It appears that all is not well with the idea of “climate forecasting” as the Ministry of Defence pulls the financial rug out from under the Met Office climate program. Now how will they pay for the electricity to run “deep black”, the 1.2 megawatt supercomputer they just purchased?
Phil Jones may have drain the moat and sell access to his climate data lists and code to pay the bills.
From the Register, UK
Weather soothsayers lose £4.3m
By Austin Modine
Story excerpts:
The Met Office, home of UK weather soothsaying, is getting its climate research budget chopped by a quarter after the Ministry of Defence ended financial support to focus on “current operations.”
A loss of £4.3m ($7m) funding will hit the Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Change, according to the science journal Nature. The research institute provides the government with bleeding-edge computer models indicating which parts of the UK should stockpile sunscreen and floaties for the coming Thermageddon.
Please support net journalism. Read the entire story at the Register -> here
Read a couple of interesting articles about the shenanigans of the Hadley Climate Reasearch Unit at Climate Audit:
The UK Met Office Deepens The Moat
Phil Jones: the Secret Agent in Hawaii
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
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John F. Hultquist says:
“If a country wants to trade with the USA that country will have to have at least as stringent laws as the USA. Otherwise there will be import duties (tax).:
Ok, So tell me what happens when American companies want to export products somewhere? Do you think that the US trading partners are simply going do nothing while the US imposes arbitrary import duties in the same of ‘saving the environment’.
In fact, I believe the bill actually exempts exporters from the CO2 limits which means that any trading parter could do the same for their exporters and claim that they have “equivalent” regulations.
The bill better die in the senate or the US will be in for some major economic hardship which will unfortunately affect people around the world.
We are supposed to having a HEAT WAVE in the UK right now, that is according to the Met Office. Where I live it is currently 15C, dull and damp, and that is spread right across the whole region. With forecasts like these it is little wonder that the MoD are cutting their suport for the Met Office.
FatBigot
…but no tennis at Wimbledon lost to rain (yet). Didn’t you just know that putting that retractable roof on centre court would guarantee a dry summer?
Craig Moore (18:03:21) : “Now how will they pay for the electricity to run “deep black”, the 1.2 megawatt supercomputer they just purchased?”
Rent out the ‘puter to London bookies.
And put the bookies on to Piers Corbyn
I hadn’t heard about this, but I’m not surprised, the Army needs every penny for bullets etc. and they don’t need the Met Office to tell them that Afghanistan is hot. Our own Dear Leader, Gordon Brown, has crocked the nation’s finances; winning two elections for the Great Leader, Tony, by creating the illusion of prosperity by borrowing, then being caught out by the global economic downturn and having to borrow even more. Basically we have no money and there are big cuts coming in health, education and defence, let alone climate change. The only up-side is that we cannot afford to join in with the orgy of self-flagellation that is CO2 reduction, and hopefully the politicians will want to quietly sideline the issue.
I cannot think other than claiming Global warming/Climate Change, as a done deal beyond reproach, is to ask for a P45.
“Thank you, MMCC point proven, now join the dole queues behind car workers, power workers and all the others that you have put out of work.
PS do not tell them what you did for a living, and please retrain as we no longer need any doom-mongers or alarmists.”
“The research institute provides the government with “bleeding-edge” computer models indicating which parts of the UK should stockpile sunscreen and floaties for the coming Thermageddon.”
Was this just a typo or did the writer mean it? Bleeding us dry maybe.
MSM at it again;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/5676137/Hospital-visiting-time-restrictions-loom-as-heatwave-alert-level-set-to-rise.html
yet the Met office itself isn’t bothered;
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/uk_forecast_weather.html
They don’t forecast what the media are hyping!
cheers David
As I commented on another blog – “Shouldn’t be a problem. Surely it can’t cost very much for a laptop and printer capable of printing “The next summer will reach record high temperatures followed by a much-warmer-than-average winter” from a .txt file.
