From the GWPF, here’s a collection of articles that are collectively ripping the Met Office a “new one”. And, it is easy to see why. Here’s the Met Office supercomputer enhanced model output forecast from October 2010:
The map and this below are from Autonomous Mind: The piece even goes on to name the Met Office employee who spoke about the map and talked up the effort that had gone into producing the start point for a ‘seasonal forecast‘:
Helen Chivers, Met Office forecaster, insisted the temperature map takes into account the influence of climate factors such as El Nino and La Nina – five-yearly climatic patterns that affect the weather – but admits this is only a “start point” for a seasonal forecast. She said: “The map shows probabilities of temperatures in months ahead compared to average temperatures over a 30-year period.
Click the links in stories below for more at each website.
Let’s hope Santa isn’t relying on weather forecasts from the U.K. Met Office. The British deep freeze of recent weeks (which has also immobilized much of continental Europe) is profoundly embarrassing for the official forecaster. Just two months ago it projected a milder than usual winter. This debacle is more than merely embarrassing. The Met Office is front and centre in rationalizing the British government’s commitment to fight catastrophic man-made global warming with more and bigger bureaucracy, so its conspicuous errors raise yet more questions about that “settled” science. –-Peter Foster, Financial Post, 22 December 2010
Dave Britton, the Met Office’s Chief Press Officer, e-mailed the following statement to the Global Warming Policy Foundation:
Following the entry on your blog regarding the Met Office please find the Met Office response below:
The Met Office has not issued a seasonal forecast to the public and categorically denies forecasting a ‘mild winter’ as suggested by Boris Johnson <http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/> in his column in the Daily Telegraph.
Following public research, the Met Office no longer issues long-range forecasts for the general public; instead we provide a monthly outlook on our website, which have consistent and clearly sign-posted the very cold conditions.
Our day-to-day forecasts have been widely recognised as providing excellent advice to government, businesses and the public with the Daily Telegraph commenting only today that ‘the weekends heavy snow was forecast with something approaching pin-point accuracy by the Met Office’.
The public trust and take heed of our warnings and it is misleading to imply that the Met Office did not see this cold weather coming.
Dave Britton Chief Press Officer, Met Office – FitzRoy Road Exeter EX1 3PB United Kingdom, E-mail: dave.britton@metoffice.gov.uk – http://www.metoffice.gov.uk
GWPF Note: The Met Office’s track record of forecasting mild winters can be found here: Warm Bias: How The Met Office Mislead The British Public
The Met Office denial of a forecast is fatuous and their temperature map demonstrates clearly their computer models, featuring the global warming bias that undermines the Met Office’s predictions, are as much use as a chocolate fireguard. –Autonomous Mind, 20 December 2010
The economic impact of the freezing winter will deepen this week as Britain prepares for more travel gridlock, and millions of workers, travellers and shoppers were expected to stay at home in the run-up to Christmas rather than brave the icy conditions. Estimates from the insurer Royal Sun Alliance (RSA) have put the cost of the weather to the economy at £1bn per day, a sum that is thought to be hitting retailers, restaurants and bars the hardest. The total cost is expected to be around £13bn. –Jonathan Brown, The Independent, 20 December 2010
The row over the need for a multimillion-pound investment in snowploughs, de-icing equipment and salt stocks deepened this morning with the publication of a government-backed report using Met Office predictions that successive hard winters are rare. But the findings of the government-commissioned study were contradicted by Sir David King, the government’s chief scientific adviser from 2000 to 2007, who warned that ministers should plan for more cold winters. Quarmby said the Met Office remained convinced that the severe cold snap is a one-off phenomenon. –Dan Milmo, The Guardian, 21 December 2010
This is the third winter running when we have had very cold and snowy conditions hitting the UK. It comes at a time of continued, unusually weak, solar activity. Perhaps we all need to get used to colder winters across the UK in the next few years.—Paul Hudson, BBC Weather, 20 December 2010
It turns out that Dr. Viner of the East Anglia Climate Research Unit was flat-out wrong when he told the Independent in early 2000 that within a few years snow would be rare. In fact, snow has been abundant during every year but one since then. — Donna Laframboise, No Frakking Consensus, 7 January 2010
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I wonder if BEMUSED is Hansen or Gavin? Either way good catch Anthony.
