, commenter “hmc” notes that the Met Office upgraded their seasonal forecasting system. The October forecast of warm weather, depicted in the main post, was apparently made with the former system, while a November forecast, which anticipates much colder weather, used the new system.”
“One can view these forecasts at”
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/science/specialist/seasonal/probability/glob_seas_prob.html
There is just one problem with the new system. At the link given by HaroldW it says that the new forecast was issued in December. The precise date is not given but the cold spell started towards the end of November.
Does the Met Office’s new system involve looking out of the window?
HaroldW says:
December 22, 2010 at 1:00 pm
At Bishop Hill’s blog, commenter “hmc” notes that the Met Office upgraded their seasonal forecasting system. The October forecast of warm weather, depicted in the main post, was apparently made with the former system, while a November forecast, which anticipates much colder weather, used the new system.
If you read the Met’s post, the best that can be said for them is that their November forecast “non-predicts” that December temperatures have a 40-60% likelihood of being colder than usual. That is not a warning but a coin toss. Bizarrely, their December post says the same thing. I guess they haven’t looked out the window.
Rhoda R says:
December 22, 2010 at 11:04 am
If the Met is using a forecast model based on a linear trend, there is no way that they will be able to predict cyclic events.
———–
Exactly. The errors are built-in.
Louis says:
December 22, 2010 at 12:02 pm
It’s got to be depressing for the Met Office to realize that they could up their average forcast accuracy by replacing climate models and super computers with a monkey throwing darts. Not only would it save money, but their forecast would at least be in the ball-park half the time.
Yes, but they would need the computer in order to remember to feed the monkey.
DaveF says:
December 22, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Bewick swans arrived in England nearly three weeks early this year. Many more geese than normal were seen heading for France. Maybe they didn’t get the Met Office’s projection.
The grue have been passing overhead for 2 months now. The sign of a cold further north.
England needs to swap the MET Office’s mega-terabyte computer for a few snowploughs. Otherwise, it’s been a complete waste of money….
England is looking increasingly parochial. What a shame.
The UK and Europe are not the only thing in the deep freeze.
The GCM’s that they rely upon to forecast are likewise a block of ice.
The Supercomputers do generate a lot of hot air, though.
Louis says:
December 22, 2010 at 12:02 pm
It’s got to be depressing for the Met Office to realize that they could up their average forcast accuracy by replacing climate models and super computers with a monkey throwing darts. Not only would it save money, but their forecast would at least be in the ball-park half the time.
———————-
Gonnae no dae that? Ma screen’s pure covered in atmomised Baileys.
Pamela Gray – quoted me thus: “It’s perfectly possible that the Met Office did predict a colder than 2000 – 2009 winter, which is shown in the above maps as a warmer than 1970-2000 winter.”
And replied: “That is some of the best spin I have seen to date. If there were a Golden Globe/Pulitzer Prize for media spin, I nominate your comment in its entirety.”
Let me put some hypothetical numbers to it so that you can understand the maths behind it.
1. The average 2000-2009 could be 0.8C warmer than the average 1970-2000.
2. The current December temperature anomaly is about -5C
3. The forecast might have had the sign of this anomaly correct, but the magnitude wrong, perhaps in general it gives magnitudes 10 times less [because the signal is hidden by noise].
4. Therefore the forecast anomaly is about -0.5C, relative to the new normal of the 2000-2009 average. Consequently the anomaly relative to 1970-2000 is +0.3, and of the wrong sign.
In fact, if you look at the October forecast using the link –
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/science/specialist/seasonal/probability/glob_seas_prob.html
– and look at the pressure signal, you can see that the Met Office predicted a 60-80% chance of above average pressure. Above average pressure gives the blocked, cold conditions that we are experiencing now. If you look at the 500hPa height this is even more obvious, in that an easterly [cold] anomaly is forecast.
