It’s not like there haven’t been clues. Like for example as I pointed out the Arctic Oscillation has gone strongly negative.
The article says:
“The cold weather comes despite the Met Office’s long range forecast, published, in October, of a mild winter. That followed it’s earlier inaccurate prediction of a “barbecue summer”, which then saw heavy rainfall and the wettest July for almost 100 years.”
Excerpts:
Britain is bracing itself for one of the coldest winters for a century with temperatures hitting minus 16 degrees Celsius, forecasters have warned.
They predicted no let up in the freezing snap until at least mid-January, with snow, ice and severe frosts dominating.
And the likelihood is that the second half of the month will be even colder.
Weather patterns were more like those in the late 1970s, experts said, while Met Office figures released on Monday are expected to show that the country is experiencing the coldest winter for up to 25 years.
On New Year’s Day 10 extreme weather warnings were in place, with heavy snow expected in northern England and Scotland.
Despite New Year celebrations passing off mostly unaffected by the weather, drivers in parts of the country, particularly areas of Northumberland, Cumbria and the Scottish Highlands, were warned not to travel unless absolutely necessary.
The continued freezing temperatures did not signal bad news for everyone however. CairnGorm Mountain said it has had its best Christmas holiday season in 14 years.
With heavy snow in the area, the resort said that over a four-day period following Christmas Day it has had more than 8,000 skiers and snowboarders using its runs – including 800 on New Year’s Eve.
h/t to David Corcoran
@ur momisugly E.M.Smith (23:44:32) :
And if you are “Harry” or whomever, at which point when looking at old buggy code do you just say screw it and write new code you know will work?
I realize some systems may be using code that took decades to develop so people don’t want to simply chuck it. But so much “development” was for specific proprietary systems, optimizing scarce resources, creating certain functions and subroutines… Stuff that doesn’t apply with the current state of programming languages, with their vast libraries to draw from, with portable code, better iron, and other improvements. At which point when looking at an awful mess do you just ask what data are you using, what are you doing with the data, what output do you want, and go from there?
Poor Harry sounded like a complete outsider, hauled in to figure out what CRU was doing. Had to figure out the databases, how they were set up, what the programs were doing with the data… From the “read me” notes I’ve read, you’d think he was a “forensic programmer,” working alone after-the-fact to decipher how things were messed up, trying to un-mess them into something usable, recognizable, with no contact with the CRU crew. If he had simply been assigned to help them have better running code, I would think he would have tossed out the old junk pretty dang quick.
Purakanui (23:27:55) :
Ditto
Heavy snow brings Beijing to standstill
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60204B20100103
E.M.Smith (23:44:32) :
“FORTRAN programmers start arrays at 1
C programmers start arrays at 0
ALGOL programmers start arrays at any number including negative…”
And in C-Sharp (C#) you dont need to count at all…
For (each train in trains)
{
do whatever you like for the train…..
}
hehe
As time passes and the IPCC models are found to be clearly way out of line (as usual) even to the most loony AGW believer, what then? Will they ask for more billions of funding to come up with the next false prediction? What a serious waste of taxpayers money. People who continue to play this game will hopefully one day find themselves in jail.
The abysmal performance of the UK Met Office receives more castigation from both Richard North of EUReferendum and Chris Booker.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1240082/It-gigantic-supercomputer-1-500-staff-170m-year-budget-So-does-Met-Office-wrong.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6924898/The-Met-Office-gives-us-the-warmist-weather.html
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/
Thank goodness for a warming open fire.
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (15:52:58) :
You should have mentioned that the Norwegian weather service covers a large chunk of the Arctic in addition to Norway and consequently also has an ice service, a branch that can hardly be very large in the UK.
As a comparison SMHI, the Swedish Weather Service has 600 employees, including weather observers. SMHI is fairly heavily bureaucratized, and in my (and many other swedes) opinion the norwegian forecasts are more reliable.
XYZLatin 14:12:20
E.M. Smith 15:27:46
Re Met Staffing
Remember that the original Parkinsons Law (derived from British Admiralty estimates 1914 – 1928) was that
“Work expands so as to fill the volume of time available for its completion”.
More gems in that read too.
E.M.Smith (23:44:32) : FORTRAN programmers start arrays at 1 …
A beautiful piece, thank you, E. M. — my ignorance is legion, but I can still relate to a compelling story.
Henry chance (07:43:30) :
“For warmistas, their safest strategy is to be very quiet. If they do decide to speak, they do need to admit is cald and nasty and will be for a while this winter. They lose face posting warmest on record stories when it is record cold.”
Likewise, when the church of Al Gore and the rest of the AGW crowd are busy overheating their keyboards in the hot summer months of June, July, and August, AGW skeptics best keep a low profile and enjoy their summer frolicking in the pool, downing a frosty, and barbecuing delicious steaks.
Joe Bastardi’s forecast for Europe was for a major snow storm moving up from the south around the middle of this week. I’ve already checked the met forecast for England and so far all they have shown is light snow on and off for a couple of days. I wonder who will turn out to be right?
So how does the MetOffice make its seasonal predictions?
