Recently the Chief of the met office went on UK TV to say:
“OUR SHORT TERM FORECASTS ARE AMONG THE BEST IN THE WORLD.” (see video here)
Yesterday, the UK Met Office had to make a rare mea culpa, saying they had botched their own recent snow forecast, it is useful to point out that they aren’t the only one with egg on their faces.
In early October, the Arctic Oscillation (AO) took an unexpected dip into deeply negative territory, which led to the sixth snowiest October on record in the Northern Hemisphere and the snowiest on record in the US. If you look at the 14 day forecast at the bottom of the graph below, you can see that the dip caught NOAA forecasters off guard.
Source: NOAA Arctic Oscillation Forecast
According to Rutgers University Snow Lab, October, 2009 was the snowiest on record in the US.
| Contiguous United States | ||||
| Month | Rank | Area | Departure | Mean |
| 12-2009 | 1/44 | 4161 | 1292 | 2869 |
| 11-2009 | 39/44 | 585 | -512 | 1097 |
| 10-2009 | 1/42 | 538 | 385 | 153 |
| 9-2009 | 5/41 | 21 | 13 | 8 |
| 8-2009 | 12-41/41 | 0 | -5 | 5 |
| 7-2009 | 24-40/40 | 0 | -17 | 17 |
| 6-2009 | 32-42/42 | 0 | -64 | 64 |
| 5-2009 | 37/43 | 34 | -151 | 185 |
| 4-2009 | 17/43 | 859 | 106 | 753 |
| 3-2009 | 23/43 | 1964 | -18 | 1983 |
| 2-2009 | 17/43 | 3172 | 110 | 3062 |
| 1-2009 | 15/43 | 3696 | 185 | 3511 |
Source: Rutgers University Snow Lab
The director of NCAR captured the moment perfectly in this East Anglia Email – dated October 12.
From: Kevin Trenberth <trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>To: Michael Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: BBC U-turn on climate
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:57:37 -0600
Cc: Stephen H Schneider <shs@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Myles Allen <allen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, peter stott <peter.stott@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, “Philip D. Jones” <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Benjamin Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Thomas R Karl <Thomas.R.Karl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, James Hansen <jhansen@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Michael Oppenheimer <omichael@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Hi all
Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low. This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday and then played last night in below freezing weather).
Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth’s global
energy. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 1, 19-27,
doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001. [1][PDF] (A PDF of the published version can be obtained
from the author.)
The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a
travesty that we can’t.
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1048&filename=1255352257.txt
Once again, this begs the question – if the GCMs can’t forecast the AO two weeks in advance, how can they possible forecast snow and cold 70 years in advance? University of Colorado professor Mark Williams used climate models in 2008 to come up with a remarkable prediction (below) in a year when Aspen broke their snowfall record.
Study: Climate change may force skiers uphill
From the From the Associated Press
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
DENVER — A study of two Rocky Mountain ski resorts says climate change will mean shorter seasons and less snow on lower slopes.
The study by two Colorado researchers says Aspen Mountain in Colorado and Park City in Utah will see dramatic changes even with a reduction in carbon emissions, which fuel climate change.
University of Colorado-Boulder geography professor Mark Williams said Monday that the resorts should be in fairly good shape the next 25 years, but after that there will be less snowpack — or no snow at all — at the base areas, and the season will be shorter because snow will accumulate later and melt earlier.
If carbon emissions increase, the average temperature at Park City will be 10.4 degrees warmer by 2100, and there likely will be no snowpack, according to the study. Skiing at Aspen, with an average temperature 8.6 degrees higher than now, will be marginal.
Since the first of October, Colorado is averaging two to eight degrees below normal, as is most of the US:
Source : NOAA High Plains Regional Climate Center
In December 2009, Colorado averaged three to fifteen degrees below normal, once again correlating with a strongly negative Arctic Oscillation
Source : NOAA High Plains Regional Climate Center
Climate models are iterative through time, which means once they go off in the weeds they can not recover. If AO trends can not be forecast more than a few days in advance, it would seem problematic to make any sort of meaningful long-term climate projections using GCMs.
Re: Leif Svalgaard (06:43:33) & Leif Svalgaard (05:49:42)
I’m not endorsing the authors’ assumptions & conclusions. I recall the WUWT thread on the paper – I share your concerns. Their interpretations are a mess.
Clarification: I’m referring to the statistical method outlined in the paper – that is why I am citing the paper — that was the first time I’d seen that method, but I’ve since noticed that it is standard statistical methodology.
aa index has a very skewed distribution. Monthly averages are thus pulled high in some decades. A statistician would cringe at this. (This corrupts analyses.)
The signals I’ve isolated are challenging to interpret because there are layers of complexity in the index. I share your concerns about the secular variation — from what I know about stats-fundamentals, antipodal-contrast drift and skewed-averaging could be part of the problem with the series, but it will take time (particularly since my attention is divided over competing obligations) to run more analyses and learn more about secular-variation-removal challenges. It won’t be anytime soon (if ever) that I reach your level of understanding of what goes into the index. For now my interpretation is: “Inconclusive, but definitely not random”. I might further speculate: “probably largely nonsolar”.
Your various notes help rule out possibilities.
Richard M (11:08:54) :
Richard Holle (10:46:36), “I have made many posts on the principals, in action in this method over the past 10 years, most are still on line and search able by using a Google “Richard Holle aerology” query. There is way too much volume to post here.”
Richard, maybe you could think about updating your website with the information found via Google. If you really want folks to assess it, you want to make it easy. No need to retype anything, just cut and paste from the Google results.
My reply;
Your suggestion taken to heart and as soon as I get my income tax refund, to have money for gas I need to travel to Phoenix I’ll have my daughter who does my web site work, update it to include most of the past text narrative with graphics, needed to present it all in one space.
I might have to add a couple more pages, to encompass the data and details, of surges producing tornadoes, and a detailed forecast for dates of production for the rest of 2010, and another for hurricane forecast as to dates of probable occurrence, and resultant strengths.
We already had a spate of 14 (preliminary data total) on the 20th January 2010 [today], just as the Moon crossed the equator headed North. Which brought in warmer moist air from the gulf, and a nice tight body of more polar, dry line air mass, mid afternoon to start things off.
If you overlay the locations of the tornadoes produced today, onto my forecast map [that goes from 6am the 20th to 6am the 21st] you will see that they fall into the area, where the precipitation is lighter due to shear and speed of transit, then quit around midnight or later to produce the heaver solid, less turbulent and less severe rain that is the brighter yellows and light reds in my forecast map.
This trend is usual for the location of the tornado production fit onto the maps I generate with my method. The concentration of tornadoes falls into the netted or filamentary looking precipitation patterns from the last three cycles where the tornadoes were also produced.
If you were to post the long/lat locations of the tornadoes produced the last three cycles, onto the maps they would give a fair representation of this years tornado expected production, years in advance.
I am going to try to incorporate this method into a separate page for severe weather forecast that may be capable of tornado production for the rest of this year at least and maybe for all four remaining years of the maps posted, if I get the time to do it in the next month or so.
There is only so much I can do on a budget of less than $2,000.00 a year.