No sensible forecaster would look at the raw model output of 2m temperature compared to the 1970-2000 mean to make their forecast. They would look at all of the model fields, and the blocked signal in the forecast would be obvious, which is hidden by the global warming trend and the small size of the model anomalies.
You can’t judge a seasonal forecast on one event, but it looks pretty good overall. It’s also worth remembering that the first Met Office seasonal forecast was actually for a cold winter in 2005/6 – see for example this that I found on google:
http://www.ecmwf.int/newsevents/meetings/forecast_products_user/Presentations2006/Graham.pdf
[Also note how the forecast temperatures show different anomalies when compared to different baseline climatologies on slide 21 – from what I can tell the baseline period they are using is 1989-2002 in the forecast shown at the top of the page]
i’m sorry but the map I see is a probability map. If I tell you that there is a 90% chance of rain tommorrow and it doesnt rain, my “forecast” isnt “wrong”. You’ve just witnessed a 10% event. If I do this repeatly and am wrong repeatedly that a good sign that something is amiss with the model OR the real time data that is assimilated into the model.
Following public research, the Met Office no longer issues long-range forecasts for the general public;
Market research indicated that consumers were less than happy with our product. Given that we get paid either way it was just easier to discontinue the public product. Now that our forecasts are only seen by ministers and civil servants life is now a breeze.
The DMI site is showing Artic daily average tmp at 16°C above the norm. It has been climbing relentlously for several days. I think that indicates a severe spell of weather over Europe in the near term.
HaroldW:
I responded to hmc (and, implicitly, to you also) on the page that you cite:
Alistair, wasn’t impugning your maths. I understood your post quite well. Good spin is always true.
If you forecast for a warmer winter and you get unusually (for the last 20-30 yrs anyway) colder weather, doesn’t that also fit right in with their new “climate disruption” model? Everything fits the disruption model, therefore it is global warming. We cannot possibly predict that which is disrupted.
This news story made me laugh – from the soutwest where my family are from:
Cardiff General Hospital was isolated by thick snow and ice, during the last week. The hospital publically appealed to four-wheel-drive SUV owners to help hospital staff get to work. Up to now officially SUV owners were supposed to be CO2-belching public enemies. Interesting times…
Alistair Ahs says:
December 22, 2010 at 1:48 pm
You are confusing “what he said” with, charitably, “what was implied by what he said” or, more likely, “an explanation of how what he said should be interpreted.” But I am an American. I expect people to be plain and direct.
Sir David King was the BBC radio 4 this afternoon going on about how we had a very warm summer and it was normal for it to be cold winter after it????
perhaps he was on holiday in sunnier climes as i can’t remember it as a very warm summer!
“People here clearly don’t understand probability.”
What is the probability of a reliable temperature set from 100 years ago that we can get a 0.1Cº resolution from all over world and to less than 100km radius per station?
Hats off to the GWPF for this research. I read somewhere that a former WWF leader-activist is now the head of the UK Met Office? WWF agenda are notoriously alarmist and political.
Surely the met office can dig them out of the snow and relocate some temperature stations over steam vents and next to furnaces to insure that this year, like every year before it, is the “hottest on record”.
The head of BAA (British Airports Authority) has just admitted his company did a piss poor job handling the recent bad weather, so he is not going to take his annual bonus.
5 bucks says those running the Met Office do not understand the concept of ‘doing the honourable thing’ and will insist on receiving their bonuses just for keeping their office seats warm. The award of this year’s Met Office bonuses will have nothing to do with doing a good job, only on whether or not enough of the general public have been duped by their unfounded scare stories on future climate trends.
? did anybody find out where the AAA batteries go in this super doopa computor I think there been flat for the last 6 months
Regarding the ‘impossibility’ of Forecasting the current N. European Freeze:
Wednesday 1st December 2010
That post man correctly predicted last years big freeze and the good summer we had this year
REAL scientists would be camped out at his house pumping him for info on what signs to look out for – instead of sitting on their asses in-front of ‘super’-computer screens
Obviously people are ready to lose their own honor over global warming orthodoxy…
Sunday, light rain was forecast by the Met office for Tuesday. When Tuesday arrived we had a foot of snow. OK, it’s precipitation, but the Met office regularly fail to get the temps correct, over estimating them in most cases.
