Guest post by Steven Goddard
On July 23, 2009 the UK Met Office issued their infamous winter forecast, ahead of the coldest winter in 50 years. It read:
“…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 *(and wetter) than last year “.
This was recorded by Piers Corbyn at Weather Action and several other sites on July 23.
Source:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/science/creating/monthsahead/seasonal/2009/winter.html (released 23 July)
I remember reading the article on the Met Office web site at the time. But something funny happened on December 30, 2009. The Met Office over wrote that link with a new article titled “Forecast for the rest of Winter 2009/10” which has no mention of the original prediction. It now reads:
…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.
Their original warm winter forecast seems to have been scrubbed from the web site, and there are no longer any press releases dated July 23.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/index.html
Other sites which noted the July 23 Met Office article and link include:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=3758
According to The Independent, the winter forecast seems to have been updated on September 29, but the Met Office no longer has any press releases with that date either.
The Met Office came under tremendous fire as a result of their disastrously bad winter prediction
The Big Question: Should the BBC drop the Met Office as its official weather forecaster? By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
And this lead them to drop their seasonal forecasts, which have been notoriously poor in recent years. What could have motivated them to destroy their original winter forecast?
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[From AW– Note: unlike government services in the USA, the UK Met Office gets bonuses, see their benefits package:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/recruitment/benefits.html So, this might be an incentive to remove poor work products.
The Times did a story about it last August after the BBQ summer fiasco: It’s raining bonuses at the Met Office
And the Met Office Chief, despite botched forecasts, got a 25% pay increase in January 2010, according to this Telegraph story:
Met Office chief receives 25 pc pay rise
The head of the Met Office, the national weather service which has been heavily criticised for getting its forecasts wrong, is now paid more than the Prime Minister, after receiving a 25 per cent pay rise.
]
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For the record, here are a few of of their other classic mis-predictions:
2007 – forecast to be the warmest year yet Wrong – la Nina hit and temperatures plummeted.
Met Office forecast for Summer 2007 Hot summer – Wrong – it was the wettest summer on record with cold daytime temperatures.
A typical British summer 2008 Wrong – it was the second wettest summer on record with cold daytime temperatures.
Trend of mild winters continues 2008 Wrong – it was the coldest winter in 15 years.
Summer forecast 2009 “Barbecue Summer” 2009 Wrong – another miserable washout of a summer.
Warming could push Greenland ice sheet beyond ‘tipping points’ Complete nonsense
Chief defends Met Office record
John Hirst, head of the Met Office, defends the record of the weathermen after they predicted a mild winter.
Andrew Neil asked him to justify his salary which is higher than the prime minister’s.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/the_daily_politics/8443687.stm
Maybe Piers Corbyn, Joe Bastardi and John D’Aleo were just luckier than the MET. But i think they have identified long term oscillations for their seasonal forecasts so that they can perform at least better than a toin coss. How can this be when weather is chaotic? Well, the answer can only be the huge heat reservoir that are the oceans. They seem to have a longer time constant than the atmosphere.
So the MET really did mess up completely and they could really have done better IMHO. It was not impossible to perform better. They believed their own skewed view. I wonder what they believe now.
If the three-months weather forecasts aren’t reliable, long-term forecast of global temperature are even less reliable?
Nah! That’s like saying if we can’t predict what the stock market will do over the next three months, we can’t predict it will rise over the next 50 years. People know better than that, which is why they invest in the market for the long-term.
”””’Mattias, Sweden (21:27:43) : . . . . I wanted to tell that long time range forecast of parameters like temperature and precipitation is at the current knowledge level are difficult to make . . .”””’
Mattias,
Glad I did not offend you with my dim views of the MET. : )
Maybe we need to make an index of a group of relatively successful seasonal forecasters. Then handicap them like horses in a horse race. We could sell accuracy bets on their forecast to people on a comission basis . . . . . hmmmm. Just kidding, sort of.
John
””””Wren (00:47:16) : If the three-months weather forecasts aren’t reliable, long-term forecast of global temperature are even less reliable? Nah! That’s like saying if we can’t predict what the stock market will do over the next three months, we can’t predict it will rise over the next 50 years. People know better than that, which is why they invest in the market for the long-term.”””
