The Met Office is to stop publishing seasonal forecasts, after it came in for criticism for failing to predict extreme weather.
It was berated for not foreseeing that the UK would suffer this cold winter or the last three wet summers in its seasonal forecasts.
The forecasts, four times a year, will be replaced by monthly predictions.
The Met Office said it decided to change its forecasting approach after carrying out customer research.
Explaining its decision, the Met Office released a statement which said: “By their nature, forecasts become less accurate the further out we look.
Tricky forecasts
“Although we can identify general patterns of weather, the science does not exist to allow an exact forecast beyond five days, or to absolutely promise a certain type of weather.
“As a result, ‘seasonal forecasts’ cannot be as precise as our short-term forecasts.”
It said the UK is one of the hardest places to provide forecasts for due to its “size and location”, making it “very hard to forecast much beyond a week”.
However, it said its short-term forecasts are “extremely accurate”.
The Met Office, based at Exeter in Devon, added that it would work towards developing the science of long range forecasting.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/8551416.stm
=============================================
I see this more as an insurance policy than one of admission of lack of skill. Though they are right, beyond about a week, entropy and chaos kicks in. About all anyonecan forecast seasonally with accuracy is:
Spring will be warmer than winter
Summer will be warmer than spring
Fall will be cooler than summer
Winter will be colder than fall
We’ll so how well they do with short-term monthly forecasts that are “extremely accurate”.
h/t to WUWT reader Robert of Ottawa
Boy, if that isn’t a slap-down of the MET, I don’t know what is.
And, since the MET was making it’s four times a year predictions based on an AGW assumption & framework, by extension, it’s a slap-down of AGW, too.
When it rains, it pours and it’s pouring buckets — AGW is all wet.
A C Osborn > perhaps we should start this as a permenant feature to disprove their Reliability for 5 day forecasts as well.
Why not get the MET office to do it? Have them publish on their website the statistics they already must be gathering to make the claim they are accurate, after all they are funded by the taxpayer, right? If this doesn’t happen, just send FOI requests to get their accuracy records, assuming they didn’t hand them over to the CRU to “lose”.
Sean Peake (08:13:18)
Its the easiest place to determing fairly accurate seasonal – long term forecasts. At the margin of a continental climate and an atlantic climate, Given the state of the PDO, I predict 20-30 years of cool winters and fairly cool/wet summers
Here we go again:
After review of science, evidence of human influence climate more clear!
Let’s have the data!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8550090.stm
addendum to the above re: Charlie Barnes (08:11:10)
“By their nature, forecasts become less accurate the further out we look. ”
100 years hence is an awfully long way ahead compared to the inability to predict the next season by rapport to the next few days
that’s certainly a paradox.
I’m studying Global Climate Change as a grad student this semester and have been really put off by the email issue. The British Met Office has recognized it’s lost credibility. Our own Met department hasn’t a clue when the snow will come, nor how long it will stay.
The more I study this stuff, the more I am convinced that the Change folks are far too certain of their data (which turns up incorrect often enough that it ought to concern them) for their own good.
I still believe that the globe is warming, and I still think that some of the issue is man-made… but every thing I investigate has the smell of advocacy – not science – behind it.
Which makes me SUSPICIOUS.
geronimo (10:30:47) : “The Met Office has been taken over by environmentalists, its weather forecasts have been twisted to support AGW.”
Quite right, from the top down, ex-WWF eco-imperialist Robert Napier, who praised the Met’s seasonal forecasting (“During the last year I have been impressed, but not surprised, by our accurate forecasts…for the…season ahead”).
http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/eco-imperialism-every-environmentalists-dream/
Napier stated “The Met Office delivered in its two core roles — weather forecasting and climate change research. I’m delighted therefore that we hit nearly all our Key Performance Targets…the Met Office’s new supercomputer has been really important, as it will allow us to run forecasts at a much higher resolution of 1.5 km. This will strengthen us as the only facility in the world to offer seamless prediction from tomorrow through the next 100 years.”
Not to be outdone, the Met’s Dr Vicky Pope (who has tried to temper exaggeration) declared as far back as 2007, before the new supercomputer:
“Much longer predictions are run, typically…predicting the next 100 to 1,000 years.”
Then there’s Met Office Chief Scientist, Julia Slingo (also President of the Royal meteorological Society)
http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/met-office-fraudcast/
Difficult to believe anything she says now: it’s just government propaganda.
The Met Office said it decided to change its forecasting
approach after carrying out customer research.
Translation:
Earlier this year the BBC threatened to drop the Met Office as
their source for daily weather reports and near-term
forcasting.
“Simon (08:46:46) :
To be fair, there are some phenomena which are more easily forecasted on a large scale than a small scale.”
This can only be true for systems in which small scale phenomena do not have an influence on large scale phenomena. Weather doesn’t belong to these systems; clouds are small scale phenomena. So high frequency small scale phenomena do influence the large scale system through what climate scientists call feedbacks (in my view, these are negative feedbacks, but then again i don’t have truckloads of dystopian books to sell like Hansen).