Billy Liar says:
December 22, 2010 at 3:40 pm (Edit)
Steven Mosher says:
December 22, 2010 at 1:48 pm
With your logic no probabalistic forecast is ever wrong – we just witness ‘an x% event’.
####
yes, that’s true.
Here is an interesting video that you all should watch if you really want to understand this. From a great mathematician and climate scientist.
http://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1083628?format=flv&quality=high&fetch_type=stream
especially after minute 24
Anyone who knows a Brit, also is aware that the weather is the one thing that Brits always talk about, endlessly. I am the same, I watch the forecast for my area courtesy BBC, and watch how radically it can change within 24 hours. We know when the met office Goof, but you tend to blame the BBC or whatever channel you watch. The biggest mistake you can make is to scrabble to defend your position, like the Met Office do. That is where respect and belief vanish. Any forecast longer than 5 days is a crock, they admit this sometimes when wrong stating “well it is only a forecast”. Perhaps our policy makers should remember that. I think the message is finally getting through to some of them, not the brightest bulbs are they.
It is a disgrace that the Met Office is always juggling the figures to suit their AGW agenda. They do it without regard for the huge impact that their false forecasts have on the economy. Had they not forecast a mild winter months ago then the thousands of businesses that are affected by the weather would have reacted differently and been better prepared. We’ve already seen how the airports were unprepared for the current record snow and low temperatures based on what they understood to be a ‘warm’ forecast. The current extreme winter weather will lead to massive losses for the airports, airlines, travel companies, holiday bookings, business appointments, hotel cancellations. etc. etc. whilst local authorities have ordered insufficient grit to meet these severe conditions with the resultant road accidents and insurance payouts. In these extreme conditions, millions of people have been unable to get to work, with the knock on effect of lost trade for businesses across the country, which in the high street is estimated at £1 billion for last Saturday alone. Accurate weather forecasts therefore are vital to the running of the countries economy particularly in sub zero conditions.
I realise that The Met Office are not responsible for the weather, but they do not seem to feel any responsibility for getting it right either if that means going against their AGW agenda. They are not comfortable with having to forecast unusual cold weather and therefore always make light of it, on the other hand they are always too ready to over emphasise warm conditions, often wrongly, which suits their agenda. It is time therefore for this publicly funded body to drop completely their endless desire to promote AGW in their forecasting and simply concentrate on forecasting on what they know and not on what they would like to know. So come on Met Office, call any early meeting with your ‘expert’ staff in the new year and make a policy decision to forecast only the truth and not what suits your agenda, that way you will regain the credibility from the millions of people and businesses who at the moment are united in their view that the British Meteorological Office is simply unfit for purpose.
“Peter H says:
December 22, 2010 at 9:55 am
People here clearly don’t understand probability.”
Oh yes we do. And don’t be so arrogant. It’s a real cop out of the met office and warmists to say they are not predictions – of course they are. If you ask me to predict an event of coure I have to make a probalistic assessment. How else can you predict something??
By the way I predict the met office wont last the year 2011 [83% probability according to my raw data]. The Forensic Science Service in the UK [a similiar business model] has just been closed down after wasting too much money and making some high profile mistakes. The consultants can do it cheaper and better. Sound familiar?
I can see politicians eyeing up the met office next.
DGH says:
December 22, 2010 at 6:26 pm
FWIW, Mr. Hudson suggests that the MET Office models predicted a colder than normal 2010-11 winter for western Europe…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/2010/10/another-cold-winter-ahead.shtml
That’s a useful American model not a met office one.
Steven Mosher says:
December 22, 2010 at 1:48 pm
i’m sorry but the map I see is a probability map. If I tell you that there is a 90% chance of rain tommorrow and it doesnt rain, my “forecast” isnt “wrong”. You’ve just witnessed a 10% event.
Unreal. I feel as though I’ve stumbled into a George Orwell novel.
Just look at the Met Office press release for November 2:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2010/pr20101102.html
“The Met Office science strategy, published on the web, will focus on meeting the increasing demands for seamless prediction systems across all timescales from hours to decades, and for the atmosphere, oceans and land surface.