1 – Crank up the Computer. Global warming/future climate models suggest that Britains winters will become milder and wetter.
2 – Keep an eye on the weather, get outside, take plenty of smoke breaks. A warmer than average autumn builds confidence. Just about the end of November and hardly a frost to be seen.
3 – It’s December and winter has started, going out for those smoke breaks it’s getting jolly cold. Oh well we’ll put out a forecast for a cold January. Perhaps the weather will get it right for February it’s deviating from the models. A few “tricks” with the data should correct that.
4 – The SUMMER The Hottest Year ever
Winter forecast 2009/10
Tue 23 July 2009
Temperature
Early indications are that winter temperatures are likely to be near or above average over much of Europe including the UK. For the UK, Winter 2009/10 is likely to be milder than last year.
Rainfall
Early indications are that winter precipitation is likely to be near or above average over much of northern Europe. For the UK, Winter 2009/10 is likely to be wetter than last year.
Tue 29 Sept 2009
Temperature
Preliminary indications continue to suggest that winter temperatures are likely to be near or above average over much of Europe including the UK. Winter 2009/10 is likely to be milder than last year for the UK, but there is still a 1 in 7 chance of a cold winter.
Rainfall
Signals for precipitation slightly favour near or above average rainfall over much of northern Europe, including the UK
Fri 27 Nov 2009
Temperature
“For northern Europe, including the UK, there is a 20% chance of a colder winter, a 30% chance of an average winter and a 50% chance of a milder winter”
Rinfall
“For northern Europe, including the UK, signals for precipitation are weak, with near equal chances for each of the three categories. There is a 30% chance of a drier winter, a 35% chance of an average winter and a 35% chance of a wetter winter”
Wed 30 Dec 2009
Temperature
For the rest of winter, over northern Europe including the UK, the chance of colder conditions is now 45%; there is a 30% chance of average and a 25% chance of milder conditions.
Rainfall
For the rest of winter, for northern Europe including the UK, there are near equal chances for each of the three categories. There is a 30% chance of a drier winter, a 35% chance of an average winter and a 35% chance of a wetter winter.
kadaka (00:43:40) :
@ur momisugly E.M.Smith (23:44:32) :
And if you are “Harry” or whomever, at which point when looking at old buggy code do you just say screw it and write new code you know will work?
Shortly after the maintenance contract runs out 😉
Seriously, though, it comes down to an unanswerable question:
WIll I introduce more new bugs than I remove old bugs?
Since in both cases the quantity of bugs is unknowable, the answer is a matter of faith, not reason. Most typically it depends on the degree to which you are certain you are a significantly better programmer than the prior person. In both cases, you still need an independent QA step to review the code…
But to your other points: Just about any legacy system with a “new guy” brought in, to have some maintenance work done, would be described the way you described Harry. The last guy left town for a better job, the other folks in the shop never read the code, you have been handed this bucket of worms: have a nice day… And EVERYBODY gets that urge to do a from scratch re-write. It is often in error…
Typically, the terms of the contract say “patch” or “re-write” and changing from “patch” to “re-write” after the fact is not easy (for reasons of negotiation and budget, not technically.)
FWIW, I’m up to my eyeballs in GIStemp. IMHO it would be best handled as a relational database with some data load scripts, some extracts, and a couple of reports. Far faster and more efficient (and less prone to bugs!) than the present design. But were I doing this work on contract at NASA the odds of getting that “signed off” would be NIL. Why? Because Hansen designed and, IMHO, coded (wrote) a lot of the program himself. He would never “sign off” on having HIS work tossed in the bin… And that’s the OTHER problem in asking to do a re-write… “Enhancement” sells better than “trash it” when talking about the bosses baby.
kwik (01:11:35) :
And in C-Sharp (C#) you dont need to count at all…
Yeah, “object oriented” guys are not into procedural things, like counting. Just ask the trains how many they are and their method will devine the answer “OOOOMMMMmmmmm” 5 sayeth the oracle… (though someone had to teach the method to grok the quantity of a thing…) But at it’s core, yes, I agree that the C# programs have trouble counting 😉
@ur momisuglyRoger Carr and Another Ian: Thanks, glad you liked it!
http://www.metcheck.com/V40/UK/HOME/
-20C in parts of Northern Britain this coming week.
Yikes!
Glenn Rowe (08:11:08) :
You have to make a distinction between the two Telegraphs. Although sister publications, they’re poles apart on climate change.
The Daily Telegraph coverage has been consistently biased and one-sided.
In contrast, the Sunday Telegraph has been far more balanced with a possible bias toward scepticism. It has published good articles by Christopher Monckton and Bob Carter – as well as a piece by Gore – and of course it is the home of Christopher Booker.
Having said that, I have noticed some changes at the Daily Telegraph. I almost fell off my chair when I read a news report which mostly consisted of comments by Monckton! And one of their top writers, Simon Heffer, has now declared himself to be a complete sceptic. It’s also noticeable that most climate-related letters that they print are sceptical.
*****************************************
Here’s a wonderful example of ‘it’s freezing because of global warming’ in todays’s UK Observer. The heading of the two-page spread: “Peru’s mountain people struggle as the winters grow ever colder”. In a mountain village animals and even children have been dying due to much harsher winters over the last few years.
