The Met Office UK summer forecast – Mad Dogs and Englishmen

A Broken Clock is right twice a day.
You just wait and see, one of these times I will be right. Like playing the same numbers in the lottery, eventually they will come out, you may be long dead but it will happen.
It is not a forecast as much as a opinion, here in Canada they actually point out that they only have 50% record on the sign of seasonal change forecasts …

Even a broken clock is correct twice a day.

No more than I expected. I have to say that after this last winter I’ve given up using the Met Office and now use Accuweather forecasts, which so far at least have proved to be considerably better. I notice that they are predicting a normal to slightly cooler than average summer.

Here is my prediction… The summer in the Northern Hemisphere will be warmer than last winter.

It’s optimism. If I get another summer like last one, I’ll shoot myself. If I could own a gun.

They have “lost the plot”, time for their Models, Computers and Satellites to be put in the bin.
Bring out that Dartboard !.

Just because they can’t predict a season’s weather doesn’t mean they can’t predict the globe’s climate for the next 10, 20, 50 or 100 years. Weather isn’t climate, you know.
Why, there are too many factors in predicting the weather. Climate is much simpler. Just take a temp chart and draw and upward-trending line for the future.
And call it a ‘scenario’, not a prediction.

even a stopped clock shows the right time twice a day

They can’t be basing their prediction on anything other than hope.
I’m personally predicting a cooler than average summer with below average hot days and cooler nights… and I’m basing that on both Atlantic and Pacific cycles and a spotless Sun.
If they took bets on this someplace, I’d be willing to put money on it.
The annoying part is, next year everyone will forget that Met was wrong and I was right…

Whether the Met Office:
Whether the weather is hot
As the Met thinks is near
Or whether it’s not
Will in some months be clear
In the meantime
Roll out the barbie
The beef and the beer

My long range every day forecast for the UK remains unchanged, long term, short term, any term.
Cloudy with some sunshine and rain at times.
Still if the Met Office need any help they can always ask poor old Michael Fish Met Office Employee and former BBC weatherman eh ?
“Some woman has called the BBC and said that she’d heard that there was a Hurricane on the way, don’t worry…………..

That evening the great storm of 1987 roared ashore….

So, the last two summers in Britain were influenced by weather, but if it’s really hot this year, the influence is climate.
Do I have this mangled to the right degree?

I am curious if there are any lawyers out there who could answer whether or not we could bring a “False Claims Act” suit against those who are pushing for this C02 legislation which will cost the government and in turn us trillions of dollars? Could we not bring it around to convince some that it will save the government money? I know I am reaching, but we need something here as we are losing this battle for our free country and the world.
People at these agencies are making these false claims based on an agenda (conspiracy) that will do different things based on how you see the scenario.
“Conspiracy” A secret agreement between two or more people to perform an unlawful act.
A plot to carry out some harmful or illegal act (especially a political plot).
A group of conspirators banded together to achieve some harmful or illegal purpose.
I am also really tired about people saying that it isn’t a conspiracy and you are paranoid, well how does everyone think they (powers that be) are getting away with;
1. The destruction of the financial markets and in turn the eventual curbing of the free market….if that has ever been the case since the 20’s.
2. The destruction of our freedom and our ability to create products and wealth by unfair taxation and regulation.
3. insert other possible scenarios here i.e. nationalized healthcare which is a misnomer, just look at how our system has helped people so far., mandatory vaccinations, taxing you extra for extra children because of their carbon footprint etc. etc.
The problem with people not seeing the corruption and conspiracy is that we are conditioned to think anyone with a conspiracy theory is a kook, one who wears a tin foil hat and shouts about area 51 on the street corner. We cannot possibly imagine that there is somthing this sinister and corrupt going on and to even imagine it is too disturbing so we side with, oh that is silly and “you American’s and your conspiracy theories” (which is a quote I heard last week).
We need a separation of government and industry in the biggest of ways. How are we going to do this? Is it too late?

Paul James: That is so hilarious. Its too bad we cannot do a similar pre- and post- 50-years-from -now interview with Hansen

Americans just do not understand summer in the UK.
I experienced the whole summer of 1992; it was a Wednesday in July between 2:30 pm and 3:30 pm, when the sun broke through the clouds.

If they don’t change their basic assumptions and keep their global warming model equation in, even their super-dupper computer will give [self-snip] predictions.

The met predicted 2007 to be the warmest year ever, and what was the result? It’s not discussed in the post.

