The UK Met Office "Winter Forecast" – fail or faux?

How low will the temps go this winter? Winter hasn’t even started yet time wise but its in full swing meteorologically. And with a cold sun and sea surface temps plummeting what about next year and the year after? It looks like the regime change to cold is setting in for at least a generation or two.

2010 shaping up to be hottest on record!Funny,everytime I watch the weather forecast, temperatures are quoted as below normal for the time of the year.Parts of Australia (WA) have recorded their lowest ever measured temperatures. As for rain, all bar WA has been deluged this year. Still the warmists refuse to admit that there are any holes in their dogma.

A new paper pretends that winter 2009/2010 was “an example a cold extreme in a warming climate”.
“GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 37, L20704, 6 PP., 2010
doi:10.1029/2010GL044613
Winter 2010 in Europe: A cold extreme in a warming climate
Winter 2010 in Europe: A cold extreme in a warming climate
J. Cattiaux
LSCE, UMR 8212, IPSL, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
R. Vautard
LSCE, UMR 8212, IPSL, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
C. Cassou
Cerfacs, CNRS, Toulouse, France
P. Yiou
LSCE, UMR 8212, IPSL, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
V. Masson-Delmotte
LSCE, UMR 8212, IPSL, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
F. Codron
LMD, IPSL, CNRS-Ecole Polytechnique-ENS-UPMC, Paris, France
The winter of 2009/2010 was characterized by record persistence of the negative phase of the North-Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) which caused several severe cold spells over Northern and Western Europe. This somehow unusual winter with respect to the most recent ones arose concurrently with public debate on climate change, during and after the Copenhagen climate negotiations. We show however that the cold European temperature anomaly of winter 2010 was (i) not extreme relative to winters of the past six decades, and (ii) warmer than expected from its record-breaking seasonal circulation indices such as NAO or blocking frequency. Daily flow-analogues of winter 2010, taken in past winters, were associated with much colder temperatures. The winter 2010 thus provides a consistent picture of a regional cold event mitigated by long-term climate warming.”
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As winter 2010/2011 is already poking holes in this recent GRL circumstantial piece, here it is:
Deconstructing Cattiaux et al. 2010
The period December 2009–January 2010–February
2010 (hereafter winter 2010) was punctuated by series of
cold weather events and unusual snow accumulation in
several Northern Hemisphere countries (see http://www.
ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/). In Europe, three successive cold outbreaks
and unusual persistence of snow cover were observed
(see http://www.knmi.nl/cms/content/79165), which shaped
the public perception of an exceptionally intense winter.
Several states of Eastern United States also recorded their
snowiest winter ever [Seager et al., 2010] while a few cities
witnessed record‐breaking cold daily temperatures [Wang
et al., 2010]. These weather events occurred during and
after intense media activity covering international climate
negotiations in Copenhagen, and raised up questioning about
global warming. A global perspective nevertheless highlights
that winter 2010 was marked by a mean warm anomaly
at global scale, especially over Greenland, Canada, North‐
Africa and Middle East (see http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
maps/). Understanding and improving the predictability of
such mid‐latitude cold spells is a key societal issue, since their
fate in both frequency and intensity in a warming climate
directly impacts sectors of energy demand, transport disruption
and social emergency protection systems.
The ultimate goal of this paper is stated in this remarkable introduction: under the guise of a scientific research, the only purpose is about changing “public perception”, the after “Copenhagen”, “questioning about global warming” i.e. re-establishing IPCC credibility in the eye of an ungrateful public. This is all about politics and science will serve. And let’s be no mistake, no more “climate change” this time as the authors simply dropped the mask: it is global warming.
Let’s notice that the paper is already skewed on a scientific basis: 1) use of GISS Temp a database known for its bias (see McKitrick 2010) and 2) the use of expressions such “global scale” or “global perspective” to oppose areas of warmer temperatures to the described areas that experienced a cold winter, as if in winter weather was supposed to be cold everywhere. Already the meteorological foundation of the paper is shaky.
Therefore this paper looks like a circumstantial piece that participates in the IPCC media offensive since Copenhagen. Let’s now see how they did it in this particular paper and examine the scientific background.
This paper focuses on European cold temperatures of
winter 2010. The European wintertime climate is mostly
driven by atmospheric dynamics over the North‐Atlantic –
European (NAE) area [Walker, 1924], characterized by a
baroclinic instability of the westerly jet stream which generates
planetary waves traveling from North‐Eastern America
to the European continent [e.g., Charney, 1947].
Let’s recognize that for these authors whose scientific reputation is at the very top of France’s establishment and best financed research laboratories (Masson-Delmotte et al. 2010, own April fools petition), it is pretty significant that in their views no new improvement in atmospheric dynamics and understanding seems to have occurred since 1924 and 1947! This is the famous “altitude controls everything” that was so blatantly disproved by the FASTEX experiment in 1997.
The unstable nature of the jet also triggers quasi‐stationary circulation
patterns of larger scale, often referred to as “weather
regimes”, which can persist from a few days to a few weeks
[Legras and Ghil, 1985; Reinhold and Pierrehumbert, 1982;
Vautard, 1990]. (…) For instance the
positive (negative) phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation
(NAO) is generally associated with rather warm (cold)
temperatures [e.g., Hurrell, 1995], while the persistence of a
high‐pressure system over Northern Europe or the British
Isles, often referred to as “European blocking” conditions,