They’re going to be correct sometimes, on the same basis as the “stopped clock” theory.
Just to be clear click on the main map and temperatures and flick through the days – watch us fry!
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/uk_forecast_weather.html
cheers David
John F. Hultquist (22:31:07) :
Steven Hill (17:59:15) “. . . by limiting CO2 just in America,”
Not exactly. If a country wants to trade with the USA that country will have to have at least as stringent laws as the USA. Otherwise there will be import duties (tax).
At least I saw that mentioned – haven’t been sent a copy of the full text yet.
Reply not sure Obama agrees.
“…..but he expressed reservations about a controversial provision that would slap tariffs on imports from countries that did not similarly crack down on greenhouse gas emissions.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-energy29-2009jun29,0,1735155.story
F Ross.
It works through piezoelectronics. What they do is run a large number of simulations (i.e throw 500+ darts) and, hey presto, plenty of electronic and precisely no predictive power.
Slightly OT but UK related.
This is a legal decision subject to appeal, but if it stands AGW is now pretty close to being a religion. At an employment tribunal, Nicholson v Grainger PLC and others ET 2203367/08, the claimant persuaded the tribunal that his belief linked to concerns about AGW are protected under the Religion or Belief Regulations as it affected most aspects of his life, choice of home, means of travel, etc. If AGW is an article of faith there is no more need for rational proof.
The Met office originally was a sound idea.
“1854: The Met Office is founded to provide information on the weather and marine currents to the marine community. This small department of the Board of Trade is headed by Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy, RN”.
Source; The History of the Met Office.
Defence of the British Isles and our overseas interests, meaning the Royal Navy (when we had one) was always the primary role of the Met Office, especially when weather and currents were a primary concern for ships dependent on sail.
Up to and beyond the WWII, the Met office has provided many crucial forecasts for the military, the DDay landings spring to mind. With Britain’s diminished world role, the Met office is now more concerned with domestic forecasting. Casting around for a ‘world role’ it has been increasingly drawn into the AGM controversy.
The Met office employs many dedicated and skilled staff. The increasing politicisation of it, and loss of its primary function has led it to losing its objectivity(IMHO).
If one looks up the home page of the Met Office and then click onto ‘science’ the headline that greets is “How we create weather forecasts”, an unfortunate use of words I think but kind of sums it up.
We in the north of England are having a ‘heat wave’, temps in the low/mid 70s, which was predicted by the Met office, so fair dos.
Tom.
Fatbigot and others;
The reason they forecast a wet weekend was the Glastobury Festival. That usually guarantees a downpour or several. Glastonbury just ain’t the same without six inches of mud for the boys and girls to frolic in.
This lack of rain at Wimbledon is also a bit spooky. If at least one test match isn’t rained off, this whole climate change thing will start to look real!
Jeff Todd (02:39:18) : …“Thank you, MMCC point proven, now join the dole queues behind car workers, power workers and all the others that you have put out of work…
Jim Turner (02:02:19) : …Gordon Brown, has crocked the nation’s finances; winning two elections for the Great Leader, Tony, by creating the illusion of prosperity by borrowing, then being caught out by the global economic downturn and having to borrow even more….
Could you point ot workers who have lost their jobs directly as a result of climate change financing?
This country has been crippled by being a poodle to USA and following them into Iraq and Afg. and by the financial institutions being incompetant and buying sub-prime loans from freddie may and johnny mack (or whoever) in the USA, and by the incompetant bank staff paying themselves ny backhanders beyond avarice. 6 months prior to the crunch banks made £9*10^9 profit 2 months after the crunch The peasants have to pay them £9*10^9 because they gave their profits away!! Climate costs so far are insignificant!!!!!!
Jim Turner (02:02:19) :
…The only up-side is that we cannot afford to join in with the orgy of self-flagellation that is CO2 reduction, and hopefully the politicians will want to quietly sideline the issue.
