Piers Corbyn, while seemingly a bit eccentric, has the distinction of being the only man to have this headline:
The man who repeatedly beats the Met Office at its own game
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.
Well, now he has competition from New Zealand with yet again another guy armed with a laptop and public data, as Jo Nova reports below:
Laptop beats Met Supercomputer: SOI index (at record high) scores a win.
Back on August 6, 2010, when the UK BOM was predicting a warm winter, and every Met Agency in the West was already declaring that 2010 would be the hottest year ever, Bryan Leyland predicted (on a global scale) that before the end of the year, there would be significant cooling. As you can see from the chart, this is exactly what happened.
The UK Met Office has a gigantic supercomputer, 1,500 staff and a £170m-a-year budget, but a retired engineer in New Zealand armed only with Excel and access to the internet and with the McLean is et al 2009 paper, was able to get it right.
Parking the SOI index (the blue line) 7 months into the future suggests things may get cooler still as the temperature (red line) often follows the trend. (Click for a larger image.) Note, the SOI is shifted 7 months forwards in time, and the scale is inverted.
Before anyone scoffs that the El Nino’s are usually followed by cooling, and the SOI indicator is well known, ponder that the well fed agencies of man-made-climate-fame weren’t telling the public that a big-chill was on the way and they ought to stock up on salt and red diesel. (And maybe take their own deicing fluid to the airport.*)
Read it all here
“ponder that the well fed agencies of man-made-climate-fame weren’t telling the public that a big-chill was on the way”
Unless you are to believe the coalition government hating, climate alarmists at the BBC. They are assuming that the Government ordered the Met office to cover up and keep secret the alleged forecast for extreme cooling.
After all, they cannot accept that the computer models are wrong and biased towards warming. They cannot accept that the Met office could be so wrong so often in their seasonal forecasts and they cannot accept that the real earth is not obeying the projected behaviour of the Met Office’s models, so it must be that nasty tory/liberal coalition’s fault
Come on … out forecasting the Met Office on global temperatures is hardly a fair test when they always forecast high!
One more proof that really independent and intelligent brains, even if acting alone, can beat huge government bureaucracies which have zero independence from politics and government political agenda.
But as Julia Slingo says, if only they could have another 20 million pounds they would be able to produce even BETTER forecasts. Can I therefore propose that in the spirit of international cooperation that WUWT start a (very small) fund for the purchase of a suitable piece of equipment that will help their forecasts?
After extensive research I am pleased to suggest we obtain the item described in my link. This tried and tested method has been used for centuries to forecast the weather.
http://www.makebiofuel.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Seaweed.jpg
Fortunately I live close to the sea shore and the Met office and could deliver a suitable speciment- together with a card from all here- expressing our appreciation of the quasi (or is that crazy?) scientific entertainment they provide to us all.
Perhaps Anthony would also like to donate one of his small weather stations-suitably inscribed?
Tonyb
The ones with the money and material resources lack one key resource, unprejudiced outlook.
Free enterprise, can’t beat it. At some point in time the Met and BOM will fall on their swords, or they’ll just morph into something else and try to forget their embarrassing past.
To be fair the Met Office press release said that 2010 would be the warmest if there was no volcano or large La Nina. There was and is no way way of predicting the size of the current La Nina (and therefore the impact on global temps) even if you could look at the SOI and see the potential – but far from certainty – of an evolving La Nina. Remembering that the correlation of SOI with GTTA in the McLean is 70% – the most you can realistically say is that there is a chance of a La Nina and cooler global temps. To quote the Australian BOM – ‘Sustained negative values of the SOI often indicate El Niño episodes’ – and vice versa. So if you want to toss a metaphorical coin and make a prediction – don’t let me stop you. And the depth of the UK winter has little to do with ENSO – but much more to do with the state of the Arctic Oscillation.
To show that I am not quibbling in hindsight – I have an article from some months ago here – http://sciencefile.org/SciFile/articles/articles-earth/2297-how-the-pacific-ocean-influences-global-climate-a-review-of-the-physical-evidence-
Global surface temperature records are not by any means the critical climate change indicator. It is true that temperatures in 1998, 2005 and 2010 are statistically indistinguishable and thus there has been no rise in surface temperature for more than a decade. But the planet as a whole has been warming according to NASA’s Clouds and Earths Radiant Energy System (CERES) satellite program. This is caused by an energy imbalance – more energy coming in than going out. The so called ‘missing heat’ should be found in the oceans primarily.