NIWA in NZ has abandoned its “massaged” official temperature record. The new one shows no warming in NZ since 1960. The enormous cost to NZ of this AGW fakery is yet to be counted:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC1012/S00054/climate-science-coalition-vindicated.htm
Steven Mosher says:
December 22, 2010 at 1:48 pm
With your logic no probabalistic forecast is ever wrong – we just witness ‘an x% event’.
That’s why bonuses get paid every year at the Met Office regardless of what actually happens.
pablo an ex pat
December 22, 2010 at 10:34 am
re. means of being dismissed in cricket:
I think that you omitted the most relevant ways:
Handling the ball and obstructing or interfering with the field.
It strikes me that either of these activities are what the CAGWers are best at.
p.s. in cricket there are no second chances like 3 strikes and you’re out, you are either out or you are not, first time every time.
In the US Nexrad usually shows precipitation as rain, mix or snow. The Met Office ‘rainfall radar’ is unable to distinguish between varieties of precipitation.
Anyone know why Nexrad can and ‘rainfall radar’ can’t?
I wonder why it is that no Royal Air Force base has been closed by snow, neither has any USAF base in the UK been closed by adverse conditions. Lakenheath is still fully operational as are Lossiemouth and Leuchars.
I can testify from personal experience that one of these bases is flying some rather noisy aircraft off at very regular intervals!
Richard says:
December 22, 2010 at 3:46 pm
I always favored knocking the bails off myself .
And speaking up for Baseball, which as an immigrant I have to say that I love, the batsman in Cricket doesn’t have to offer a stroke, they can simply block the ball however good it is and play the next delivery. In Baseball if you fend off the ball with a less than 2 strike count against you that’s a strike.
The other major difference between Baseball and Cricket is that at the end of the days play you know who won.
Pamela Gray says:
December 22, 2010 at 2:00 pm
“Alistair, wasn’t impugning your maths. I understood your post quite well. Good spin is always true.”
It is spin, plain and simple. How this AGW crowd can turn every event into proof of global warming is truly amazing. And the revisionist history is simply astounding. For years, for decades, we hear about the warming of the planet. Now it’s record snow in several places and they claim they knew it was coming all along? BLULSIHT!!!!
“”””” P.F. says:
December 22, 2010 at 10:29 am
TreeHugger says at 9:32 am: “The Internet has given rise to . . . challengers who question every aspect of the science — even the physics, worked out in the 19th century, that shows that carbon dioxide traps heat. That is a point so elementary . . .” “””””
Say watch your language there !
There’s no particular evidence that CO2 even at 390 ppm of the atmosphere, in any way traps heat to an extent that would be noticeable compareed to the other atmospheric gases like N2 or O2. Of course all these gases continually swap heat around amongst themselves; but in no way could any of them be said to be trapping the heat; any more than the hot plate on your stove is trapping heat. Storing maybe, but not trapping.
Now in the event that you actually meant to say that CO2 “traps” Long Wave Infra-Red Electromagnetic Radiation; say in the 13.5 to 16.5 micron wavelength range; then one could make a case for that being correct.
But nobody in their right mind would call such Radiation “Heat”.
Certainly the human body; which is quite sensitive to heat, is in no way responsive to wavelengths in the 13.5 to 16.5 micron range; we simply are quite oblivious of its presence; and in fact we have to jump through hoops to even detect its presence with sophisticated instrumentation.
Let’s agreee that it is well established that CO2 and H2O both can capture EM LWIR Radiations in the bands from about 5.0 microns to about 80 microns; which is the principle LWIR spectrum corresponding to a mean global surface Temperature of 288 K or about 15 deg C (59 deg F).