I know it’s forbidden to talk about H1N1 in WUWT, but this post is related with the main topic.
Well… Insanity is a cosmopolitan disease. As you should know, my country is affected by an outbreak of A-H1N1 influenza. Yesterday, a guy who supposedly is a “great scientist and infectious diseases specialist” tried to relate the outbreak with global warming. The editorial which appeared in most important national newspapers said:
“The great scientist and infectious diseases specialist, Fidel Herrera by name, explained overwhelmingly and unobjectionably that the outbreak of swine influenza occurred at Perote… …was due to the aggressive climate changes happened in the State during the last years…” (Milenio. 30 April 2009. Page 4).
One more for adding to the insane list of 1000 ominous effects caused by global warming.

Alexej Buergi: That’s like our jokes in Oregon: “Last summer Oregonians saw a UFO-the sun.” “Oregonians don’t tan-they rust.” “Last year 300 Oregonians fell off their bicycles-and drowned.”

jack mosevich (12:51:14) :
This is hillarious… they also wrote:
“Their spirits were lifted briefly today when they heard the distant engines of a DC3 aircraft overhead. They thought their minds were playing tricks on them, but sure enough a DC3 did indeed fly within 13 miles of their camp. However, it was part of a Danish research expedition and not the Twin Otter they were hoping for.”
Isn’t that the same plane that are measuring the ice thickness while on-board a nicely heated environment? But I though the experiment was over.

Nasif Nahle (13:07:01) :
I am sure Gore must have sent a filming crew To Mexico to be certain to include this for the upcoming Incovenient Truth 2: The sequal.
http://www.cinematical.com/2007/05/24/davis-guggenheim-in-talks-for-inconvenient-truth-2/

Actually this all reminds me of the economist joke: a certain economist predicted 7 of the past 3 recessions

O/T but I am so sick of all of this climate alarmism and the statutes and taxes that are flowing from it, that I am seriously looking into lawful rebellion. This is when one casts off the false legal fiction of their “person” and lives as a free man on the land according to common law.
These statutes are going to increasingly remove our freedoms and rights until we are little more than serfs on the free soil.
One must make various lawful declarations to be signed by a notary and held by a court that declare one’s lawful understandings and commitments. Unchallenged these declarations are lawful documents which you can enforce in law against any act or statute.
One must note the difference between a law and a statute. Common law flows from Natural Law being created by God, under which ALL men are equal before the law and all men are free. That all free men declare that they shall act in peace and never cause harm, injury or loss. (in law the term ‘man’ includes woman).
Whereas a statute is a rule of society that only has the force of law with the consent of the governed. It is created by a court (Parliament) written by lawyers and only applies under admiralty law which is Law of the seas, or commercial contract law. Therefore a statute is basically a contract. We can refuse to grant consent, LAWFULLY. A statute is NOT a law, until the person consents to it binding upon them and therefore by that action consenting to act as if it is a law. Why do you think that they call statutes, ACTS! Consent is assumed in law by your inaction too. One must actively and lawfully deny consent for the act to be void upon your flesh and blood human being.
As the legal maxim states: Consensus Facit Legem : Consent makes the law.
That means that if we are to declare ourselves lawfully as free men on the land, we need not obey their statutes. The statutes can only apply to a legal person, which is separate and distinct from a flesh and blood man. A person in legal terms is a piece of paper that represents the human being. It is your birth certificate.
For more information see tpuc.org

Special for Erl Happ:
The sun is very sultry and we must avoid its ultry-violet rays.
H/t NC
========================================

Chief Meteorologist at the Met Office, Ewen McCallum, said: “After two disappointingly-wet summers, the signs are much more promising this year. We can expect times when temperatures will be above 30 °C, something we hardly saw at all last year.”
The last 30C day in London was July 26, 2006 –
Believe it or not, London is not the only place in the UK. And as for “England” withstanding the Nazis, give us a rest. It’s about as likely to please the rest of the UK as saying that Texas or California or New York defeated the Japanese would please the rest of the USA. Where do Americans (and other foreigners) get this notion that England is the UK? The UK was created in 1707 – at least 70 years before the USA, so it’s hardly a new creation. An American lady I met in Germany said to me when I told her I came from Scotland: “Where’s that”! Help! (She should pay a bit more attention to the background of many of the Founding Fathers.)
As for the people on the BBC who tell us the weather forecast many of them have a background totally outside weather forecasting (degrees in drama and things like that) although some of them have received ‘meterological training’ at the Met Office.
It would have been nice of the Met Office to give us a warning with their forecast for this summer along the lines of “Our forecasts the last two summers have been totally wrong so you can treat this one with a large pinch of salt.”
Having neighbours on either side of me who love BBQs I’ll be quite happy for the Met Office to be as spot on as they have been the last two summers.

