George Monbiot probably burst a blood vessel when he read this. Congratulations to Piers, who doesn’t need a teraflop class supercomputer to render a forecast. This passage tells the story:
I have not a clue whether his methods are sound or not. But when so many of his forecasts seem to come true, and when he seems to be so consistently ahead of the Met Office, I feel I want to know more.
Maybe that’s why Mr. Johnson says London is prepared for snow, where others are not.
Here’s some excerpts:
Do you remember? They said it would be mild and damp, and between one degree and one and a half degrees warmer than average. Well, I am now 46 and that means I have seen more winters than most people on this planet, and I can tell you that this one is a corker.
Never mind the record low attained in Northern Ireland this weekend. I can’t remember a time when so much snow has lain so thickly on the ground, and we haven’t even reached Christmas. And this is the third tough winter in a row. Is it really true that no one saw this coming?
Actually, they did. Allow me to introduce readers to Piers Corbyn, meteorologist and brother of my old chum, bearded leftie MP Jeremy. Piers Corbyn works in an undistinguished office in Borough High Street. He has no telescope or supercomputer. Armed only with a laptop, huge quantities of publicly available data and a first-class degree in astrophysics, he gets it right again and again.
And this:
The question is whether anthropogenic global warming is the exclusive or dominant fact that determines our climate, or whether Corbyn is also right to insist on the role of the Sun.
Full story here. Boris John is the Mayor of London, more here.
h/t to WUWT reader “Roger” aka “Old England”
Boris is quite a powerful politician with his own unique media persona. Piers has hit the big time here. I think the AGW qualification statement is Boris just arse covering.
Boris USED to be a prodfound sceptic. So much so that his Mayoral opponent, Ken Livingstone, often teased him about his views.
But he has to tow the Cameron party-line that AGW is real and that we should all freeze rather than build new power stations.
It is all just PR as far as Boris is concerned, he has no real powers as Mayor and so can spend all day plotting his ascent to Prime Minister.
Jeremy Corbyn is an unreconstructed Marxist – albeit rather subdued these days. I wonder what he thinks of his brother’s works.
Well here we are in summer in Oz and we have just had snow on the mountains down south and Sydney shivered with a well below normal temp. And this is supposed to be beach weather!!. Seems to be “global cooling” – goodness me! Well before we get too excited this does happen from time to time for short periods but OZ this winter was definitely below normal temps.
Hurrah, hurrah, this has made my Christmas!!!!!!
Just one detail folks. Cut Boris a bit of slack. He’s only a human being not a trained scientist. In the circs his words, taken in context, seem perfectly reasonable to me. Give it time. After all it would be difficult for him to stand in a public place at all these days without the customary indulgent genuflection.
I’d say that the Met offices inability to see the cold coming is criminal negligence! How many people have been killed as a direct result of the cold and the governments (both national and local) inability to plan appropriately for the cold winter?
If we had a real parliament, filled with real politicians, really working in the national interest then it wouldn’t surprise me if the role of the Met office and it’s religious belief in Mann Made Global Warming was investigates. However, as we have a parliament every bit as clueless as the last bunch of corrupt morons I doubt we will see anything happening in our lifetime!!
Regards
Mailman
Boris is a clever boy. He is probably more clever than most politicos, he has a better education than many (Literae Humaniores, or “Greats” at Oxford, which, importantly, gives him a longer view in time, most relevant to the AGW debate). His disclaimer:
“Nothing he says, to my mind, disproves the view of the overwhelming majority of scientists, that our species is putting so much extra CO₂ into the atmosphere that we must expect global warming.
“The question is whether anthropogenic global warming is the exclusive or dominant fact that determines our climate, or whether Corbyn is also right to insist on the role of the Sun. Is it possible that everything we do is dwarfed by the moods of the star that gives life to the world? The Sun is incomparably vaster and more powerful than any work of man.”
is the template for how politicians will walk away from AGW doctrine.
All the best.
Hoping to have some input here from Richard Holle on the other side of the pond. Holle’s last “coffee break rambles” made me sure we have another Einstein-standard mind well trained in the astrophysics necessary for workable weather forecasting.
I hope someone of Nigel Calder’s stature ghostwrites a popular book equivalent to The Chilling Stars, to explain Corbyn’s and Holle’s work (and others too in astrophysics).
Someone… someone… this will be another Book of the Century…
yes I know, we need to take out UHI-etc data mismanagements at the same time as reinvesting in solar theories… though Piers’ approach, by simply looking at weather in comparable line-ups, bypasses that need to some extent.
Paul Deacon says: December 20, 2010 at 1:23 am
Yes.