Actually everybody has readily available to them an excellent source of EM LWIR Radiation that they can use to perform their own global (or local) LWIR “heating” experiments with.
I have one at my desk here right now; and keep one on hand at all times.
It’s a cylindrical like contraption about 200 mm long and maybe 60 mm diameter.
I can absolutely guarantee that it has an emissivity of about 0.97 or higher in the LWIR spectral range; so it is about as good an LWIR radiation source as you can lay your hands on.
There’s a label on this cylindrical LWIR source; it says:-
Bottled at the Source, CRYSTAL GEYSER, Natural Alpine Spring Water, By CG Roxane.
You should get one, and hold it up near your face, and just feel that LWIR “heat” just pouring off the source.
Actually mine right now is a bit screwed up, and due to a lack of environmental control it is radiating at 447 Watts per square metre give or take a bit, instead of the regulation 390 W/m^2. But close enough, and well within the IPCC +/- 50%, 3:1 ratio guidelines for accurate data.
This is a SCIENCE blog; and we should attempt to use correct scientific terminology, if we want ot be understood.
In recent years, researchers have been able to put the Keeling measurements into a broader context. Bubbles of ancient air trapped by glaciers and ice sheets have been tested, and they show that over the past 800,000 years, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air oscillated between roughly 200 and 300 parts per million. Just before the Industrial Revolution, the level was about 280 parts per million and had been there for several thousand years.
That amount of the gas, in other words, produced the equable climate in which human civilization flourished.
Here’s another quote from that NY Times article linked by several people above:
“Bubbles of ancient air trapped by glaciers and ice sheets have been tested, and they show that over the past 800,000 years, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air oscillated between roughly 200 and 300 parts per million. Just before the Industrial Revolution, the level was about 280 parts per million and had been there for several thousand years.
That amount of the gas, in other words, produced the equable climate in which human civilization flourished.”
This is one of the most egregious violations of the correlation = causation fallacy as I have ever seen. One single molecule is apparently accountable for an entire climate system over a period of several thousand years. The sun, the earth’s orbit, past ice ages, oceans, currents, atmospheric circulation and any number of other events and phenomena were irrelevant because a specific amount of a trace gas is the sole determinant of whether the climate is “equable”. Looking up the exact connotation of equable, I see it means “unvarying”, “steady”, “free from extremes”. Like real climate has ever behaved that way. I can’t believe they can publish this sort of claim with a straight face. Just admire the hubris of that statement one more time, “That amount of the gas, in other words, produced the equable climate in which human civilization flourished.“
I read here on one of the blogs that some ratbag said that even though it was cold in the northern hemisphere there were other places in the world that were very hot and those hot places were upping the average to make this year the hottest on record.
Well, I’ve got news for them, here in the SH, Australia, I watched the weather report on our ABC last night, and they said the temperatures across Queensland were 5 to 7 degrees ( c ) below normal. Where I live, our daily temps should be 30 + but so far, this summer, we have had only 2 days that just got to 30.
Everyone who reads WUWT will know it has been snowing in the southern parts of Australia, in the middle of summer.
Keep an eye on the Sun.
For those who would like bureaucratic British English translated into plain language, here’s an explication of the recent UK Met Oafish interim report on “Winter Resilience:”
12.14 For the purpose of this report, the following summarises what we understand:
translation: This report is intended to say that what we say below amounts to what we think we understand, and which we wish you would also think we understand.
The probability of the next winter being severe is virtually unrelated to the fact of just having experienced two severe winters, and is still about 1 in 20.
translation: All winters are just weather. They are totally unconnected. So, despite what you may have heard, there is no such thing as climate, except when we say there is. I mean, if I should accidentally punch you in the nose twice, surely you would not expect me to be so lucky as to connect on my third swing as well? Of course not!