Flanagan: “The met predicted 2007 to be the warmest year ever, and what was the result? It’s not discussed in the post.”
The result was that it was not the warmest year ever. Here’s the link in case you are confused:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/monthly

The Met Office forecast 2007 to be the warmest year ever globally, and a hot summer in the UK.
Instead it turned out to be a cool summer and the rainiest on record in England.
you need to check your facts.
2007 was a hot year in the UK.
Meanwhile, across the UK, 2007 is on course to become one of the warmest years on record. Even if the mean temperature for December is 1 °C below the 1971-2000 long-term average, the year will still be the third warmest since UK-wide records began in 1914. In this 94-year series, the last six years (2002-2007) are set to become the six warmest years.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2007/pr20071213.html
and you can check the seasons and year data for yourself:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/anomacts/#
hot spring. normal summer. warm autumn and extremely hot winter. a very hot year in total.
REPLY: Perhaps you missed this “sod”?
The Met Office press release today (quoted in the article) said that summer 2007 and 2008 were disappointingly wet.

Chief Meteorologist at the Met Office, Ewen McCallum, said: “After two disappointingly-wet summers, the signs are much more promising this year. We can expect times when temperatures will be above 30 °C, something we hardly saw at all last year.”

2007 was the wettest summer on record in England.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2007/pr20070831.html
Hey, hows that “Seed Of Doubt – Iraq” blog working out for you? Stamped out the “surge” yet or are you now exclusively a climate troll? 😉 I’ve always found it comical that you doubt what governments have to say about Iraq and the data coming from there, but you’ll accept the weather/climate data purported to show AGW hook line and sinker without question. But you really aren’t worth time arguing with, your position is epoxied in place and secure playing the internet phantom. – Anthony

With the AMO flipping negative I wonder what reality portends. At any rate, the certainty of 50% top tax rates should do something for Britain–make it more ethnically diverse via emigration.

By the way, another intersting study
http://politics.as.nyu.edu/docs/IO/4819/egan_mullin.pdf
people tend to belief in global warming as a function of their local temperature. In cold and temperate places, those supporting global waming are the ones with the highest level of education, whose opinion is relatively constant whatever the local temperatures.

Flanagan wrote:

The met predicted 2007 to be the warmest year ever, and what was the result? It’s not discussed in the post.

Not discussed in the post? You mean you didn’t see the first sentence of the paragraph immediately following that? Here: Instead it turned out to be a cool summer and the rainiest on record in England.

It’ll be a typical British summer – 3 hot days followed by a thunderstorm. As Adam Gallon rightly says, 1976 was quite nice. That had nearly 3 hot months followed by a thunderstorm.

I have just watched the report on this on BBC News at 10. The reporter stated that seasonal forecasts were in their infancy and described them as somewhere between daily forecasts and climate change predictions.
He then went on to report that there was a 35% chance that the forecast was wrong.
Now, if there is a 35% chance the seasonal forecast is wrong… what does that say about the longer projections?

Nicolla Scafettais predicting global cooling till about 2030 – 2040
See:
“Climate Change and Its causes: A Discussion about Some Key Issues” N. Scafetta. Invited author at the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, DC USA, February 26, 2009. Especially Slide 66. Scafetta finds CO2 sensitivity to be about 1/3 of the IPCC.
In 2001, Don Easterbrook predicted global cooling from about 2007 ’till about 2038 based on the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and glacier trends. That is 2 deg F below the IPCC’s prediction by 2038!
They appear to have better models than the Met.