leads to cold and dry weather over Western Europe [e.g.,
Yiou and Nogaj, 2004].
These authors also refer to indices such as the NAO that are based on statistical relationships. These were useful tools back then, before the advent of satellites but these have been shown (cf. Leroux) to be simply obsolete because they do not reflect the synoptic reality of atmospheric circulation. Of course other more recent references follow all variations on the theme of the supposed control of weather by Jets dynamics.
Our aim is to investigate which weather regimes were
associated to the cold winter 2010, and their interplay with
the temperature anomaly. In particular we use the “flowanalogues”
approach developed by Yiou et al. [2007] to
analyze this temperature anomaly based on past relationships
between atmospheric circulation and temperatures.
The stage is now set for the magic to happen: an analysis of altitude patterns leading to comparing surface temperatures.
The beauty of this magic is that meteorology i.e. what’s happening in the lower layers of the troposphere and its complexity, the critical 1500m for polar cold air advections as demonstrated by Leroux is simply evacuated, flushed down the drain, never to be discussed. Only statistical temperature series will remain but orphaned from their meteorological context.
This is the “de-meteorologizing” condemned by so many geographers and climatologists and that prompted the IPCC to commit flagrant errors such as noticed by Prof. Martine Tabeaud about the melting Himalaya glaciers and the water resources of south east Asia.
2. Data and Methods
[5] The daily atmospheric dynamics is analyzed through
re‐analyses of geopotential height at 500hPa (Z500) provided
by National Centers for Environmental Prediction and
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP‐NCAR)
[Kistler et al., 2001] over the period 1948–2010 (http://
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/gridded/data.ncep.reanalysis.
html). Anomalies are computed by removing at each grid
point the 1961–1990 daily climatology.
[6] Several indices are used for the statistical analysis of
winter 2010 seasonal dynamics: (i) the seasonal NAO index
(NAOi) defined as the difference between Azores and Iceland
normalized surface pressures [Jones et al., 1998;
Osborn, 2006] (computed from monthly values downloaded
from http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/∼timo/datapages/naoi.htm), (…)
At 500hPa most of lower layer dynamics is left behind.
[7] Temperature data are from the European Climate
Assessment and Dataset (ECA&D) project [Klein‐Tank
et al., 2002], which provides daily minimum, maximum
and mean temperatures (respectively Tmin, Tmax and Tavg)
at European stations (http://eca.knmi.nl/dailydata/). The data
set is geographically homogenized by selecting the stations
on the basis of (i) the simultaneous availability of Tavg,
Tmin and Tmax data, (ii) the availability of more than 80%
of daily values between 1 January 1948 and 28 February
2010, (iii) a selection of only one station per grid cell of
0.75° × 0.5° size. This method is similar to that used in
previous studies [Vautard and Yiou, 2009; Yiou et al., 2007],
and retains here 230 stations over Europe. Anomalies are
computed by removing at each station the 1961–1990 daily
climatology, and in order to better quantify their amplitude,
normalized anomalies relative to the mean and the standard
deviation (s) of the 1949–2010 anomalies distribution are
used.
Clearly, these temperatures series are not replaced in their meteorological context. They become abstract values instead of reflecting the singularity of their sites. Average temperatures calculated from Tmax and Tmin fail to represent the meteorological reality: this is a critical point Leroux insisted upon, a point that makes temperatures anything but a robust dataset to deduce climatic facts as it is site dependent. Hence Leroux critical approach and reliance on surface pressure data.
But it gets worse:
The “flow‐analogues” method, used in section 5 to
estimate daily temperatures observed during similar flow
conditions in past winters, was developed by Yiou et al.
[2007] and consists as follows: for each day of winter
2010, ten flow‐analogues are selected among winters 1949
to 2009 in a 30‐day window centered on this given day. The
selection is made on the basis of maximizing the Spearman’s
correlation of daily Z500 NAE maps. Then, for each
station, the daily “analog” temperature anomaly is defined
as the median of daily temperature anomalies of the ten
flow‐analogue days. Using rather Euclidean distance or
linear correlation for Z500 ranking, five or twenty flowanalogues,
and the mean in analog temperature computation
does not change our results in a significant manner.
Here comes the miracle whip!
Dynamical configurations during past winters at the altitude 500hPa level are attributed a median surface temperature over a 10 days period. The same particularly tailored data set – they eliminated 80% of the data to keep this one- used by Yiou and Vautard to announce that surface winds below 100m have diminished 5 to 15%… 60% of it at least they supposed a consequence of reforestation in Europe, leaving the wind variation within measuring uncertainties.
The authors compare each 2009-2010 cold wave with the past particular altitude flow and its estimated surface temperature that mimics each wave, and calculate the temperature anomaly between the past and present events for each station!
Elementary my dear Watson!
The key here is the tele-connection between altitude and surface and through the use of it, the shunting of all lower layers and surface meteorological data with the exception of an ad-hoc calculated statistical temperature. When one considers that half of the atmosphere is contained below 500hPa, one can appreciate the amount of prestidigitation necessary to make the paper work!
Some bibliography follows on NAO.
(…) How Cold Was Winter 2010 in Europe?
[12] Winter 2010 European temperatures were on average
anomalously cold (Figure 3a), with largest negative
anomalies (about −1.5s) over North‐Western Europe while
milder conditions prevailed over Southern Europe. This
seesaw latitudinal pattern is entirely consistent with the
canonical signature of the negative NAO [Hurrell, 1995].
More generally, Wang et al. [2010] showed that the winter
2010 negative NAO was responsible for the quadripole