The effect of climate change is to gradually but steadily reduce the probability of severe winters in the UK.
translation: The effect of changes in climate, which, listen carefully, we are now saying does exist, is to gradually but steadily make it very unlikely that winter in the UK will be severe, as do also fairies at the bottom of my garden.
However, when severe winters come, they could still be extreme – in terms of snowfall, wind and storms, though not necessarily in relation to temperature.
translation: However, those winters, which will simultaneously be unlikely and inevitable, could be extremely bad, but only in terms of snow, wind, hail, sleet, ice, and so on, though possibly they will also be quite balmy.
12.17 But we need to understand and accept that the chance of a severe winter is still relatively small and that there will be many years when some will question the degree of resources committed to winter resilience.
translation: But you need to get it through your thick skulls that it’s so very unlikely that winter will be severe, we’ll do little planning for it, and will, of course, get caught flat-footed and completely unprepared. Some of you idiots will want to second-guess us. We shall be resilient and ignore you totally.
12.15 An important consequence of the declining occurrence of severe winters is the loss of knowledge and experience among planning and technical staff in local highway authorities and their contractors, especially if the severe winters which do occur have more extreme snow events.
translation: As clueless as we may already seem, we will attain even greater inability to respond to severe winters in future, especially if they should, somehow, involve snowstorms.
12.16 All this, in our view, reinforces the need for comprehensive resilience planning, and for ensuring that the salt supply chain is resilient.
translation: So, it is our considered opinion that instead of having specific plans and resources in place, we must plan to be very, very resilient, responding to any emergency as it arises in a flexible manner. And lots of salt would be jolly. We know about salt, yes, indeed!
the Met Office supercomputer enhanced model output forecast
I’m sure it’s a fine computer. I’m not sure it’s a fine program.
jorgekafkazar,
A perfect translation, IMHO.
FWIW, Mr. Hudson suggests that the MET Office models predicted a colder than normal 2010-11 winter for western Europe…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/2010/10/another-cold-winter-ahead.shtml
“Helen Chivers, Met Office forecaster, insisted the temperature map takes into account the influence of climate factors such as El Nino and La Nina – five-yearly climatic patterns that affect the weather”
Oh nos! Climate has gotten into the weather! Run for the hills!
“even a broken clock is right twice a day” – Mattin Houston
This does bring up an interesting question: what happens if the Met slips in a correct forecast? Imagine the disruption then!
Here is a graph by the Met of the CET that is updated daily.
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/
It shows the temperature anomaly as of Dec 21 at .5 C below the record back to 1772.
This should be fun to watch.
I was reading Delingpoles blog yesterday, He was giving them hell about this and mentioned that they were wanting more money to buy another superduper computer “To make better predictions in the future”. They have a 30 million pound puter now that is not worth a plug nickel, What is a another one going to do?
I wonder if BEMUSED is Hansen or Gavin? Either way good catch Anthony.
Billy Liar says:
December 22, 2010 at 3:40 pm (Edit)
Steven Mosher says:
December 22, 2010 at 1:48 pm
With your logic no probabalistic forecast is ever wrong – we just witness ‘an x% event’.
####
yes, that’s true.
Here is an interesting video that you all should watch if you really want to understand this. From a great mathematician and climate scientist.
http://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1083628?format=flv&quality=high&fetch_type=stream
especially after minute 24
Anyone who knows a Brit, also is aware that the weather is the one thing that Brits always talk about, endlessly. I am the same, I watch the forecast for my area courtesy BBC, and watch how radically it can change within 24 hours. We know when the met office Goof, but you tend to blame the BBC or whatever channel you watch. The biggest mistake you can make is to scrabble to defend your position, like the Met Office do. That is where respect and belief vanish. Any forecast longer than 5 days is a crock, they admit this sometimes when wrong stating “well it is only a forecast”. Perhaps our policy makers should remember that. I think the message is finally getting through to some of them, not the brightest bulbs are they.