The problem is that successive governments have swallowed the whole global warming scam hook line and sinker and as a result flogged off the snow ploughs and other snow moving equipment. We are now in a situation where a western developed country is trying to cope with Arctic conditions using methods that have no changed much since mediaeval times. Piers Corbyn will hopefully now be paid more attention, and george Monbiot and the Guardian will allow an open discussion on the subject of climate change.
Lank in the South says:
December 19, 2010 at 8:29 pm
“…I wonder just how many ‘cold’ winters are needed before they can be used as evidence..,,”
Either 20 or 30. Twenty is the length of a generation. This generation has to pass on for a fresh outlook to take over. Thirty is the number of years of weather that I’m told defines a climate.
All the people who say ‘we need to know how it works’ actually mean: ‘that bastard’s not going to make money out of this. We are.’
There is no way on earth Dr Corbyn should reveal his methods if that means that the Met Office, NASA et al can use his methodologies to bankrupt his business. End of.
And anyone who believes in hard work, reward for excellence and supporting science over mumbo-jumbo will agree with that……….
@LazyTeenager: “You do remember that blistering summer in the UK a year or so back don’t you? And not just the UK. Maybe the wishful thinking produces amnesia.”
A year or two back? Actually it would have been 2003. And that really was a weather phenomena. It only lasted one day, wasn’t repeated and only affected a handful of sites in the UK, one of them being Heathrow airport which was precicted to be the first site to record the hottest temperature ever (perhaps because it is the site most prone to urban heat island effects?). It had no impact on the rest of Europe and its been getting colder ever since!
Even Team-AGW wouldn’t claim that event had anything to do with global warming – check the internet if you don’t believe me.
However, the record cold temperatures we have right now have been experienced for three years in succession and cover a large part of the northern hemisphere involving a multitude of separate weather systems. Now that’s climate.
LazyTeenager says:
December 20, 2010 at 12:20 am
“…Another interesting question is why you think a record cold winter or two is proof of global cooling, while you don’t think that a record hot summer or two is proof of global warming….”
Because the predicted exponential rise in the hockey stick graph, predictions of warming, and predictions of snow being a thing of the past clearly indicated the overwhelming theory of the AGW crowd is that of unprecedented warming. In that scenario record cold events would be much more unlikely than record heat events.
Try this experiment at home. Turn up the thermostat in your house. Wait. What happens? Do you get periods of intense cold?
This cold weather proves that the AGW theories are completely wrong and/or underpowered. If AGW is correct then what IS known is no scientist has the formula. Go back to the drawing boards. Start over using Mr. Corbyn.
It’s really Hannan and the small govermnment crew among the tories who should be targeted ’till they see the light of day now. They have potential (but are young and grew in the “save the planet” creed).
LazyTeenager: 2006 was pretty hot, but it happens from time to time; the summers since have been largely damp and dreary. Back in the 70s we had a warm November (it was 1978) which ended with a very heavy rainfall on Sat 25th and a hard frost on the 26th. We were being assailed by fears of a new ice age at the time!
The various scares the ‘leaders’ of the human race think up are much more to do with Fear, Control and Taxes.
I’m enjoying the very pretty and deep layers of ‘global warming’ outside….you know, that stuff that was supposed to become a rare, if not absent, phenomenon!
Boris Johnsons job is to keep the traffic moving in London. A couple of weeks ago we had the Scottish transport minister(Stewart Stevenson) resign, because, in his words, ‘he listened to the wrong forecasts’. (he listened to the met office)
These politicians are in a dilemma, what impacts climate most, a few parts per million of atmospheric plant food, or a gigantic ball of boiling gas in the sky ? its a tricky one.
The UK Met Office is an arm of the British Government – it’s part of the Ministry of Defence. And it’s headed up by an eco-fanatic. The UK government is reaming the backside out of us on taxes based on CO2 and the mythical global warming narrative, so the Met Office has to keep ‘on message’, and is an arm of the government to do so. The Met Office consistently falsely reports the actual and forecast temperatures when it is cold – at the moment by around 5-6 degrees Celsius: take about 5 degC off what the Met Office say, and double the snow forecast and you’ll be about right. Anyone with a thermometer and a ruler can get a better measurement of air temperature and snow depth than the Met Office. Bear in mind also that the density of snow decreases with temperature, so at lower temperatures one will get more height of snow for the same amount of precipitation.