This is very sad. But in a world that appears to be growing colder, people who live in marginal conditions such as these mountain villages may be the first to feel the devastating effects of global cooling.
.
But wait….
The next paragraph begins: “In a world growing ever hotter….”
You can guess the rest. It’s all caused by global warming and it will be worse because of the failure of Copenhagen. You couldn’t make it up….
Chris
For comparison against the UK, here is the Australia BOM staffing report from last year showing breakup of labour etc.
http://www.bom.gov.au/inside/eiab/reports/ar08-09/Appendix-3.pdf
Oh and just to approximate the major numbers :
1270 all up
190 IT staff
600 professional staff
460 technical staff
240 management
20 researchers
and most importantly,
5 janitors
All over the world, there is the Climate in total revolt.
The warmists went charging out there to find retreating glaciers, only to find the glaciers charging back at them.
The widely touted claims of global warming have given way to shieks of terrible blizzards, all caused by man.
For once, they are right. If they had remained calm and not gone running off into the rooftops of the world, they would now be observing from comfort and relative safety.
The stories from the big typhoon brings the behavior to light: As the ocean receeded strangely, the unwary and over-curios walked out where they shouldn’t have gone.
The warmists now find themselves out on a limb, snapping under the load, in too lofty of a place. They’ll never learn.
So, how long before global cooling is recognized by the mass media as the real threat to human civilization? If one had the choice of the two, global cooling would be far more devastating than global warming. I hope we do get some global warming soon or the world will be in serious trouble in just a few years, perhaps much sooner. What’s the media going to talk about? The climate on Venus to try and divert our attention from what’s really happening? Do millions of people have to die unnecessarily because of some political spin that got out of hand by our so called leaders? Isn’t it time now to get all relevant scientists to speak the truth and avert the loss of lives?
Text below from local meteorologist (Pitlochry, Highland Perthshire, Scotland):
————————————————
“DECEMBER 2009. The month saw temperatures around 3 to 4 degrees below the long term average. This degree of negative anomaly has been very rare for ANY month over the past 20 years or so & must give ammunition to the “no warming trend” lobby. There were 5 nights below -10 & on the 28th, a maximum of only -7.8. Rainfall amounts (more than half of it in the form of snow) totalled around 83% of average. A memorable month then, for the severity of the cold spell, which threatens to continue for some time into the New Year.”
————————————————
See http://homepages.tesco.net/barry.gratton1/ for source and http://www.aberfeldyweather.com/ for neighbouring MO station. Minus 14C again here last night, and as usual temperatures have been colder further west and north (e.g. Glen Lyon and Braemar).
Erik (09:39:49) :
“I asked in another thread some time ago, but I think it might have got lost among the hundreds of comments. Does anyone know of a site with the recent snow cover for Europe?”
_________________
If you don’t already have a better answer take a look at:
http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/fsdivka.html
Ian Cooper (19:11:58) :
I cannot help getting annoyed by this argument. It is true, accurate and logical. It is correct. But it is not beautiful!. If you want beauty and joy, you celebrate the new millennium on 1/1/200, and do not wait until 1/1/2001.
The world likes it, wants it, and it makes a lot of sense. Just because a load of religious nitwits never included a logical year zero that every child has apart from Jesus (and this is the only reason this logical argument holds weight) does not stop us being rational and pragmatic about our dates two thousand years later!
(sorry, but it does wind me up a bit 😉
I was not providing an opionon really, just stating the facts sought from the yearly report. Other relevant info (as considered by Meterorologisk Institutt) is found in the yearly report I linked to.
It is true that Norway has a vast sea and arctic area to cover. We also have less than 5 million people in total.
Geek response (I used to be a FORTRAN geek):
If my memory serves me, an array even in FORTRAN77 starts where the programmer defines it should start, for example, an array may start at -1:
REAL A(-1:6)
REAL B(8)
Both A and B array lengths are 8. A starts at -1 while B starts at 1. The B declaration is really just shorthand for
REAL B(1:8)
That is, if memory serves me correctly…
Actually, this feature does not exist in C or C++, where all native arrays start at 0. However, in C++ you have the much more powerful concept of containers and iterators. You really don’t need arrays at all 99% of the time.
SteveGinIL (19:29:27) :
> … found a great link to Reference: 450 skeptical peer reviewed papers, posted by Anthony on November 15th,
Ah yes, that’s a good one. In fact, you’ve inspired me to add a section to http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/wuwt/ to record some blog posts that should not be allowed to fade into history as quickly as most posts.
Request to all: If you have some favorite WUWT posts that you’ve bookmarked or otherwise refer to every so often, post the link here and I’ll likely add it to my list.
For the time being, I just want WUWT posts, but at some point it might be worthwhile to create a new web page that casts a wider net.
‘Harry’ is presumably Ian (harry) Harris who has been on the CRUs research staff for the entire period of ‘climategate’. Think I’ve seen only one climategate email from him and that was to show the rest of the team that he knew how to sneer as well as they did.