It is a disgrace that the Met Office is always juggling the figures to suit their AGW agenda. They do it without regard for the huge impact that their false forecasts have on the economy. Had they not forecast a mild winter months ago then the thousands of businesses that are affected by the weather would have reacted differently and been better prepared. We’ve already seen how the airports were unprepared for the current record snow and low temperatures based on what they understood to be a ‘warm’ forecast. The current extreme winter weather will lead to massive losses for the airports, airlines, travel companies, holiday bookings, business appointments, hotel cancellations. etc. etc. whilst local authorities have ordered insufficient grit to meet these severe conditions with the resultant road accidents and insurance payouts. In these extreme conditions, millions of people have been unable to get to work, with the knock on effect of lost trade for businesses across the country, which in the high street is estimated at £1 billion for last Saturday alone. Accurate weather forecasts therefore are vital to the running of the countries economy particularly in sub zero conditions.
I realise that The Met Office are not responsible for the weather, but they do not seem to feel any responsibility for getting it right either if that means going against their AGW agenda. They are not comfortable with having to forecast unusual cold weather and therefore always make light of it, on the other hand they are always too ready to over emphasise warm conditions, often wrongly, which suits their agenda. It is time therefore for this publicly funded body to drop completely their endless desire to promote AGW in their forecasting and simply concentrate on forecasting on what they know and not on what they would like to know. So come on Met Office, call any early meeting with your ‘expert’ staff in the new year and make a policy decision to forecast only the truth and not what suits your agenda, that way you will regain the credibility from the millions of people and businesses who at the moment are united in their view that the British Meteorological Office is simply unfit for purpose.
“Peter H says:
December 22, 2010 at 9:55 am
People here clearly don’t understand probability.”
Oh yes we do. And don’t be so arrogant. It’s a real cop out of the met office and warmists to say they are not predictions – of course they are. If you ask me to predict an event of coure I have to make a probalistic assessment. How else can you predict something??
By the way I predict the met office wont last the year 2011 [83% probability according to my raw data]. The Forensic Science Service in the UK [a similiar business model] has just been closed down after wasting too much money and making some high profile mistakes. The consultants can do it cheaper and better. Sound familiar?
I can see politicians eyeing up the met office next.
DGH says:
December 22, 2010 at 6:26 pm
FWIW, Mr. Hudson suggests that the MET Office models predicted a colder than normal 2010-11 winter for western Europe…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/2010/10/another-cold-winter-ahead.shtml
That’s a useful American model not a met office one.
Steven Mosher says:
December 22, 2010 at 1:48 pm
i’m sorry but the map I see is a probability map. If I tell you that there is a 90% chance of rain tommorrow and it doesnt rain, my “forecast” isnt “wrong”. You’ve just witnessed a 10% event.
Unreal. I feel as though I’ve stumbled into a George Orwell novel.
Just look at the Met Office press release for November 2:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2010/pr20101102.html
“The Met Office science strategy, published on the web, will focus on meeting the increasing demands for seamless prediction systems across all timescales from hours to decades, and for the atmosphere, oceans and land surface.
The new five-year strategy takes this agenda of seamless science and prediction and focuses our research around four major challenges:
* Forecasting hazardous weather on time scales from hours to decades;…”
They have become utterly delusional. Note, this is not climate they are talking about, but forecasting hazardous WEATHER decades into the future. So whilst it is extremely difficult for the Met Office to get seasonal forecasts right, they will soon be able to tell us whether there will be a severe winter in 2036, for example.
UK Met Office reports an operating profit of £6.6 million
http://www.epsiplatform.eu/news/news/uk_met_office_pays_dividend_of_5_4_million
There seems to have been a reply to this entry on the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/opensecrets/2010/12/met_office_seasonal_forecasts.html
“Are you ‘intelligent’ enough to handle a weather forecast?”
