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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Heatwaves? Overhere in the Netherlands you need at least 5 consecutive day in wich temperatures reach 25 degrees or more and in that same period you need three (tropical) days with temperatures of at least 30 degrees.
Its not even close to a heatwave this week, the last one we had was in 2006, the summer of 1947 is still the hottest on record with 16 tropical days (divided of 4 heatwaves). It may be hot here in the Netherlands at the moment, but it certainly is nowhere near any record. Its just weather.
crosspatch (12:22:08) :
China now burns more coal per day than the US, Europe, and Japan combined. And that is just “controlled” coal burning. Uncontrolled coal seam fires in China produce more CO2 than all the cars in the US.
People who believe the US Congress can make a dent are beyond delusional.
Don’t you understand that we will have the moral upper hand when talking down our noses to China and India? Imagine all the high praise from editor and columnists everywhere, especially in Europe for leading the world.
That’s worth the cost, right? Besides, we had too good for too long in this country.
The 42% cut in emissions in Scotland is going to be a good trick if we can do it. All this without nuclear power as well!
It means reducing almost all human activity by at least half. Travel, heating, lighting.
Breathing!
Perhaps the eco-fascists would like to go first. I’d welcome a demonstration on how to reduce my personal CO2 output by half.
Labour has cut the Defense budget significantly – so much so that the Navy cannot keep all its ships manned and ready. The drain of deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan put most upgrades in jeopardy. I’m not surprised something like the Hadley Center would get cut. The UK MoD can hire its own meterologists (and probably does) cheaper than depending on “Climate Change Central”.
I believe ITER Fusion Experiment follow ons will be producing the electricity required in about 100 years. Unless the Polywell Fusion Reactor boys beat them to it.
Another reason not to give up on coal prematurely: reliable sources of electricity will be required to run the climate models.
I wouldn’t bank on the Met Office having a 25% cut. From what I read the same money will probably just come from a department other than the MOD.
With regard to the much discussed “heatwave” here in the UK, the BBC has taken to showing a dramatic pale pinkish weather map with a small blood red spot over London which then expands to cover most of the country.
Are they trying to tell (sell) us something?
Ho, ho, ho,
From the original article (suitable amended)…
Quote:
“”Our financial security will be threatened by this sceptisism about climate change, and the MoD is hopelessly wrong to think that they were purchasing honest science”” climate scientist Martin Parry told Nature.
.
The Met Office keep prediciting a sizzling summer. Sooner or later they’re going to be right due to the law of averages. And then they will be even more insufferable…
ich (18:14:39) :
Maybe they could set up a few windmills to run it.
AnonyMoose (19:12:57) :
I forecast an increase in predicted temperatures of 25%.
M. Simon (13:12:37) :
…Another reason not to give up on coal prematurely: reliable sources of electricity will be required to run the climate models.
These remarks have made me laugh. Altough this sense of humour is only a minor one from the main characteristics which are making this site even better, but it adds a lot to the overall atmosphere. Comments and remarks like these are completely absent in the case of all major pro-AGW sites, including Realclimate, Climate Progress and Tamino/’Open mind’…
““But, then, perhaps I’m the only person here ever to have actually met and listened to a scientist from the Hadley Centre,”
WRONG”
That’s good!
Maximum temperature 27C or above again today across many part of England – so in the very warm to hot category for our country.
From “The Register”
An MoD spokesperson said the cuts, which take effect immediately, were made with the intent of “prioritizing success in current operations, such as Afghanistan”.
The Met Office is reportedly in negotiations with its other funders – including the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Department of Energy and Climate Change – to recoup the lost cash. ®
2 Points;
1) Interesting use of the phrase “Success in Current operations” !
2) “Other Funders”
Dept of the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs” – UK Government
Dept of Energy UK Government
And there I was thinking that our wretched “government” was, at last, trying to save money! Should have known better.
I say Sell off the Met Office to private enterprise so they have to compete commercially. Then they may have some incentive to get their forecasts, all of them short, medium and long term, right (or at least more right than hitherto.
Ron de Haan (07:01:19) :
In adition to my earlier posting: I welcome the MoD to the skeptic community.
Oh I wish!!
Peter Hearnden (10:28:44) :
““But, then, perhaps I’m the only person here ever to have actually met and listened to a scientist from the Hadley Centre,”
WRONG”
That’s good!
————-
There was a time, many years ago, when I actually believed what they said. Then I started doing my homework. Now I don’t believe what they say.
Steven Hill (05:25:44) :
“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.
Right Steven, but that is not all.
What to think about consumer freedom, the freedom to choose a product!
And the fact that we will have much less products available.
These are measures which will bring us on the level of the former Sovjet Economy
that we have destroyed by the concept of a free market economy.
This country is run by geniuses holding the standards of real apparatchiks.
Do you already imagine the cues in front of the shops?
The Met Office’s over-hyping of the pathetic ‘heatwave’ in the UK this week has been truly embarrassing what with their idiotic ‘alert’ levels, created solely to promote their AGW alarmism. I notice they kept pretty quiet during the coldest winter in a decade and didn’t have some ridiculous multi-tiered alarm system to warn us about the heavy snowfall which brought London to a standstill.
The fact is that throughout 90% of the UK, temperatures have been either average or slightly above average over the past week. Here in Yorkshire, this past June has been mostly cool with below average temperatures punctuated with around 5 or 6 days of moderate warmth with an unremarkable and entirely expected 24c being the maximum temperature in my area.
“The fact is that throughout 90% of the UK, temperatures have been either average or slightly above average over the past week…with an unremarkable and entirely expected 24c being the maximum temperature in my area”
I’d bet more than 10% of the country will have experience a heat wave (as per Met Office definition) – indeed Doncaster (in your Yorkshire I believe) reached above 26C yesterday (and is 25C as I write) as did some other reporting station in the area.
With places all over the country already above 25C this Wednesday morning (Aberdeen, Inverness, Doncaster, Benson, Manchester, Ross on Wye much or the Area around London for example) it now looks that 32C or 90F may very well be reached either today of tomorrow somewhere in the UK – if it happens that is an unusual event.
Darn it!
Could someone re arrange my italic tags above and delete this 🙂 ta…
REPLY: done. Anthony
To Ron de Haan,
Do you seriously think the US will start imposing trade tarriffs on Chinese made goods. You forget the golden rule of business, he who has the gold makes the rules. Detroit was conspicuously quiet and did not oppose the tightening of the fuel mandates this spring because 2 of the big three were on life support from a liberal US governemt. Well guess what, the US’s governement finances are on life support for the Chinese governements sovreign wealth funds. My guess the tarriffs are there just for window dressing. Obama already said trade barriers and tarriffs in the cap and trade bill are a bad idea. Want to guess why?
Interesting that publications in Britain see MoD budget cuts at the Met Office as indicating “Climate Change Not a Security Threat:”
(scroll down three stories)
http://eye-uk.blogspot.com/2009/07/nhs-childrens-emergency-doctor-high-on.html