The new five-year strategy takes this agenda of seamless science and prediction and focuses our research around four major challenges:
* Forecasting hazardous weather on time scales from hours to decades;…”
They have become utterly delusional. Note, this is not climate they are talking about, but forecasting hazardous WEATHER decades into the future. So whilst it is extremely difficult for the Met Office to get seasonal forecasts right, they will soon be able to tell us whether there will be a severe winter in 2036, for example.
UK Met Office reports an operating profit of £6.6 million
http://www.epsiplatform.eu/news/news/uk_met_office_pays_dividend_of_5_4_million
There seems to have been a reply to this entry on the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/opensecrets/2010/12/met_office_seasonal_forecasts.html
“Are you ‘intelligent’ enough to handle a weather forecast?”
Fortunately it would appear that the government is intelligent enough. Perhaps that is why we have stories like this in the British press
“NHS Direct chief apologises over phone delays”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/dec/23/nhs-direct-chief-apologises
Seems they didn’t anticipate the likelyhood of extra demand this winter
“Julia Slingo, Met Office Chief Scientist said: “This is the first time that a group of universities has joined forces with a leading government organisation to form a cluster of research excellence aimed at accelerating science research to benefit society.
“This is just the start of what I hope will be an exciting joint venture and only one element of our collaborations, both here and overseas, aimed at maximising the benefit of the UK’s world-class expertise in weather forecasting and climate prediction.”
http://www.reading.ac.uk/about/newsandevents/releases/PR337317.aspx
http://www.walker-institute.ac.uk/research/predicting.htm
I quote only in part from the Weather [section 2]from the report RESILIENCE OF ENGLANDS TRANSPORT SYSTEM IN 2010
http://transportwinterresilience.independent.gov.uk/docs/audit/winter_resilience_audit.pdf
●● The probability of the next winter being severe is virtually unrelated to the fact of just having
experienced two severe winters, and is still about 1 in 20;
The Resilience of England’s Transport Systems in December 2010
●● the effect of climate change is to gradually but steadily reduce the probability of severe winters in the UK;
●● however when severe winters come they could still be extreme – in terms of snowfall, winds and storms, though not necessarily in relation temperature.
2.8 However, entering the third successive experience of significantly sub-zero temperatures and substantial (if localised) winter snowfall, we can be forgiven for wondering whether the Met Office interpretation of weather and climate trends is still reasonable. As part of this audit, I asked the Met Office to revisit the advice given to my Panel earlier in the year. I also asked for any evidence to support the concept of ‘clustering’ of severe winters, and whether climate trends would support the likelihood of greater snowfall in the future at any particular temperature band.
2.9 The considered response was: no change to the advice, and it remains safer to assumeThe considered response was: no change to the advice, and it remains safer to assume that there is statistical independence between one year’s weather and the next, with the probability of 1 in 20 with evidence showing this reducing over the next century. So far as snowfall goes, the advice is “that on average the intensity of the heaviest snow events in the UK will reduce with a warming climate, but there are some predictions of future climate which show more intense snowfall in heavy events, indicating that these are possible and cannot be excluded from consideration of future conditions”. This is consistent with the advice that climate change in general increases the volatility of UK weather…
With this kind of advise I am afraid Uk is going to see many more disruptions like UK just experienced. Everyone will again be unprepared.It is strange they are doing immensive planning for global warming the degree of which is unlikey to ever occur but are unable to warp their heads around global cooling which is already upon them in an icey grip for already 4 years and is likey to continue for 2-3 decades more. Uk may experience 2-3 decades of cooler winters like the periods 1810-1840,1870-1900 and 1940-1970 but not necessarly as cold . The past cyclic winter pattern has been quite similar for the last three cold winter periods . Once colder winters start, they continue for 30 years but with some warmer years here and there. Winter temperatures have been dropping for 4 years in a row in UK after 2006. Nothing is ever carved in stone when it comes to earth’s climate but if I was betting man , I would not bet on the 1 in 20 odds statement of the Met Office as given above .
M.A. Vukcevic has posted some great graphs on this blog . Here is one of his helpful garphs that illustrates the pattern of winters per CET ,UK. Look at the last two colder winter cycles of 1870-1900 and again 1939-1970.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CETt.htm
Mosh,
Thanks for the link. I’ve just watched it.
