Not only does the Met Office/Hadley Climate Center have trouble with pesky “moles” this week, they are now finding a staunch ally, the BBC, is questioning their forecasting ability. One wonders if they will improve using “deep black”, the 1.2 megawatt supercomputer they just purchased.
Met Office cools summer forecast
BBC environment analyst
excerpts:
You will need a brolly on holiday in the UK in August – the Met Office is issuing a revised forecast for more unsettled weather well into the month.
It is a far cry from the “barbecue summer” it predicted back in April.
The news will raise questions about the Met Office’s ability to make reliable seasonal forecasts.
…
It did indeed stress at the time of the summer forecast in April that the odds of a scorching summer were 65%. It explains that it coined the phrase “barbecue summer” to help journalists’ headlines.
But this has come back to bite the organisation because many people do not feel like they have been enjoying a “good” summer, especially compared with previous searing years.
Jet stream
Some now ask if the Met Office risks its reputation by attempting to popularise its work this way.
…
The real problem for the Met Office is that this is the third summer in a row where its forecast has failed. In 2007, the Met Office chirped: “The summer is yet again likely to be warmer than normal. There are no indications of a particularly wet summer.”
We got downpours and floods in the wettest summer for England and Wales since 1912. Temperatures were below average.
In April 2008, the Met Office forecast: “Summer temperatures are likely to be warmer than average and rainfall near or above average.”
That did not prepare people for one of the wettest summers on record with high winds and low sunshine.
In both instances, the Met Office failed to predict the movements of the jet stream – the high-level wind that races round the world 10km above the surface.
…
read the entire article at the BBC here
h/t to WUWT reader Kristinn
TonyB (05:07:38) :
Seaweed & a nail will do just fine Tony 😉
DaveE.
After the Solar publication, also made by the BBC, I slowly get the impression that the strong collaboration to the warmist case is overtaken by reality.
This would mark the factual break up of the AGW Doctrine, leaving our politicians bud naked and without any support at all.
We all know what that means.
Politicians left without support usually face the end of their careers soon.
re: Cassandra King
I concur, and I would add the following comments:
Every now and again the ‘political narative’ is claimed to be “science based”. It usually involves a kind of determinism-that is, humans have to be controlled in some way of another for the greater good (ie socialist-determinism), whereas in reality it is for the greater good of the bureaucratic class-think ‘Yes Minister’ in Science. Historical examples of data distortion coming from intellectualism/socialist-determinism include:
-astrology (distorted astronomy). (Note the simlarity with AGW-but instead of the heavens controlling people-its the people controlling the heavens).
-eugenics (distorting biology)
-Nazism (distorting race/cultural struggle and biology)
-communism (distorting economics)
-christianity and islam (distorting ethics and theology)
-AGW (distorting climate and energy).
I dont think they have tried distorting energy before, but hopefully in 3,000 years it won’t be like astrology and be on the back of tabloid newspapers for fruitcakes to read.
@Archonix (11:27:41) :
“Huh, I just figured out why the Met Office called this a “barbecue summer”. It’s because we’re the only nation stubborn and/or insane enough to have a barbecue in this weather.”
Not to brag but I have BBQ’d when the temp was just above freezing. We ate inside of course. But I have not figured out how to get that BBQ flavor to the burgers & Steaks.
This is weather forecast, not climate forecast!
That has nothing to do with the Met Office climate proyections.
Commonsense
According to the Met office they use the same methods of forecasting for short term forecasts as they do for long term climate scenarios. In the latter case they use linear projections and do not factor in jet streams, pdo’s, nor other random cyclical elements. Their knowledge of ice caps/glaciers is rudimentary-see my recent post which linked to a very recent met office ad asking for a glacier modeller as the science was still so very little undertstood.
You are giving the Met office too much credit for understanding long term climates-their level of expertise in this is substantially lower than for their three month forecasts.
TonyB
The Met Office has other problems. Using the Hadley Centre data, Dr William F. Scott, a senior lecturer in actuarial science and statistics at Herriott Watt University, Edinburgh has just published the following letter in The Actuary, the UK profession’s house journal.