Fortunately it would appear that the government is intelligent enough. Perhaps that is why we have stories like this in the British press
“NHS Direct chief apologises over phone delays”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/dec/23/nhs-direct-chief-apologises
Seems they didn’t anticipate the likelyhood of extra demand this winter
“Julia Slingo, Met Office Chief Scientist said: “This is the first time that a group of universities has joined forces with a leading government organisation to form a cluster of research excellence aimed at accelerating science research to benefit society.
“This is just the start of what I hope will be an exciting joint venture and only one element of our collaborations, both here and overseas, aimed at maximising the benefit of the UK’s world-class expertise in weather forecasting and climate prediction.”
http://www.reading.ac.uk/about/newsandevents/releases/PR337317.aspx
http://www.walker-institute.ac.uk/research/predicting.htm
I quote only in part from the Weather [section 2]from the report RESILIENCE OF ENGLANDS TRANSPORT SYSTEM IN 2010
http://transportwinterresilience.independent.gov.uk/docs/audit/winter_resilience_audit.pdf
●● The probability of the next winter being severe is virtually unrelated to the fact of just having
experienced two severe winters, and is still about 1 in 20;
The Resilience of England’s Transport Systems in December 2010
●● the effect of climate change is to gradually but steadily reduce the probability of severe winters in the UK;
●● however when severe winters come they could still be extreme – in terms of snowfall, winds and storms, though not necessarily in relation temperature.
2.8 However, entering the third successive experience of significantly sub-zero temperatures and substantial (if localised) winter snowfall, we can be forgiven for wondering whether the Met Office interpretation of weather and climate trends is still reasonable. As part of this audit, I asked the Met Office to revisit the advice given to my Panel earlier in the year. I also asked for any evidence to support the concept of ‘clustering’ of severe winters, and whether climate trends would support the likelihood of greater snowfall in the future at any particular temperature band.
2.9 The considered response was: no change to the advice, and it remains safer to assumeThe considered response was: no change to the advice, and it remains safer to assume that there is statistical independence between one year’s weather and the next, with the probability of 1 in 20 with evidence showing this reducing over the next century. So far as snowfall goes, the advice is “that on average the intensity of the heaviest snow events in the UK will reduce with a warming climate, but there are some predictions of future climate which show more intense snowfall in heavy events, indicating that these are possible and cannot be excluded from consideration of future conditions”. This is consistent with the advice that climate change in general increases the volatility of UK weather…
With this kind of advise I am afraid Uk is going to see many more disruptions like UK just experienced. Everyone will again be unprepared.It is strange they are doing immensive planning for global warming the degree of which is unlikey to ever occur but are unable to warp their heads around global cooling which is already upon them in an icey grip for already 4 years and is likey to continue for 2-3 decades more. Uk may experience 2-3 decades of cooler winters like the periods 1810-1840,1870-1900 and 1940-1970 but not necessarly as cold . The past cyclic winter pattern has been quite similar for the last three cold winter periods . Once colder winters start, they continue for 30 years but with some warmer years here and there. Winter temperatures have been dropping for 4 years in a row in UK after 2006. Nothing is ever carved in stone when it comes to earth’s climate but if I was betting man , I would not bet on the 1 in 20 odds statement of the Met Office as given above .
M.A. Vukcevic has posted some great graphs on this blog . Here is one of his helpful garphs that illustrates the pattern of winters per CET ,UK. Look at the last two colder winter cycles of 1870-1900 and again 1939-1970.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CETt.htm
Mosh,
Thanks for the link. I’ve just watched it.
It never ceases to amaze me how these academics seem to do little else but push their own pet theory as to how they can make things better when in reality thay can just wasting OUR hard earned taxes on a futile exercise. Given the current season can I once again remind people that this video is yet another example of why ‘turkeys will never vote for Christmas’.