They do seem to be in trouble. Correct me if I am wrong but:
– Met Office confirmed that all of their forecasting uses the same models (daily, 5-day, monthly, annual, 100 year …)
– Met Office confirmed that their annual forecast has a warm bias of 0.05C (or 0.5C per decade, or 5C per century)
Game over for the Met Office, surely?
These insensitive clods in the Met Office have just taken away the one reason I had to look forward to a rainy summer.
So let me get this straight: The Met Office has admitted they can be replaced by a weather rock?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=%22weather+rock%22
I believe when this statement was made, it was on the understanding that everyone had forgotten about the millions spent on a ‘super’ computer…now everyone just has to being that up….oh look over there! a squeaky toy !
Unfortunately, they will have to go back to predicting extremities: would you feel happy about paying millions for a computer which keeps on telling you that it’s ‘business as usual’? No, it has to ‘do’ something apart from consume great quantities of electricity.
This will surely come back to bite them – the very next time that they make a pronouncement that goes beyond five days. I can’t wait.
They’ll need more of your tax dollars anyway to fund their massive salaries in order to incorrectly predict warming that can only be stopped with even more of your tax dollars.
Carry on.
Cheerio.
From http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8550090.stm (referred to above) comes the following:
“The analysis, published in the Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change Journal, has assessed 110 research papers on the subject.” and “We started writing this paper a year ago.”
How many of those 110 “papers” have the same blighted pedigree as those found to be ‘grey’ literature in the IPCC reports? The concoction of this new farrago began BEFORE Climategate effectively gave lie to a lot of what the IPCC was spouting at that time and which was being believed by many.
In re the Baltic shutdown, I just want to register a vote, and a huge note of thanks, for the fresh content Watts Up provides day after day!
Sorry for the consequent O/T, but I also wondered Watts Up with the “fabled” Northeast Passage these days. Should we be nominating Beluga Shipping for a Premature “Mission Accomplished” award? If anyone is pondering Russian interest in mitigating AGW, see: Arctic, Gazprom. The ironies just keep on coming.
http://aqviva.dk/2009/09/challenge-northeast-passage-mastered/
The bigger the computer the more inaccuracies produced, does this mean that all their ‘near’ 10 year or 20 year divinations are also on the scrapheap?
Have they no sense of irony?
On hand tells it “we are very exact for 5 days.”
on the other hand “we cannot predict for 3 months.”
But we are telling you – it will in 20 or 50 years do this and that and be 2/3/5 degrees warmer………….. .
Once more the power of speech fails me.
Apologies for obvious repetition but it beggars belief, or belief needs to be suspended and a leap of faith is required, bring out the Shaman and the bones.
“the Met Office released a statement which said: “By their nature, forecasts become less accurate the further out we look.”
And we are supposed to believe forecasts 100 years out ?????
Priceless!!
“Although we can identify general patterns of weather, the science does not exist to allow an exact forecast beyond five days, or to absolutely promise a certain type of weather.”
Apparently, and considering the less then precise short-term forecasts as well, and not to be too cheeky, or even gloat, Bastardi seem to know his stuff and, for the past few month’ that I have followed him, he’s rather good at long term forecasting whereas met comes of as complete morons. How can one, and apparently to some testo, sceptic get it so right when so many and their supposedly superior super climate and weather computer get it so wrong?
It would be useful to actually know which papers have been reviewed so we can see the strength of the evidence. According to the BBC;
“The analysis, published in the Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change Journal, has assessed 110 research papers on the subject. …”
As far as I can see the Met Office-funded by the UK tax payer- has used its researchers-funded by the UK tax payer- to write a document-funded etc etc- and then put the whole lot behind a pay wall so we can’t gain access to the report without paying for it.
Anyone got any access rights and can let us know just what has been reviewed??
tonyb
The only thing the British Government can do now is to replace the head of the Met. Office with someone of unimpeachable character who has a steel trap mind for details and numbers.
I believe each of you are well aware of the World renouned ‘scientist’ of whom I speak. I understand he is currently on paid leave from his current position while his office is being remodeled and repainted.
We can simply not afford to hire ignorant, sloppy, untrustworthy people for such important positions.
“The Met Office said it decided to change its forecasting approach after carrying out customer research.”
Kinda makes you wonder what their research tells them about their even longer term forecasts.
R. de Haan (10:48:45) :
From the article:
“And all these different aspects of the climate system are adding up to a picture of the effects of a human influence on our climate.”
I’d like to know how they make the distinction from natural variability. If I see the number of sunspots “change”, I could say it adds up to the effects of human influence.. doesn’t mean I’m right, though.
Since there’s no link to a published study, and no data, I’ll give the story the credit it deserves: none.
I make better predictions looking at the sky & watching the direction the clouds are blowing.
They were coming from due North today, so I guess bloody cold is a fair guess.
The South of England will get it worst.
DaveE.