The ARGO project is a network of 3000 odd probes measuring heat and salinity in the oceans. Admittedly – 4 out of 5 analyses of ARGO data show ocean cooling from the start of of the program in 2003. The 5th analysis integrates the data to 2000m rather than 700m and shows warming. If true, and it is consistent with CERES, then it shatters preconceptions about how heat is distributed in the oceans.
The critical thing about the CERES data is that it shows most change in outgoing shortwave frequencies. Reflected visible light declined markedly between 2000 and 2008. The record for infrared radiation (the wavelengths influenced by greenhouse gases) shows fluctuation but no obvious trend in the period. The results reflect changes in cloud cover – and once we accept that cloud cover does change the obvious question is why? In good part at least, it turns out to be an El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) feedback. More low level cloud is formed over cool ocean water in a La Niña than over warm water in an El Niño. John McLean is wrong in saying that the ENSO influence is a result solely of energy transfer between ocean and atmosphere. This would have absolutely no relevance to the global energy budget and no affect on global warming and cooling. Notably, decreasing reflected shortwave and increasing longwave out radiation can be seen in the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP-FD) and the Earth Radiation budget experiment (ERBE) data from the late 1970’s to the late 1990’s. These earlier records are consistent with each other and – if real – show a predominant role for clouds in recent warming.
Once you get your head around that – turn to the implications of Earth climate as a complex and dynamic (chaotic) system. To quote from the recent Royal Society climate summary. ‘In principle, changes in climate on a wide range of timescales can also arise from variations within the climate system due to, for example, interactions between the oceans and the atmosphere; in this document, this is referred to as “internal climate variability”. Such internal variability can occur because the climate is an example of a chaotic system: one that can exhibit complex, unpredictable internal variations even in the absence of the climate forcings.’
There are obvious and potentially serious risks from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in a chaotic climate – even if these are unpredictable. To begin addressing the risks I am calling on both sceptics and warmists to take a deep breath and step up to a more complex and nuanced understanding of the climate system – rather than tediously repeat (from both sides) nonsense and insults. I won’t be holding my breath.
First Piers Corbyn, now Bryan Leyland from the antipodes, and isn’t there Richard Holle in the States too?
How long before WUWT has its own Global Longterm Weather Forecasts page? (modifications being allowed up to a week BEFORE but not later than that)
Well, I realize that Piers has to make a living and the Met Office are not offering him a job although as we all know they should. Yet OTOH the science behind his work needs to become public, just as we ask of CRU. Moreover, by steady trickle that is surely going to happen anyway.
Could someone here develop a business plan that could enable Piers to be justly compensated while enabling a transition of the astrophysics-linked forecasting “science” into the public realm – at least into WUWT? I put “science” into inverted commas because we don’t understand the mechanisms. But I am confident that if the method works, the understanding will follow.
Anthony,
Good one! Question about the wording though:
“…but a retired engineer in New Zealand armed only with Excel and access to the internet and with the McLean is et al 2009 paper, was able to get it right.”
Can you please clarify?
Thanks.
In australia we had Inigo Jones and lennox walker long range forcasters and they are ledgions, they forcasted all the droughts and floods in Australia in there time 1920s till 1960s using the sun spots the moon and past records + more NO computer used in those days , please look into them you will be supprised., also we are in a very bad flood at the very moment and it looks like it is going to be a disaster for Australia
Piers Corbyn is one of the most prominent (probably the most prominent) Climate Realist in the UK. Sort of like the British Anthony Watts (both being weathermen by profession). He is an interesting character, and having met him at last years “Climate Fools Day” a very nice chap as well!
Piers Corbin in his swank office
Candelabra lighting on the wall. Truly swank.
In modeling a non-linear, mathematically chaotic system, a supercomputer has no advantage over a laptop, or for that matter, a pair of dice. I predict we have twenty more years of mostly cold left in this 30-year half cycle that began with the peak of 1998. Unless 1998 was the end of the Holocene (hedging my bets)
How to beat the Met. Office at weather prediction:-
1) Cut up five pieces of card of equal size.
2) Write one of the following on each card: snow; rain; sun; fog and frost.
3) Shuffle the cards and select one.
I forecasted same, using only knowledge of the existing La Niña.
Do I get a lot of attention now?