“Global cooling
The article by Brimblecombe and Rocchi (The Actuary, July 2009) says, ‘We may see a slight temporary slowdown in the rate of warming, due to La Niña’. Using smoothing formulae given by Herbert and Scott (Scandinavian Actuarial Journal, 2006) that allow for La Niña cycles, I estimate that global warming ceased (at least for the moment) in 2004. The Global Temperature Anomaly (GTA) may be found on the Hadley Centre’s website and anyone can do their own calculations. Here are some figures (in degrees Celcius):
Year GTA (crude) GTA (smoothed)
2004 .4320 .4495
2005 .4790 .4462
2006 .4220 .4308
2007 .4030 .4015
2008 .3120 .3567
I can produce more extensive figures (and graphs) on request but, in rough terms, the extent of recent global warming was about 0.5 oC over 50 years to 2004, since when there has been a cooling of about 0.1 oC. On current trends, the GTA may be about zero in 15 years’ time and all the media talk about carbon footprints, carbon emissions and so on, will have been forgotten.
It could be argued that ‘mathematical models’ prove that global warming will resume. I can only say that mathematical models are not infallible, as has been demonstrated in the case of the mathematical models used to help to give AAA ratings to collateralised debt obligations.
William F. Scott
26 June 2009
The reference is http://www.the-actuary.org.uk/866471
PMT.
I am sure I have posted to this effect before, but these remarks from Philip Eden cannot be repeated enough:-
The CET was devised and compiled by the eminent geographer and climatologist, Professor Gordon Manley (1902-80). The culmination of a life’s work, Manley’s final paper, Central England temperatures: monthly means 1659 to 1973, was published in the Quarterly Journal of the Meteorological Society in 1974, but several earlier publications — mostly in the QJRMS — had paved the way for this magnum opus.
Since Professor Manley’s death the Meteorological Office seems to have become the self-appointed guardian of the CET series, although one wonders whether it is a guardianship of which Manley would have approved. Their continuation of the series from 1974 onwards uses observations from a variety of stations in the English Midlands (including the southeast Midlands); neither Oxford nor stations on the Lancashire Plain have been utilised, and for 30 years one coastal site was included. It is therefore manifestly not the same series, and large inhomogeneities are apparent.
Philip Eden on his website http://www.climate-uk.com/ compiles his own CET series with sites that closely match those of the original Manley series.
It will probably surprise no one here on WUWT that whereas the Hadley CET for july currently stands at +0.4C, http://www.climate-uk.com has a reading of -0.1 and that similar discrepancies with a global warming bias regularly occur.
Who to believe………..???? Another no brainer!
Guardian’s Simon Jenkins joins attack on Met Office computers for its poor seasonal forecast record:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/30/weather-forecasts-prediction-casualties-helmand
(but doesn’t mention they could also be wrong about AGW)
Maybe the MetO should take up belomancy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belomancy to improve their forecasts. Seriously though, they do not have a handle on any science that says months in advance, when large amounts of rainfall will happen, so I don`t know why they bother giving these forecasts when they really have no idea. Piers has a very good track record of predicting floods and cyclones from pulses of solar activity, and is the obvious leader in the field for such long range forecasts, his UK temperature forecasts since this February though, are typically 1.5 to 3 degrees C below real observations. It would be ironic if the MetO now follow the Piers forecast for a cooler and wetter August, and it turns out warmer and drier!
Re: the UK Met Office 5 day forecasts.
I’m a farmer in the UK and make hay during the summer (or what passes for summer recently). I need a good 5-7 days of dry/hot weather to make good hay. I watch the 5 day forecasts religiously in June/July to try and spot a suitable slot to cut grass and make hay. I have noticed that they regularly predict rain 4-5 days out, which then changes as the day approaches. Mostly an improvement – ie less rain, more dryness/sun. The forecasts for up to 48 hours are pretty accurate, but beyond that you are in the lap of the gods, unless the weather is set fair with a dominant high pressure system. I think they predict rain a few days ahead, and then pull back from that as it is more acceptable to the public to improve the forecast, than vice versa.