I wrote this to the Met Office after reading the March 09 criticism of the accuracy of the Winter forecast in “wattsupwitthat”. Their reply is after my posting.
I give them points for their detailed response to my non-friendly analysis
Start 3/5/09 posting to Met Office
To UK Met Office website education email
I wasn’t able to find individuals to contact, just general email addresses.
I found the website to be full of congratulatory information on how well you are doing, how valuable, your work is, and how all doubts about man made global warming has been resolved.
As one who has read the Technical sections of IPCC reports, which are replete with qualifications about how much more we need to understand, the Met Office website reads like a catechism of MMGB (man made global warming) Believers.
I have two scientific degrees. But more importantly, in high school, I learned how true scientific method is always challenging and examining the data to make sure its theories and hypothesis can stand.
No deviation from doctrine, no heretical qualifications, absolute religious fervor about the True Path.
An yet, the Path lead to false doctrine in that it predicted the coming of the Messiah (increasingly hotter summers and warmer winters) and missed the coldest winter in 13 years.
The UK Met Office famously forecast this past winter to be “milder than average.“
25 September 2008
The Met Office forecast for the coming winter suggests it is, once again, likely to be milder than average.
Seasonal forecasts from the Met Office are used by many agencies across government, private and third sectors to help their long-term planning.
The meteorological winter is over, and the official results are in :
The UK had its coldest winter for 13 years, bucking a recent trend of mild temperatures, the Met Office has said.
The average mean temperature across December, January and February was 3.1C – the lowest since the winter beginning in 1995, which averaged 2.5C.
This missed forecast falls on the heels of two consecutive incorrect summer forecasts , both of which were forecast to be warm but turned out to be complete washouts. However, the Met Office appears undaunted by their recent high profile forecasting failures, and they continue in their quest to educate the public about the imminent threat of global warming. (end)
4/29/09 Below is the Met Office response to my criticism. jgf
REF0002867
Dear Mr Fox
Thank you for your e-mail of 5 March 2009 regarding climate change and Met Office seasonal forecasts, in particular for the winter just passed. I apologise for the delay in replying to you.
Seasonal forecasting is still a developing area for the Met Office and should still be considered experimental, although we would hope they are becoming increasingly reliable. Their “target audience” is, to a large extent, government planners and we have received much positive feedback from those customers who have used them over the last few years. That said we hope members of the public find them useful as well and we are pleased to note your interest.
Seasonal trends in weather affect large geographic areas, so the seasonal forecast for the UK is set in the broader context of Europe as a whole. We are also looking at trends over a longer period – the actual weather will be subject to many sub-regional and local variations.
Whilst it is true that the first forecast for winter 2008-2009 thought it more likely that temperatures would be close to average or a little above average, though we foresaw that this winter would be less mild than last year. This was the best forecast possible from the information available to us at that time. Subsequent updates modified this forecast to indicate the likelihood of colder temperatures at the start of winter, and more recently persisting through January and February.
Clearly we would have liked to have given earlier indication of the colder temperatures experienced in most parts of the UK during December and January. Forecasts for further ahead are looking at the likelihood of future event occurring among other possibilities – so are by their nature much more general and subject to change. Certainly, long range forecasts are not the appropriate place to try to predict individual weather events, such as the unusually severe frosts experienced in the early weeks of January or the recent disruptive snowfall in southern and eastern England and later in northern England and parts of Scotland. However, in these cases we were able to issue forecasts well in advance which successfully predicted where the major risk of disruption would be, due to improvements to our numerical weather prediction (NWP) models in recent years.
Because of these forecasts, we were able to provide essential, timely advice to the emergency services and our other government and commercial customers. For individual weather events the best advice we can give is to continue to keep up to date with our forecasts for up to five days ahead via radio, television and our web site. Colleagues will obviously be looking to further improve the usefulness of seasonal forecasts as these develop in the future.
I can assure you that no Met Office forecast is governed by any other consideration than the information available, certainly not the need to “prove” or otherwise the case for or against human induced climate change, which we firmly believe has been established. The Met Office is a scientific organisation which bases its decisions, conclusions and forecasts on established evidence and facts. The Met Office Hadley Centre is the UK’s national centre for climate change research. Partly funded by Defra (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), the newly-established Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Ministry of Defence, the Hadley Centre provides in-depth information to the Government and advise them on climate change issues using expert scientific evidence. Our climate scientists undertake studies of the global climate using similar, though more extensive, models of the atmospheres, as are used for the prediction of weather conditions.
The issues you raise around climate change and many others have been comprehensively addressed in the peer reviewed scientific literature. This information is freely available in the public domain, including, as you have correctly referred to, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) who have produced a detailed list of FAQs at http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html. The Met Office Hadley Centre publication “Climate Change and the greenhouse effect: a briefing from the Hadley Centre” is also available to download free of charge at http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/pubs/brochures/ and you may also find the following news release on the Met Office web site helpful: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2008/pr20080923c.html.
Whilst we would agree that areas of uncertainty remain, the overwhelming scientific consensus is that human induced climate change is real and poses a serious threat. In its Fourth Assessment Review, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that there is unequivocal evidence from observations that the Earth is warming. It further stated and that most of the observed warming since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in man-made greenhouse gas concentrations. By “very likely”, the IPCC means a 90% probability or greater. This broad climate change message has also been strongly supported by the world’s top Academy of Sciences, including the Royal Society in the UK and the National Academy of Sciences in the USA.
The national science academies of the G8 nations and Brazil, China and India, three of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the developing world, have signed a statement on the global response to climate change. The statement stresses that the scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action and calls on world leaders to take such action.
In view of this, the Met Office firmly believes that climate research has captured the essential aspects of what is causing our planet to warm. It is now time to move on and look at strategies for adaptation and mitigation; better defining uncertainty and improving regional detail in climate models. This is where our efforts will and should be directed.
Our seasonal forecast was the best possible from the information available to us but we are aware that as conditions change there would be the need for updates, which is what we have done. We will obviously look to develop and improve these forecasts over the years to come, as we have with our shorter range forecasts. A forecast for, or weather conditions experienced during an individual season neither proves or disproves a case for climate change, which is already firmly established.
Thank you for your interest and for taking the time to contact the Met Office.
Yours sincerely
Martin Kidds Customer Feedback Manager
Met Office FitzRoy Road Exeter Devon EX1 3PB United Kingdom
Tel: 0870 900 0100 or +44 (0)1392 88 5680 Fax: +44 (0)1392 88 5681
E-mail: enquiries@metoffice.gov.uk http://www.metoffice.gov.uk