Wren,
Back already? Are you addicted? I am.
It is 4:00 pm here in Taiwan.
As to your comment, farmers make investments on the basis of seasonal/longer range weather forecasts, just like investors make investments in long range stock market forecasts. It would appear that enough investors and farmers meet or exceed their expectations for gain based on the forecasts.
John
I’m certain the ‘mild winter’ prediction was still on their website well into December. In fact I’m almost certain it was at the top of this page:-
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2007/pr20071127.html
I’m sure I made a comment about it on here (or perhaps EU Referendum) contrasting their ‘mild’ predticion with what Bastardi & Corbyn were saying.
I’ll see if I can find it.
I must say I see no UK summer forecasts in the public domain right now – not from Weather Action either.
Did here one from a loner in mid-Wales who, like Corbyn, called this winter right.
He says it’ll be a hot summer.
Certainly seen the biggest bumble bee in history this week. Maybe the late start to spring has co-ordinated a huge amount of flowering so the bee was in the sweet shop stuffing himself????
There’s a thing.
Go to http://forum.netweather.tv/topic/55376-met-office-winter-forecast/page__st__170
scroll down to 27 November and check out:-
“londonsnow, on 27 November 2009 – 11:09 , said:
“met office winter forecast is out. suggesting 50% chance of milder winter, 30% average, and 20% colder. the daily express will be furious!”
Now go to the contemporary link on that page:-
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/science/creating/monthsahead/seasonal/2009/winter.html
(now with a tag for 30 December)
Colder is now at 45%, average 30%, milder at 25%.
Well, I always like to make my predictions retrospectively, Increases accuracy dramatically. But I don’t have a £31 Million Supercomputer to help me. (Nor a 25% bonus to motivate me).
See also:-
http://news.stv.tv/uk/140390-met-office-sees-warmer-winter-for-north-europe/
See also:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/30/major-northern-hemisphere-cold-snap-coming/
Comment:-
Martin Brumby (00:51:07) :
“Well, it took me a little while to find it (now, they couldn’t be trying to hide it, SURELY?) but here is the MET Office’s forecast dated 27 November 2009. (That’s right, just over a month ago!)
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/seasonal/2009/winter/?zoneid=79042
It is also confirmed by:-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1231668/Forecasters-predict-mild-winter-Britain-Prince-Charles-visits-flood-hit-Cockermouth.html
Not to mention:-
http://www.energyhelpline.com/news/article.aspx?aaid=18801304&y=2008&m=9&w=4&pid=1
(Gosh! Cheap energy bills! Brilliant!)
You will see that after their previous fiasco last year:-
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2008/pr20080925.html
The MET Office’s prediction THIS time round gives 50% chance of a mild winter, 30% chance of a near average winter and 20% chance of a colder winter. Is that what’s called spread betting? I’ve got a small coin! I can do that! “Give us a job!”
And what have Joe Bastardi and Piers Corbyn been predicting? Gosh, and they haven’t got a £30 Million Super computer which is so clever that it says just what the climate will be doing in 90 years time!
Hey, I pay my taxes!
Can I have my share of £30 Million back, towards my “cheaper” energy bills?”
Perhaps it is time for a FOIA request to the MET Office? What is their policy on archiving their predicions?
Fraudsters!
Call me Mr Picky or Mr Fussy, but why is it journos always get it wrong in the basics. In The Times reference in the above it refers to the “governemnt owned” body. The governemnt owns nothing. Governments are merely transitory, at least in democratic countries. It is owned by the TAXPAYERS, by them & them alone!!!!!!!
May I please ask a stoopid question?
What’s the difference between climate and weather?
Best answer I can get so far is that the former happens over 30-year timescales, and the latter over shorter timescales.
In his new book ‘Why does E=mc2?’, Prof. Brian Cox discusses Bertrand Russell’s teapot, which he claimed was orbiting between Earth and Mars, and could not be observed. “Russell’s point is not his right to be left alone to his personal delusions, but that devising a theory that cannot be proved or disproved by observation is pointless in the sense that it teaches you nothing, irrespective of how passionately you may believe in it. You can invent any object or idea you like, but if there is no way of observing it or its consequences, you haven’t made a contribution to the scientific understanding of the universe.”