structure in NAE temperature anomalies (warm over Canada/
Greenland and North Africa/Middle East, cold over United
States and Eurasia).
And the authors try to explain the 2010 record persistence, and then attribute the cold temperatures to… the NAO. Ground breaking isn’t it?
Averaged over all European stations the winter 2010
anomaly of daily mean temperature is −1.3°C, corresponding
to a departure of −0.9s from the 1949–2010 distribution
(Figure 3d). As in previous studies [e.g., van Loon and
Rogers, 1978], we find high correlations between European
temperatures and both the phase and amplitude of the
NAO (e.g., r = 0.70 for Tavg–NAOi and r = 0.75 for Tavg–
NAO+ regime frequency, both p − values < 1%), and that
most of cold peaks are associated with significantly low
NAOi or NAO+ frequency (not shown). Note that the frequency
of NAO− regime is less significantly anti‐correlated
with temperatures (r = −0.56, p − value < 1%) since cold
events can also be linked to Scandinavian blockings or
Atlantic Ridge conditions (Figure 2).
Winter 2010 ranks as the 13th coldest winter since
1949 over Europe, far behind the cold record of 1963 (−4.0°
C, −2.9s) despite comparable atmospheric dynamics indices.
Winter 1963 indeed experienced the 3rd lowest NAOi
since 1824 (Figure 1b), and the 2nd lowest NAO+ regime
frequency (Figure 2e). However cold temperatures of winter
1963 seem caused by both NAO− and strong Scandinavian
blockings, while NAO− largely dominates in winter 2010.
So here comes the birdie: the 2009-2010 winter ranks top colder quartile but is “far behind” 1963 despite comparable atmospheric dynamics indices…
How about that? What does it say about those indices is really the first question one should ask? The answer of course lies in lower tropospheric conditions but since this is exactly the reason why these and their analysis was shunted, we’ll never know will we?!
Then, of course, the discussion on “flow analogues” can proceed, unencumbered with annoying facts and meteorological complexities…
Temperatures in Flow‐Analogues
of Winter 2010
[15] For 84% of stations (193/230) flow‐analogues sampled
in past winters were associated with significantly colder
daily mean temperature (Tavg) anomalies than observed in
winter 2010 (Figures 3b and 3c). Only a few stations in
Southern Europe exhibit a higher analog temperature than
observed. The maximal departure is found over the Alps
region, where observed temperatures were close to average
while analog anomalies reach −2s. Averaged over all stations,
past flow‐analogues of winter 2010 were associated
with a negative temperature normalized anomaly reaching
−2.1s, the 2nd coldest analog anomaly close behind winter
1963 (−2.3s, see Figure 3d). (…)
What is there to comment? Nothing! This is all post-magic discourse virtually equivalent to discussing the sex of angels. And conclusions become logical, “scientific”:
Winter 2010 cold anomaly is stronger for maximal
(daytime, −1.2s) than minimal (nighttime, −0.7s) temperatures,
which even constitutes a negative record in terms
of diurnal range (−2.2s of the Tmax‐Tmin distribution)
within a longer‐term decreasing tendency (−0.37s/decade
over 1980–2009, Figure 3f). This observed reduction of
wintertime diurnal range is consistent with future climate
projections that generally suggest a higher warming in
minimal than maximal winter temperatures, due to the higher
contribution of long‐wave than short‐wave net downward
surface radiative flux for that season [Vose et al., 2005].
Analog temperatures do not exhibit any significant tendency
in recent diurnal ranges, and even exhibit a higher
maximal than minimal temperature anomaly in winter 2010
(Figure 3f). The record dirunal range of winter 2010 may be
linked to the unusual snow cover highlighted by Seager
et al. [2010], modifying albedo and daytime surface energy
budget (not shown).
And that was where the acrobatic pilots are supposed to land: validate a GHG radiation model! But of course!
6. Conclusions
[18] Our findings indicate that the cold – albeit not
exceptional – temperature anomaly of winter 2010 was
mostly caused by an extreme persistence of the negative
phase of the NAO.
Yes this was 1924 meteorology. Meanwhile is anywhere discussed WHY did this NAO dynamics happen? Nope! One can also smile at the constant reminder that it was not exceptionally cold; crudely put, do not trust your freezing butt ignorant populace since we tell you it was not that cold!
However similar dynamics were generally
associated with even colder temperatures in past winters, so
that the winter 2010 mean temperature expected from the sole
atmospheric circulation is comparable to the cold record of
winter 1963.
That’s the magic!
Winter 2010 appears to be a remarkable event
within a longer‐term tendency: observed temperature anomalies
have been quasi‐systematically warmer than flowanalogues
ones over the past two decades, which probably
results from background climate warming [Yiou et al., 2007;
Cattiaux et al., 2010]. The fact that the positive departure
of observed temperatures from flow‐analogues is larger
for minimal than for maximal temperatures is consistent
with radiative consequences of increasing greenhouse gases
concentrations.
Circular reasoning: the methodology is all geared up to show precisely that!
And of course, since this is the business of IPCC modeling, the demonstration had to be GHG compatible!
[19] Thus winter 2010 can be considered as an example
of a cold extreme superimposed on a warming climate.
QED! It’s a physical impossibility! But…
Since (i) climate projections suggest the European warming
will continue in future decades, and (ii) the extreme
dynamics of winter 2010 was one of the most favorable to
cold weather since the 1820s, this winter could be one of the
coldest of the 21st century.
Let’s recognize that 1) IPCC models suggest Europe will be warming BUT 2) could not forecast why we ended up with such a cold winter dynamics which is supposedly as extreme as those of the 1820s, 3) barely 10 years in the century, the prediction comes, the 2009-2010 winter COULD be one of the coldest in the 21st century!!!
When it’s cold, it’s not cold enough therefore Global warming is for real!
The public perception was wrong! Next time you’re freezing call us, it’s warm here.
The IPCC is right, the Copenhagen fiasco is forgotten and all this now just in time for Cancun! Thank you all!
And since
“This work was supported by the French ANR CHEDAR project”,
Say “CHEESE” for the picture!