And if ever the UK Met Office supercomputer is wrong:
“Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.”
Groucho Marx
US comedian with Marx Brothers (1890 – 1977)

Piers Corbyn has written to HM Environment Secretary Hilary Benn MP
27th April 2009, offering “Long Range Flood Forecasts to assist Flood Warnings for the UK” to improve their forecasting.

In response to CodeTech (12:16:47) : “They can’t be basing their prediction on anything other than hope.”
I think its much more interesting than that. The Hadley Center/Met Office is one of the few meterological organizations that uses the Global Circulation Models (the ones used to predict global warming) and actually tries to make long range weather forecasts with them. In essence, they are showing the world the robustness of their predictions. I actually prefer this to simulations 100 years on that no one will be around to prove or disprove. It would be interesting to look at the Met Office predictions and compare these with people who focus more on the set up in the oceans for the coming season.

One of the tribe asked the Indian chief,
“Is it going to be a hard winter?”
The chief said,
“Go collect firewood and I’ll consult the stars tonight and tell you.”
Being new to the job and a 21st century type of guy the chief really hadn’t a clue about the old ways, so the next day he phoned the local ranger station. They told him, Yes it looks bad, so he told his tribe to collect more fire wood every day for a week and he phoned again to see if there were any more predictions. Once again the ranger told him it looks like its going to be a really long, cold, bad winter so the chief gathered the tribe and told them they must go and collect as much firewood as possible
A few days later he phoned again and asked the same question only to be told that the weather for winter looks really terrible and it will last a really long time.
He asked the ranger how he could make such a prediction and what was it based on.
The ranger replied, “It’s the Indians. They’re gathering fire wood like crazy !!”

Outer catastrophes will not ever resolve inner incapacities

Anyone who spent the summer of 2007 in the UK knows this to be true.

News release
31 August 2007
Summer 2007 – a wet season
This summer looks set to have been the wettest since UK rainfall records began in 1914, Met Office figures revealed today.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2007/pr20070831.html

There were almost no warm days that summer, with daytime temperatures well below normal. The humidity kept nighttime temperatures up, which allowed the Met Office statisticians the opportunity to pretend they were saving face.

Indeed, I read this on a new website earlier and my only thought was, “good luck with that”. There’s nothing quite like setting yourself up to be shot down is there?

Ash before oak, in for a soak
Oak before ash, only a splash
But even yet, this old countyfolk saying has been pressed into into service by AGW environmentalism. See our friend Charles Clover in
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3343188/Ash-no-longer-a-contender-to-leaf-before-oak.html
I’ve got oak and ash all around and right now they’re both bursting out.

I know this posting is about the UK Met Office and Steven makes a skilled connection between the predictions and the British character but what has to be said is the following.
1. It is not only the UK MET OFFICE that is spreading warmist predictions.
2. Warmist predictions are spread by all National Meteorological Organizations world wide.
3. We have the UN IPCC pushing the AGW scam but it is also the World Meteorological
Organization.
4. Read about their organization structure here: http://www.wmo.ch/pages/about/wmo_structure_en.html
They translate climate policies and tell the National Weather Organizations which tune they must whistle.
The focus is now directed at the UK Met Office, but for the same money you could point your focus to the KNMI (Royal Dutch Met Office) to come up with a comparable story.
It would be a good thing if people really understand what is going on and that all the arrows point to the United Nations as the spider in the web.

My forecast for the summer is “becoming warmer with more daylight” followed by my winter forecast of “colder and darker earlier”.
Can I have a supercomputer?

“Flanagan (12:53:18) : The met predicted 2007 to be the warmest year ever, and what was the result? It’s not discussed in the post.”
They were wrong. There. It’s been discussed.