Another phenomenon. Anyone listening to the BBC will have noted that all talk about global warming is shunted off air when we are in the midst of a deep freeze. This is surely another cynical policy. They bang on about global warming incessantly except when it is very cold in the UK. But if weather is not climate, why the change? They probably guess that people will become cynical and disbelieving of global warming news items when they are faced with temperatures that England has not seen for over 300 years. But this unspoken policy (with which the journalists and editors must be complicit) simply reveals the cynicism of their own position: weather is not climate unless it suits them, and it’s a one way street with these warmistas. I call this propaganda – making false connections when it suits, and denying connections when it suits.
Annei says:
December 20, 2010 at 3:03 am
Don’t forget that real scorcher of a Summer, 1976! The following Winter though, 76/77 was vicious.
Lazy Teenager won’t remember though because s/he wasn’t born back then. 😉
DaveE.
David A. Evans: I remember hearing about it from my parents! However, I was living in Cyprus at the time where we had a much cooler than average summer!
It isn’t just here things ar a tad cool….
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/icy-blast-to-give-way-to-sunshine-on-christmas-day-20101220-1928r.html
polistra says:
December 19, 2010 at 7:45 pm
Unfortunately this won’t change any minds because Boris is a Conservative, therefore an Unperson. His opinions do not exist.
This situation will only change if a large number of the Aristocrats of the Left dramatically change their minds, or die. A few reformed Aristocrats won’t do the job, because they can be Unpersoned easily. It will have to be nearly all at once, leaving the followers bereft of guidance. At that point the followers may finally put their own hands in the snow and feel the cold, rejecting the automatic instinctive “Cold is Hot.”
Gareth says:
A gentle reminder to all those who would undermine the integrity of this site for narrow political purposes, Mt Corbyn comes from an old and well established left wing family, and is brother to Jeremy Corbyn MP, a left wing member of the UK parliament. Climate skepticism is not the preserve of right wing politicians and we are not as the catastrophists suggest a right wing group backed by big business. We are a group from all sectors of society who have chosen to open our minds and ears to the truth.
To those speculating on mechanisms, there is a lot of published data, that provides a number of theories that dovetail. First the Sun, you look at the cycles and you can see the variation in weather trends. At the moment, based on Solar measurements, we are facing a mini ice age. Farmers in many countries have been able to predict long term trends for generations, just like Corbyn (one of my modern day hero’s). Solar activity controls magnetic fields controls cosmic radiation reaching the earth. This is part of Svendsmark’s brilliant insight.
Then you have the planets, going around the sun. The gravitational center of the solar system passes through the sun, most of the time. The center of gravity affects solar activity by tugging at the sun’s own center of gravity. Until recently centuries, planetary alignment has been used to predict long term trends. Milankovic cycles. They weren’t always right, but there’s a millenia of data in some civilizations to back test. So.. planetary alignment affects solar activity which affects cosmic radiation entering the atmosphere, which affects cloud formation. Different theories, all linked. You can even use the same principle to predict earthquake frequency.
The most interesting thing I’ve seen on this was Svensmark working with some others. AGW computer models do poorly in back testing a few years. Svensmark’s theory combined with fluctuations of cosmic radiation over milenia due to galaxy spanning clouds was able to be back tested using fossil studies. Milenia.
I said too much. If this is disjointed, there are other observations that dovetail to support this model. The solar activity can be back tested and compared to rainfall studies (I’ve seen South African and Australian studies on this), drought, and a range of climate activity. It already has.
The biggest tragedy of the AGW scare is that long term weather forecasting can be and IS done reliably and accurate enough to make a difference. Like Corbyn. But anyone doing work in the field is demonized and rubbished. And the results of such models are not allowed to be used.
I wish I was smart enough, had the time, and the money to be able to produce such a back testable model. I bet it would fit on a desktop.
This guy is a rich, landed gentry type, politician. He knows where his revenue streams are, and where they can be expanded (Carbon taxes). I see all this posturing by scientists, politicians etc as a diversionary tactic. Let the unwashed masses “think” the powers are “leaning toward the sceptic” side, all the while, passing draconian laws in support of AGW in secrecy. OMG!!! Never!
Sadly, its happened before. Thatcher was good at that.
Ah another crack in the edifice that is AGW. Of course the problem with these cracks is that they allow other ideas to seep in. Then during these cold spells they expand and soon the whole rotten edifice comes tumbling down. The freeze-thaw action of ideas!
The following is a reference from “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds”
“it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one”
By Charles MacKay, preface, unnumbered page, written 1841, reprinted 14th November, 2010.
This is quite likely what will happen to AGW.
In fact, it’s happening now with the public in many countries gradually slipping away (Public opinion polls).
It’s more difficult for practicing scientists who have nailed their flags to the mast.
More difficult again for institutions, which have watch dogs ensuring the creed of the cult is still adhered to.
But is is happening there too.