It never ceases to amaze me how these academics seem to do little else but push their own pet theory as to how they can make things better when in reality thay can just wasting OUR hard earned taxes on a futile exercise. Given the current season can I once again remind people that this video is yet another example of why ‘turkeys will never vote for Christmas’.
So, let’s get this straight: The long range weather forecasts of the Met Office, armed with batteries of supercomputers and dozens of scientists using the most sophisticated computer models are consistently wrong, while the long range forecasts of Piers Corbyn armed with a lap top, Internet public records, a lone degree in Astrophysics and using Sun/Moon celestial mechanics, is consistently correct? I guess the only way to fix this imbalance is to give the Met Office more supercomputers, more CO2 agenda-driven scientists, and even more public money. That”ll fix the problem!
All Met Office (for all countries) predictions should have the rider:
“ I know you think you heard what I said but what you don’t know is that what you think I said is not what I said but your interpretation of it”.
“Helen Chivers, Met Office forecaster, insisted the temperature map takes into account the influence of climate factors such as El Nino and La Nina – five-yearly climatic patterns that affect the weather” Oh nos! Climate has gotten into the weather! Run for the hills!
Grumbler says…
“That’s a useful American model not a met office one.”
Sorry, but that’s not what Paul Hudson wrote. Here’s the quote from the link…
“…but as I understand it, [the Met Office] forecast also suggests that the probability of a cold winter is higher than normal.”
I’m not here to defend the Met Office. It’s an interesting data point which contradicts other points made in this blog and elsewhere. Presumably Mr. Hudson, a forecaster for BBC formerly employeed by the MO, is in a position to speak to insiders at the MO.
In response to a forecast made by Positive Weather Solution for 2010-11, Michael Lawrence, a Met Office forecaster, was quoted
“What these forecasters do is pit themselves in opposition to what we say and if they get it right they get a lot of publicity.”
PWS predicted “snow, ice and bitterly-cold temperatures” for 2010-11. Which begs, what forecast conditions might be pitted in opposition except a “milder winter?”
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/69562,news-comment,news-politics,met-rival-predicts-another-snowy-winter#ixzz18kcCCrIQ
Recommendation 1 of the “Resilience of England’s transportation system in December 2010” report said:
” In spite of the continuing advice from the Met Office that severe winter weather continues to have a low probability of occurrence, and that there appears to be no evidence to support ‘clustering’ of severe winters,”…..
I would just add:
There is plenty of past evidence of 3 consecutive severe winters clustered together [at least 8]
There are 2 cases of 4 consecutive severe winters clustered [1886-1889, 1962-1965]
The problem is not just consecutive or clustered extreme winters. During the past 70 year period, the last 30 year cold period of 1940-1970 had 18 of the coldest 30 winters of the 70 years [-0.3 C to 3.9 C]. Putting it another way, the 60% of the next 30 years could potentially have below norm winter temperatures which may severely test the winter preparedness of UK. So it is not just the clustering put the general colder pattern of the entire period coming up between now and says 2030. I don’t buy any of this global warming causing the winters to become warmer for some time yet [ maybe after 2030 ?]
The “Met Office” are a bunch of charlatans and crooks, who are defrauding the taxpayer.
The new uber-power computer uses a new language, installed on the orders of Reichsfuhrer *Ban Ki Moon, it is the new protocol of “transparent impenetrability”.
* “Ki” is the Sumerian Deity or Goddess personifying Earth.
“Moon” is the Satellite of Planet Earth.
So the UN has, as it’s leader a man whose name means “Censor the Earth and Moon”.
Which is exactly what they have done. They have censored Piers Corbyn’s Solar/Lunar technique of weather forecasting, which is considrably more accurate than the X-Box 360 / Sony Playstation forecast techniques of the climate alarmists of East Anglia et al.
Isn’t it about time that another “Met Office”, had a look at what these so called “scientists” are up to with the taxpayers money. The Serious Fraud Office of the Metropolitan Police !
See the many videos & etc by clicking the name “Axel” above.
Happy Holidays everybody
🙂
bemused says:
December 22, 2010 at 11:18 am
[snip – trying to make it look like you are in the UK, with a bogus email address, while the IP address comes from NASA in Pasadena, certainly doesn’t work. Again, see the policy page]
So, bemused is a NASA-paid troll!! I wonder if his stipend comes out of Hansen’s private budget.