The Catlin thing isn’t funny any more. Why don’t they just admit they were wrong/misguided/unlucky/completely vindicated and come back home?
My forecast there is that if something bad happens then it won’t be the mission planners to blame. My opinion is that they need to take responsibility now and call the whole thing off before anyone gets more hurt than they are already.
On a lighter note, where could anyone hide beef stew? Bemused minds want to know!

“…On the other hand the Met Office long range forecasts for summer 08, summer 09 and winter 08-09 were dismal failures and disarmed you, the emergency services and the public at great human and financial cost…. ”
~ Piers Corbyn
ref :
http://www.weatheraction.com/displayarticle.asp?a=28&c=1

Just Want Truth… (16:01:36) :
TYPO
“forecasts for summer 08, summer 09”
rather
“forecasts for summer 07, summer 08”

BBC, how amazing, reports about the Scottish famine during the Maunder Minimum and UK Met Office restates that the sun is only one of the many drivers responsible for our climate! Funny that the Scot experience from the past is neglected by a fellow Scottsman who now happens to be the Prime Minister of Great Brittan and prepares his country for runaway Global Warming.
Great Britain is the first county in the world to have adopted harsh legislation to reduce CO2 emissions.
It will also be the first country to go broke because of that legislation, beating its citizens with immense costs to pay for their retarded policies.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/highlands_and_islands/8010513.stm

Oops.

“Weather Forecast in Anglican Chant”

sod,
sorry but I don’t agree.
I’ve just checked the figures again and the top 10 according to the CET figures are:
2006 10.82
1990 10.63
1999 10.63
1949 10.62
2002 10.60
1997 10.53
1995 10.52
1989 10.50
2003 10.50
1959 10.48
Nobody’s disputing that the climate has been warming during the 30 years from the mid-1970s but note that 1998 doesn’t show and the following year (still, we presume, showing the El Nino effect) couldn’t do better than 1990.
2008, incidentally, came in at 47th!

Chief Meteorologist at the Met Office, Ewen McCallum, said: “After two disappointingly-wet summers, the signs are much more promising this year.”
Why was he “disappointed” that there were no scorching summers and hoping for one this year? He’s supposed to be an impartial observer and reporter of facts, not a fan of Global Warming.

Sod
Admittedly anecdotal, but I couldnt resist repeating this letter from The Daily Telegraph of 29 April 2009 as it matches the debate about a virtually non existent change in our climate over the last 350 years
“The medieval Welsh cuckoo and climate change
SIR – On Monday, we heard our first cuckoo, and indeed, regular as cuckoo-clockwork, they have returned to the St David’s peninsula in the last week of April during the past 38 years.
A few miles away, at Nevern, there is a delightful legend that the cuckoo came on St Brynach’s feast day, the seventh day of April, and
sat on Saint Brynach’s stone. The priest would not begin Mass until the bird had appeared, but one year it was late arriving and “when
she came at last, lighting on the said stone, her accustomed preaching place, being scarce able once to sound the note, presently fell dead”.
George Owen wrote this story in the 17th century, but it is certainly of medieval oral tradition.
The change of calendar in 1752 took away 11 days so the medieval cuckoo actually arrived on what is now April 18.
After the best part of perhaps a 1,000 years the modern bird is just a few days later, despite supposed climate change.
Dr John Etherington
Llanhowell, Pembrokeshire”
tonyb

maz2 (15:56:09) :
“Weather Forecast in Anglican Chant”
That is AWESOME !! 🙂
I wish the weather channel adopted that style

maz2 (16:24:47) :
As my wife and I were checking out of the Hotel St. David in St. David, Wales, the sun was shining brightly. We had awakened to a light snow which became sleet, which became rain, which became a bright sunny morning.

Persistence is the British trait which kept the Shackleton crew alive and helped England withstand the Nazi’s throughout World War II

“Nazis” doesn’t take an apostrophe here. It’s a plural, not a possessive. 😉

Ron de Haan (15:17:13) :
3. We have the UN IPCC pushing the AGW scam but it is also the World Meteorological Organization.
The acronym for World Meteorological Organization is WMO, which sounds like “humo” in Spanish; “humo” does mean “smoke” in English. All things have easy explanations… Heh!

The mildest winter I ever enjoyed was a summer in England.
I am sure the Metservice got the forecast right more often in the past when it was based on observation and knowledge, now they rely blindly on models that are clearly incapable of making long term weather forecasts!
They have become a joke in the UK!

Brian (14:48:06) :
I heard a version of that joke that switched things around a bit. It stated an old Indian was asked how he was always able to correctly predict the severity of the winter. Did he note the thickness of the rabbit’s fur? The abundance of the acorn crop? He replied, “Me go check size of white man’s woodpile.”