Here in France (where it’s snowing at 400m altitude as I type) I read last week the winter seasonal forecasts.
FranceMeteo predicted one scenario. The guy in Chamonix (a specialist branch of FranceMeteo) predicted something entirely different.
Then he let the cat out of the bag;
“Well, it depends on your computer model” (by way of excuse, perhaps)

Brian H says:
November 28, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Yes, that is a good trick (not supplied by Nature) to circulate heat that tends to pool at the ceiling. I have a ducted Lennox heat/cool system and in winter I turn the external cooling compressor off and switch the unit on to ‘cool'(after thermostat adjustment), so that air circulates through the house using the fans only.
Must be my Scot’s blood.

How many wrongs do you get before someone is fired?

Talk about jumping out of a burning apartment and into the icy waters.
Maybe they could get a good deal on shopping the Met Supercomputer on EBay, it’s clearly not working for them.

CodeTech says:
Forecasts 20, 50, 100 years out are laughable. It is mind boggling that any sane individual could actually think we understand enough to do so.
That is quite a statement. There is reasonable evidence to suggest that solar grand minima have a big impact on world climate. The depth and length of each grand minimum being the key. If the current solar slowdown continues into the predicted grand minimum there is no reason why we cant predict future world climate for great lengths of time (barring the onset of an ice age).

This ties back to the recent BOM announcement that CAGW disrupts their Climate Predictions!!!!!
The Met wants to make us think that the weather is SOOOOOOOO unpredictable due to Global Climate Disruption that they cannot predict it!!! Another SCAM by the SCAMMERS!!!
Of course they have a gentleman, Piers Corbyn, who is consistently predicting the weather and hammering them for their incompetence!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

This is all part of why I left England! I used accuweather and it was as good as a sane person could expect, english houses are not well insulated and heat is costly, wood for burning is costly too, what a damn mess these clowns have dumped on us.

According to Piers Corbin at weatheraction.com his winter forecasts for Britain have been correct for the last 5 years, while the forecasts from the government Met Office have been wrong for the last 5 years. Who should you trust?