That’s not what has happened in Scotland where the idiot politicians have just passed our Climate Bill which commits us to 42% cut in CO2 emissions by 2020! If ever evidence was required for politicians living in an parallel universe this must be it. By the way it is 18’C here, at 1pm BST, when the Sun is at it’s highest – so the Met Offices long heralded heat wave has yet to reach here.
Communist (01:01:10) :
“It is very sad to lose funding for science – it can happen anywhere at anytime. I for one refuse to gloat.”
Yes, if its science. But science does not allow one to hide the data and methods.
There is more real science being done by Svensmark and Miskolczi and here at WattsUpWithThat than by these modelers. We are seeing detailed mechanisms proposed here by which Miskolczi’s 1D theory could operate.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/14/the-thermostat-hypothesis/
“Not exactly. If a country wants to trade with the USA that country will have to have at least as stringent laws as the USA. Otherwise there will be import duties (tax).
At least I saw that mentioned – haven’t been sent a copy of the full text yet”
That sounds like a good plan for massive inflation.
Jim Turner: “The only up-side is that we cannot afford to join in with the orgy of self-flagellation that is CO2 reduction, and hopefully the politicians will want to quietly sideline the issue.”
And yet, Britain has already not only joined in the orgy of self-flagellation, but has been the first to do so. Leading the world in profligate idiocy, parliament voted for all this in the “climate change bill”. We now live in the first country in the world which claims to be be able to change the global climate by government edict. Age of stupid or what?
Think that the problem for the MO is perception.
Most of this month in my little corner of the UK has been a never ending (seemingly) blanket of low cloud moderating both nightime and daytime temps.
The problem comes in that lets suppose the cloud is there all day we have a very small movement in max/min. (1) The other day for example it was 17 at 3:30am and rose to a massive 20 at midday. Average let’s say 18.5.
(2) Some days this cloud is broken by mid day and we have a rapid rise to 26 for an hour or two. Max/min 17/26 – average 23.
(3) Occasionally the cloud is not there at all and Max/min is 9/26 average 18 or so.
My point is that the public only consider the (3) type of day to have been hot. The MO, using the technically correct (2), then say that was “warmest day since” or “hotest June since …” and the public calls BS on them. What they remember is the lack of (3) days not that it was still 18 at 3am when they are tucked up in bed.
Has the state decided to end funding of the secular religion of global warming? They can always restore funding many years down the road if a little warming returns.
“Not exactly. If a country wants to trade with the USA that country will have to have at least as stringent laws as the USA. Otherwise there will be import duties (tax).”
They should ask a couple of guys named Smoot and Hawley how that kind of thing turns out.
Not to mention that our new Chinese financial overlords will Not Be Amused.
Good. This politically biased institution needs to have 100% of its funding cut and let it go completely private. This week we have been told there is a heatwave, and yet it is only UHI-dominated areas of the overbuilt south-east that are seeing anything like the temperatures the MetO give as “national maximums”. Just today at the lunchtime weather we saw the whole of the UK coloured in swathes of red, despite many parts being around the seasonal average. It beggars belief the lengths this institution will go to in order to convince the gullible that our climate is changing.
The conclusions made by the MoD that climate change is not a serious threat stands in steep contrast with the US point of view that describes climate change as a threat to the strategic interests of the US and the US military world wide.
So, besides the fact that there is no consensus among our scientists we now see the same happening among the UK versus US military.
Sometimes budget cuts help us to get the real facts on the table.
I see the MoD move to retract her Met Office Budget as a pragmatic step to reduce the defense budget and a substantial weakening of the climate change doctrine.
Especially because the MoD is part of the British Government.
We now have a situation in Britain where part of the Government is wrecking the economy to fight climate change and another part of the Government simply states
“There is no problem”.
I can only say that I welcome this step and hope that many more influential Defense Ministries will cut there climate research budgets for the same reason.