“BrianMcL (17:28:00) : Don’t scientists normally analyse their data?”
What are they comparing it too? How can they know if they are successful or not? That was my point. They don’t know right now what they’ve achieved

Just Want Truth… (16:32:18) :
“Going by history Pen Hadow isn’t one to call things off when circumstances are saying to call things off. Someone else may have to make that call, someone watching from the outside.”
It should be the pilot of the rescue aircraft that makes that call. No one else.
And leave Hadow there if he has a hissy fit!

Does anyone know if there is a good weather forecast here in the UK? As a gardener, I’ve been following the BBC’s, but it’s becoming a joke. They even got the ‘live’ weather wrong last week!!! I mean, they only had to look out the window! My veg is out (pardon madam) and I don’t want to lose anything to an unpredicted frost.

Eventually they’ll get one right.
1000 days without a 30°C day. Eventually it’s bound to happen.
This MET office is giving Hansen’s GISS a real run for the money on who’s the biggest joke.

rephelan,
I don’t know why you are questioning Flanagan’s integrity. The lower plot of figure 6 in the Egan and Mullin paper shows precisely what he states:
“…people tend to belief in global warming as a function of their local temperature. In cold and temperate places, those supporting global waming are the ones with the highest level of education, whose opinion is relatively constant whatever the local temperatures.”

Have the MET and the licensed media ever been right with their newish long range forecasts?
Roll on the day when all publicliy funded data collectors are forced to allow the paying public to see it, for free. It would be the most effective oversight.

This is the sort of thing we have to contend with in the UK, whose authorities are convinced we are heading rapidly for a mediterranean climate. All the gardening programmes for years have been telling us to take up our traditional plants and change them for drought tolerant and heat resistant ones as we head for hotter and drier summers. Some of these in my garden were swept away by the summer rain whilst others have succumbed to the cold. But they must be right, so as it is the 1st of May I will be swapping my thick sweater for a thinner one.
The full 20 minute version of ‘Changing Climate, Changing Business’ is available to watch on South West Tourism’s website at: http://www.swtourism.org.uk/our-strategic-work/sustainability-work/adapting-to-a-changing-climate/. A 6 minute, summary version can also be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3IOGy8WMGg
For more information about climate change impacts and adaptation in the South West, visit: http://www.oursouthwest.com/climate/ or for tourism-related information and support visit http://www.swtourism.org.uk/.
Tonyb

Hit the wrong button … so I don’t know if my earlier incomplete post went through. Here is the full Monty.
Agree with those who question the counting of spots that only can be seen with modern telescopes generally placed on mountains. Europe, where most of the 17-19th century telescopes were located, is not noted for its continuous clear sunny days.
The best technical presentation I’ve come across of historical sunspots, and how sunspots are measured, with all the variations around the measurements and calculations is the article:
Dances with Wolf’s: A Short History of Sunspot Indices
Contributed by Carl E. Feehrer (FEEC)
Revised August 2000
http://www.aavso.org/observing/programs/solar/dances.shtm
He also discusses the benefits and problems with the 4 major indices:
Wolf
(R) Zurich
(Rz) International
(Ri) American (Ra)
Best article on this subject that I’ve come across.
Since sunspots are crude surrogates for solar activity, modern solar instruments that measure total solar irradiance, mass ejections, and all other electromagnetic activities will, over extended time, replace this highly subjective measurement.
Future generations will be puzzled with our intense divination of them for our use predictions as we are with the Romans divination and prophecy using flights of birds (augary).

Merrick (19:04:52) :
Speaking as a scientist, it’s only under the most well-defined and controlled of circumstances that I ever seriously consider letting non-scientists take scientific data (except of course as a teaching exercise). … (In fact, taking the “easy” measurement is by far the most common cause of data bias among inexperienced scientists and non-scientists performing experiments).
I would suggest that the less the intelligence of the driller the better. You admit a scientist will cherry pick for an easy life. Tell a robot to go out and tak drill depth measurements every 20 metres whatever the terraine and it will. Tell a semi intelligent entity to do the same and it will realise that there is no point and not safe measuring ice thickness within 10cm of free water and it will cherry pick by moving back by a couple of metres.
Not having measured ice thickness before I would imaginge there are few instruction needed
Use gps to record position
Clear snow from top of ice (judgement needed here!)
drill down until drill shows no resistance to furter advance
Clear hole of ice
Drop measuring tape and weight down hole to more than depth of drill length
Pull back until tape is taught and measure to top of ice, record measurement
Measure from ice to to water top (can be used a secondary check), record measurement.
Remove tape from hole
Walk another 20metres north and repeat
Simple – yes?
But, hey, how can *I* question the motives or techniques of those brave tent-bound souls who are about to start endangering lives other than their own?
I’m 100% certain Ken Borrek Air will have written additional costs into their quote for resupply and pickup at the end of june to cover any dangers-they were not forced to take the contract!!!. And I would hope that KBA would ask for volunteers for the operation if danger is involved