In the light of this, if the the 30-year criterion has any meaning, can anybody tell me its origin, and might some other number (e.g., 29.467 +/- 0.2 years) be derived?
Better mad than mod.
(PS: The last word should have been “grooming,” not “hygiene”)
” Wren (00:47:16) :
If the three-months weather forecasts aren’t reliable, long-term forecast of global temperature are even less reliable?
Nah! That’s like saying if we can’t predict what the stock market will do over the next three months, we can’t predict it will rise over the next 50 years. People know better than that, which is why they invest in the market for the long-term.”
This is actually a good analogy. It’s not like investors have long term forecasts but they do know that certain markets are cyclical; for instance chemistry is early in the economic cycle, machinery comes later – which is obvious when you consider that you need chemicals to build components and components to build machinery.
These cycles allow educated guesses for an anticyclical strategy.
IIRC, sites can opt out of Wayback coverage. I wonder if the Met Office did so. If they did, it would be embarrassing for them to have to justify that request. Someone should put the question to them.
And commodity speculators, and food processors.
“Nor all your piety or wit
Shall lure it back
To cancel half a line,
Nor all your tears
Wipe out
A word of it.”
(Omar Khayyam.)
That was then. In 2009-2010, data gets scrubbed.
Piers Corbyn refers to WUWT:
http://www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews10No13.pdf
Topical
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/05/met-office-ends-season-forecasts-no-more-bbq-summers/
An interesting page from Metcheck for UK –
UK Weather Singularities – This page displays specific periods of the year where “weather types” are common across the British Isles.
http://www.metcheck.com/V40/UK/FREE/singularities.asp
Seems like a sound basis for forecasting up to a year ahead without needing a very expensive computer.
I followed the link to the Met Office. The funniest graph is the picture of rainfall prediction. It gives the following probabilities:
Drier 30%
Near Average 35%
Wetter 35%
This is so close to the uniform distribution of 33.3% for each outcome as to be complete meaningless. That’s not a prediction: in terms of statistics and entropy its “our prediction is don’t know”. Its as close to the maximum entropy (chaotic) state of a three state system as makes no difference.
Brent Hargreaves (03:23:41) :
You asked “What’s the difference between climate and weather?”
A typical weather forecast extends from one hour to three days. Some sites provide 15 day forecasts that are almost always incorrect. Longer term seasonal forecasts are generated by climate people like NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.
“What’s the difference between climate and weather?”
I would say that weather is the influence on temperature, precipitation and wind speed and direction at ground level due to a single weather system overhead. Climate is the influence of multiple weather systems either over time or spread out over the earth’s surface. Thus if in one year you have multiple parts of the globe exhibiting high levels of snowfall this cannot be due to a single weather system and it is a climate event, not a weather event.
Early indications for Winter 2009/10
Signals for precipitation slightly favour near or above average rainfall over much of northern Europe, including the UK. What do we mean by average rainfall?
We base our average rainfall on measurements over the whole season for the years 1971-2000. The UK average for December to February is 332 mm
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. What do we mean by average temperature?
As you would expect, temperatures can vary quite widely over the winter. So we take an average for the whole season and measure against that. The UK average for December to February from 1971-2000 is 3.7 °C.
MartinGAtkins (07:51:27) :
Do you have a reference/link for that text?
The Met Office used to have a real incentive to get it right, before climate science and computer models. It was founded as a forecasting service for the RAF and even now is an agency of our Ministry of Defence.
The D-Day landings in June 1944 were delayed and timed exactly by the Met Office, the need being for 3 clear days, despite political pressure from Mr W Churchill and others to get on with it.
I bet those guys are looking down in amazement at the current shambles.
If this is metoffice on the run, they, of course, can’t hide on the internet.
Anyways heres the original: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090705132831/http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/science/creating/monthsahead/seasonal/2009/winter.html
However it clearly states:
‘Future updates
This first assessment for Winter 2009/10 will be updated in September with the first full winter forecast.’
1DandyTroll (09:21:16) :
Brilliant! Thanks – you found the smoking gun.
Original :
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090705132831/http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/science/creating/monthsahead/seasonal/2009/winter.html
Altered:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/science/creating/monthsahead/seasonal/2009/winter.html