Is this the same British weather office that General Eisenhauer relied upon to send the Soldiers of Democracy across the Channel into Normandy to begin the liberation of Europe?
Is that graph notation correct? It seems to be showing three days on the lower scale, not three months.
.
Ralph says:
January 12, 2011 at 3:23 am (Edit)
Is that graph notation correct? It seems to be showing three days on the lower scale, not three months.
No, what you are interpreting as “days” (Jan 08, Jan 09, Jan 10, Jan 11) are the month and year. Good eyes for seeing it and questioning it, so thank you for asking.
Lucy Skywalker says:
…………….
Could help if you monitor Stratosphere. First serious ‘break in’ of this winter happened 2 days ago. What does it mean? No idea.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/temperature/05mb9065.gif
Sorry, I’m as disappointed with the Met Office as anyone living in the UK, but as I have said here and elsewhere many times before, a prediction that cannot be recognized as prediction until after the fact is no predition at all.
It really doesn’t matter that Piers Corbyn or Bryan Leyland once made a claim about the future and it later happened that way. What would matter is if they do it repeatedly and much more often than chance. I’m not seeing any evidence presented here that they do (though that evidence may exist—in which case let’s see it).
We don’t (and shouldn’t) let climate alarmists retrospectively claim after the fact that one of their multiple widely differing “predictions” was correct. The same goes for everyone else. You have to be right time and again before you can say you are predicting.
@ur momisugly Roy, January 12, 2011 at 4:12 am
Piers Corbyn runs a weather forecasting business, where business customers, needing precise forecasting, are paying for his service. That’s how he makes his living, and he’s been doing it for some time, not just since this winter.
I’d think hard-headed business managers would not be willing to shell out for his service if he didn’t come up with the goods, again and again.
So no, he’s most certainly not a one-day wonder.
We’re really stuffed when a guy with a low-cost theory that is repeatedly confirmed (and anyone — or almost — can try at home) is ignored in favour of a load of guys with extremely high cost conjectures that failed every test so far.
Robert Ellison
The various oscillations, the La Nina and El Nino and so forth are likely to be only secondary reactions.
Stephen Strum has demonstrated that global temperature follows the length of the sunspot cycle with, (Ithink) a 13 month lag.
There is a theory, as yet unproven, that the fluctiating magnetic force between sun and earth control the incidence of cosmic rays reaching the lower atmosphere and through that clouds and temperature.
There is an experiment going on at CERN which may go some way to proving hard evidence.
There is growing evidence that the incidence of UHI is alone sufficient to explain most or all of the observed temperature increase since recorded global temperature began.
There is some evidence that feedbacks are negative rather than positive, throwing some doubt on the CO2 theory.
There is a gaping gap in the that theory anyway, from the point when heat is absorbed and readmitted within the CO2 molecule , to the big wide world of the atmosphere.
If you would like to debate why increasing amounts of CO2 emissions are not related to the periodic floods and droughts in Australia, I will oblige.
However, it may well be more productive to just sit back and observe for the next decade or so.
Mother nature is in the process of giving us a demonstration of which theory is right and which is wrong.
I am old but can go a few steps down that road with you, if you so choose.
Then you must preoceed further, alone I fear.
And being alone in the dark is quite worrysome I hear.
As a poster above pointed out by May 2010 the La Nina conditions were evident and just about all meterological institutions that made any public predictions were forcasting colder, wetter weather around the Pacific rim as a result.
The problem with these ‘independent’ forcasters is that they rarely present their past predictions in full so that the success rate can be measured.
Piers Corbyn, Jonathon Powell of PWS and this forcaster do not provide all their past predictions, and tend only to mention the times they are correct.
But without full disclosure of their actual hit rate they may be no better, or worse, that tossing a coin.
Robert Ellison says:
January 12, 2011 at 2:00 am
I think you’re being too fair to the Met. They made their claim in October. Now lets look at the ENSO reports from the Aussie BoM.
And
And
So, the Met should have, nay must have known about this strong La Nina well before their infamous prediction in October.
No need to be fair to them at all IMHO.
Roy,
Piers Corbyn runs http://www.weatheraction.com/
His accuracy is 85% and he earns his living by selling his forecasts. If he were a flash in the pan he’d be skint. He ain’t, so he isn’t. There’s the evidence you requested, although I am surprised you were not able to do the search yourself. It’s really quite easy, but I suspect your post was about casting aspersions. Apologies if I am not right.