According to the Daily Telegraph, the Met Office guy stated that this forecast was based on “probabilities which showed there was a 50 per cent chance of the temperatures in June, July and August being above average”
A 50% chance of being above average? You don’t say.
He didn’t mention whether there was also a 50% chance of the temperatures being BELOW average.
That really would be a coincidence, eh?

The odds do appear to favour the MetO
I suspect that the probability will be more of the ‘child gender’ variety. Couples mistakenly believe that the more boy or girl children they have, the more likely it is that the next one will be the other sex. It is, of course, always 50:50

I think the Met Office may have over cooked it! For two days they’ve been all over the press/msm. They are now being “cautiously optomistic” according to one weather presenter on todays lunchtime news on BBC1, when asked by the news reader if he was “under pressure” for good weather this summer. I expect it’s the swine flu kicking in, or the bird flu, or the BSE/Cjd, or the salmonella in the egg industry, or the killer bugs, or any one of the hairum scarum stories we’ve been fed over the years. We’re all going to die, only trouble is, when?
HAGWE everyone!

sod:

2007 was a hot year in the UK.

No it wasn’t. I should know. I live there.

Flanagan:

In cold and temperate places, those supporting global waming are the ones with the highest level of education, whose opinion is relatively constant whatever the local temperatures

So what does that say about people who live in hot places then?

Barry Foster (00:21:34) :
Look up Piers Corbyn :
http://www.weatheraction.com/pages/pv.asp?p=wact5&fsize=0

Iceberg,
Unlike some others, this blog is not “The Borg.” There are many different people posting here from all different points of view.

Clark (12:16:32) :

Wow, look at the change in attitude! A year ago a warm summer would be a global warming disaster. Now:

“After two disappointingly-wet summers, the signs are much more promising this year.”
They mean they predicted a two hot and dry summers and were disappointed. Now they are predicting a warmer dryer summer and by the mighty god of averages it looks jolly promising.

jgfox (14:34:10) :
Thank you for writing the email. It ‘s often best to approach departments in a polite but direct manor. Well done and I will read the reply in full when I have had some sleep. Meanwhile I will comment on a small part of their responce.
Seasonal trends in weather affect large geographic areas, so the seasonal forecast for the UK is set in the broader context of Europe as a whole. We are also looking at trends over a longer period – the actual weather will be subject to many sub-regional and local variations.
In the stock market there is the foolish mantra that “the trend is your friend”. This works well when the trend remains intact and everyone is making money but when the trend changes it is the naive that get hurt the most. They can’t bring themselves to believe that the trend has changed and continue to throw more money in, in the believe that the market will resume the trend.
How is it that we throw our tax money at these shallow buffoons? Do they not know that in order to predict any trend you must understand the underlying fundamentals and even then a seemingly random event may disrupt the best of forecasts.
These people advise governments using short term trends to predict the climate years into the future. Although in this instance we are talking about the weather, it is none the less symptomatic of the shoddy state of the many sciences that have been hijacked by those who are running a political or funding agenda.

Joe Bastardi seems to agree with the MET this time around.
http://www.accuweather.com/world-bastardi-europe-blog.asp?partner=accuweather
Joe’s predicting a moderate El Nino later this summer.

More Met Office inaccuracy, via the BBC, and reported in yesterday’s Observer:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/may/03/bbc-weather-carrbridge-scottish-highland
I live in the Isle of Wight, whose Met Office forecasts are usually wrong, too…

John Finn (02:55:45) :
Again this has a better than even chance of being correct. It’s unlikely we’ll get the continuous weather fronts that plagued the UK in the past 2 years, so they’re probably not going to be far wrong here.
I wonder, a weather forecast yesterday included the Jet Stream, a rare event on UK TV weather reports. Usually considered too much information by the media elite. 🙂
It shows it as being far to the south of the UK which is I think unusual for summer as it normally establishes itself to the north of Scotland and it is expected to move from its southerly position ending up barrelling into the UK for at least a week or so. If I recall correctly this position was part of the weather conditions contributing to the last two summers and dragged in many Atlantic depressions. Here is a site that provides a similar forecast. http://www.metcheck.com/V40/UK/FREE/jetstream.asp

‘going to be like’ – sorry.