So, let’s get this straight: The long range weather forecasts of the Met Office, armed with batteries of supercomputers and dozens of scientists using the most sophisticated computer models are consistently wrong, while the long range forecasts of Piers Corbyn armed with a lap top, Internet public records, a lone degree in Astrophysics and using Sun/Moon celestial mechanics, is consistently correct? I guess the only way to fix this imbalance is to give the Met Office more supercomputers, more CO2 agenda-driven scientists, and even more public money. That”ll fix the problem!
All Met Office (for all countries) predictions should have the rider:
“ I know you think you heard what I said but what you don’t know is that what you think I said is not what I said but your interpretation of it”.
“Helen Chivers, Met Office forecaster, insisted the temperature map takes into account the influence of climate factors such as El Nino and La Nina – five-yearly climatic patterns that affect the weather” Oh nos! Climate has gotten into the weather! Run for the hills!
Grumbler says…
“That’s a useful American model not a met office one.”
Sorry, but that’s not what Paul Hudson wrote. Here’s the quote from the link…
“…but as I understand it, [the Met Office] forecast also suggests that the probability of a cold winter is higher than normal.”
I’m not here to defend the Met Office. It’s an interesting data point which contradicts other points made in this blog and elsewhere. Presumably Mr. Hudson, a forecaster for BBC formerly employeed by the MO, is in a position to speak to insiders at the MO.
In response to a forecast made by Positive Weather Solution for 2010-11, Michael Lawrence, a Met Office forecaster, was quoted
“What these forecasters do is pit themselves in opposition to what we say and if they get it right they get a lot of publicity.”
PWS predicted “snow, ice and bitterly-cold temperatures” for 2010-11. Which begs, what forecast conditions might be pitted in opposition except a “milder winter?”
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/69562,news-comment,news-politics,met-rival-predicts-another-snowy-winter#ixzz18kcCCrIQ
Recommendation 1 of the “Resilience of England’s transportation system in December 2010” report said:
” In spite of the continuing advice from the Met Office that severe winter weather continues to have a low probability of occurrence, and that there appears to be no evidence to support ‘clustering’ of severe winters,”…..
I would just add:
There is plenty of past evidence of 3 consecutive severe winters clustered together [at least 8]
There are 2 cases of 4 consecutive severe winters clustered [1886-1889, 1962-1965]
The problem is not just consecutive or clustered extreme winters. During the past 70 year period, the last 30 year cold period of 1940-1970 had 18 of the coldest 30 winters of the 70 years [-0.3 C to 3.9 C]. Putting it another way, the 60% of the next 30 years could potentially have below norm winter temperatures which may severely test the winter preparedness of UK. So it is not just the clustering put the general colder pattern of the entire period coming up between now and says 2030. I don’t buy any of this global warming causing the winters to become warmer for some time yet [ maybe after 2030 ?]
The “Met Office” are a bunch of charlatans and crooks, who are defrauding the taxpayer.
The new uber-power computer uses a new language, installed on the orders of Reichsfuhrer *Ban Ki Moon, it is the new protocol of “transparent impenetrability”.
* “Ki” is the Sumerian Deity or Goddess personifying Earth.
“Moon” is the Satellite of Planet Earth.
So the UN has, as it’s leader a man whose name means “Censor the Earth and Moon”.
Which is exactly what they have done. They have censored Piers Corbyn’s Solar/Lunar technique of weather forecasting, which is considrably more accurate than the X-Box 360 / Sony Playstation forecast techniques of the climate alarmists of East Anglia et al.
Isn’t it about time that another “Met Office”, had a look at what these so called “scientists” are up to with the taxpayers money. The Serious Fraud Office of the Metropolitan Police !
See the many videos & etc by clicking the name “Axel” above.
Happy Holidays everybody
🙂
bemused says:
December 22, 2010 at 11:18 am
[snip – trying to make it look like you are in the UK, with a bogus email address, while the IP address comes from NASA in Pasadena, certainly doesn’t work. Again, see the policy page]
So, bemused is a NASA-paid troll!! I wonder if his stipend comes out of Hansen’s private budget.