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
Katabasis
Stott is citing an awful lot of his own papers. As far as I can tell on a quick check many of the references are also for pay wall material so the amount of checking that can be done seems limited. You sound as if you have access to the material. Can you post your results here or email me via my web site here?
http://climatereason.com/LittleIceAgeThermometers/
Thanks
Tonyb
Tony – I’ll be more than happy to send you my comments. I, unfortunately, don’t have time to chase up the individual papers cited. I should also add the caveat that, if I have specialist areas, they are computing, epistemology and political philosophy, so I’m not sure how useful my own thoughts on this paper will be.
I’m currently half way through it and two things are already clear however:
i) the comments made in this paper bear little resemblance to the alarmist claims in the BBC article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8550090.stm
It’s chock full of caveats that give a substantial air of uncertainty and allows for a lot of other forcing factors other than just plain old CO2. If anything, it gives the distinct impression that the human impact is *less* certain.
ii) the basis of the entire paper’s analysis is the HadCRUT data, and Mann’s hockey stick. Someone kill me please.
I always enjoy your posts (and your comments) on this heroic blog, Steve Goddard. But I do wish you’d deploy your apostrophes a little less eccentrically.
(Sorry, I’m an English teacher, and a Brit, to boot, so I guess you can understand that sometimes I find it quite hard to switch off 🙂
Doing this quickly, so corrections to the calculations are welcomed:
U.S. atmospheric tests = 137 megatons = 5.73208e+17 joules = 9.553466667e+15 Watts = 9,553,466,667,000 KW
Katabasis
Look forward to your further comments.
Your remark’ ‘It’s chock full of caveats’ gave me a certain sense of deja vu-most climate science seems to be so chock full of caveats its virtually pointless but alarmists proclaim it as certainties.
tonyb
TonyB/Katabasis/et al – re the Met Office ‘analysis’ as reported by the BBC..
I notice that one of the indicators they cite is the ‘reduction’ in Arctic sea ice. Er – obviously they don’t look at the JAXA graph – see my previous comment – so where are they getting their information..? From the cruise ships stuck in the Baltic ice, perhaps..?
Also – they talk about an increase in ‘humidity’ – now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve always been under the impression that water vapour is a FAR more potent greenhouse gas than poor old carbon dioxide. As I have been banging on about for months elsewhere (you have been spared) – Kyoto specifically talked about reducing CO2 EQUIVALENT – NOT CO2 itself..!
Anyway – precisely how have they made the leap of faith between an increase in humidity and human activity..? Is it a case of: ‘We can’t find another cause, so it MUST be due to man’..?
‘Evidence’, then…
“D. Patterson (14:47:05) :
[…]
Doing this quickly, so corrections to the calculations are welcomed:
U.S. atmospheric tests = 137 megatons = 5.73208e+17 joules = 9.553466667e+15 Watts = 9,553,466,667,000 KW
”
google says:
5.73208e+17 joules = 5.73208 × 10^7 watts seconds
5.73208e+17 joules = 1.59224444 × 10^14 watt hours
5.73208e+17 joules = 159 224.444 gigawatt hours
“DirkH (03:03:34) :
[…]
google says:
5.73208e+17 joules = 5.73208 × 10^7 watts seconds
”
Sorry, mis-edit:
5.73208e+17 joules = 5.73208 × 10^17 watts seconds
Google was right, but i had to insert the ^ after pasting and accidentally overwrote the “1” of the exponent.
“Met Office Chief Scientist Juila Slingo talks about the link between climate change and building houses at the Grand Designs Live Show. Plus a tour of some of the Eco-Houses at the show.”
Welcome to the dark ages.
DirkH
Funny – I didn’t spot Al Gore’s house amongst these ‘pods’ and ‘yurts’….
OK – here is my take on the paper:
http://i-squared.blogspot.com/2010/03/met-office-review-climate-change-human.html
It is an angry and personal piece. I won’t apologise for that. Like so many others I’m sure, who come here (not least Anthony himself), I’m sick of having to spend my weekend to do the reading and the analysis that we trust our idiot quisling media, elected officials and scientific establishment to do.
katabasis
Good stuff.
This thread is getting to the end of its life-why don’tr you place your link together with the context up on tips and notes and ask if its worth a thread in its own right? These stories get the headlines and it is important to rebut them when appropriate.
best regards
Tonyb
Although The Met hasn’t had a very good track record for seasonal forecasts, Piers Corbyn has enjoyed an 85% success at forecasting weather for specific areas one year in advance.
What is Piers doing that the Met isn’t?