WUWT readers may recall the story by the Daily Mail about the new supercomputer.
The Met Office has caused a storm of controversy after it was revealed their £30million supercomputer designed to predict climate change is one of Britain’s worst polluters.
The massive machine – the UK’s most powerful computer with a whopping 15 million megabytes of memory – was installed in the Met Office’s headquarters in Exeter, Devon.
With a total peak performance approaching 1 PetaFlop — equivalent to over 100,000 PCs and over 30 times more powerful than what is in place today. It is capable of 1,000 billion calculations every second to feed data to 400 scientists and uses 1.2 megawatts of energy to run – enough to power more than 1,000 homes.
With all that power, surely it must produce some quality digital reckoning.
Bishop Hill has located the “supposedly secret” winter forecast sent to the British government. The details of the forecast produced are nothing short of astounding.
When the kerfuffle over the Met Office’s winter forecast blew up, I wrote to the Quarmby team to see if they had actually received a copy of the Met Office’s cold-winter forecast, which was apparently sent to the Cabinet Office. It is alleged that the forecast should have provided sufficient warning to the government machine to ensure that everyone was ready for what happened in December.
Today, rather later than I expected, the Quarmby team have responded and have helpfully provided a copy of the forecast:
Met Office Initial Assessment of Risk for Winter 2010/11
This covers the months of November, December and January 2010/11, this will be updated monthly through the winter and so probabilities will change.
Temperature
3 in 10 chance of a mild start
3 in 10 chance of an average start
4 in 10 chance of a cold start
Precipitation
3 in 10 chance of a wet start
3 in 10 chance of an average start
4 in 10 chance of a dry start
Summary: There is an increased risk for a cold and wintry start to the winter season.
Looking further ahead beyond this assessment there are some indications of an increased risk of a mild end to the winter season.
Yes that seems clear, doesn’t it? Seeing the numbers produced, personally, I think this less expensive computer, using Digital Advanced Reckoning Technology (DART) can do the job of making odds equally well, using less power, less space, and less money:
I really love this one:
Looking further ahead beyond this assessment there are some indications of an increased risk of a mild end to the winter season.
I think its been done, something about “March coming in like a lion and out like a lamb” IIRC. But really, I never thought that a “mild end to winter” could be categorized as a “risk”.
But this forecast for the start of winter still doesn’t square with the Met Office map output.
Here’s the Met Office supercomputer enhanced model output forecast from October 2010: 
See the story about that controversy here and here
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
1 petaflop = how many flippidy flops?
at least they could give this megamachine a name; like “HAL”
From the HadCru how are we doing department.
Hadcrm2 model (2000)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v407/n6804/images/407617ac.2.jpg
Current CET:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/
The request by Julia Slingo for more money to have a bigger computer is the classic fallacy of trying to predict a complex system by throwing more computing power at the problem. Throwing more computing power at a complex problem such as weather or climate forecasting does one of two things
(a) Gives you the same answers in a shorter time
(b) Allows the cell size or time step to be smaller and gets you a slightly diffferent answer in the same time
If your computer model (code) does not correctly model the physical processes then you will get the wrong answer each time no matter how small you make the cells or the steps.
Julie Slingo is guilty of the age old problem of trying to argue that if you could just model in a bit more detail you could solve the problem. Dissection ad infinitum…absurd. How fine would the cell size and time step have to be? 1 x 1 m and 1 second? Would that improve the predcition. Of course not – what would improve the prediction is much more input data from measuring stations (more accurate initial conditions) and better modelling of physical processes. It is non-linear Navier-Stokes after all…
Ask yourself this question: are the long range weather forecasts for 2 months ahead any better now than they were 10 or 20 years ago? I suspect not (and the almost equal probability vague forecast above confirms this), but the increase in available computer power has increased by orders of magnitude in that time. Has it helped – only by delivering the same poor predictions from bigger models. Bigger computers don’t give you better models, they give you faster or bigger models.
Many years ago in the 1980’s a well know programmer called Les Hatton wrote a series of articles on computer programming for geophysicists. In one of the articles he described his experience working on the then Met Office forecast code (probably running on a Cray back them). He said that when tidying up one part of the code and running some tests he noticed that in the finite difference steps for the main calculations there was a massive bug. Every other step all the terms were accidently zeroed. Excited, he fixed the bug and dreamed of newspaper headlines “Hatton solves problem – British Weather now completely predictable”. Alas, upon testing the code after fixing the bug he discovered that the new “correct” answer was indistinguishable from the results obtained before fixing the bug!
As a previous boss once said and I quote quite often, “If you computerize chaos, you get faster chaos.”
I think the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is at work here. I hope their models have factored into the climate forecast the carbon output contributed by their CPU in order to measure the climate change. It’s got to throw things off if they haven’t.
Predictions based on assumptions and those assumptions based on dogma and ideology using a very powerful computer. Its like using a computer to predict what a child will do for a living while its still in the womb and basing those predictions on what the parents do at the time, even the most powerful computer would be wrong.
So what to do? Blur the outcomes as much as possible of course, a gypsy palm reader does this, predict outcomes so widely and inclusive that any outcome can be deemed a successful prediction ie sunny and cloudy with rain and dry spells and some wind at times with a chance of being quite warm and then cool.
Its easy to go that route because its easier than putting in the hard work and of course you can airbrush out reality to suit a prejudice or entrenched ideology such as CAGW is real and the debate is over. The job of the UKMO is not weather prediction but CAGW theory confirmation, basing all efforts on that ‘truth’ everything else becomes subordinate to the narrative, CAGW is real and the UKMO will prove it and if they cannot they will try harder by fudging the figures and erasing some data and changing other data and egging the pudding and it all stems from a belief. CAGW is real and there is no debate, the UKMO will find the evidence and if no evidence can be found they will invent it because they believe. See how it works?
The builders of Stonehenge saw the gods in every leaf and hare and fox and cloud formation because they believed, if you believe and if you have invested so much then everything will confirm a belief and nothing will contradict it, its called group think and groups that believe they are serving a higher purpose like saving the world are susceptible to this. The admission of failure and error is hard for anyone to contemplate and for the victims of groupthink it is nigh on impossible, there is a self reinforcing determination to ignore reality and change the evidence to suit the groups entrenched prejudice especially if that group believes it has a higher moral purpose and if sceptics disagree then the groupthink encourages the group attack response.
People will go to extraordinary lengths to deny reality and continue a false belief and this can and does breed a fanaticism that sceptics cannot understand, there were of course sceptics that opposed the gigantic task of building Stonehenge but in the face of groupthink you can imagine their fate! A wonderful national institution that gave the world modern meteorology has sunk to the level of a whacky cult, a word to the wise America dont let it happen to you.
For those interested in the Les Hatton comments he re-states them here:
http://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http://www.leshatton.org/Documents/Chimera_Sep2006.pdf&sa=U&ei=J-w5TbHyI4O0hAetiOWlCg&ved=0CBQQFjAB&usg=AFQjCNEo0tx4WFVnF-6bLT5CpctsfREMUA
But the original article was in First Break magazine (I seem to remember it was one of the later parts of his programming series of 7 or 8 articles.
As ‘Curiousgeorge’ mentioned, the Farmer’s Almanac is heavily relied upon for weather forecasting here in the Colonies. But the most accurate prognosticator turns out to be the caterpillar of the moth, Arctiidae. Called “woolly bears” or “woolly worms”, the caterpillars have a dense black fur which varies in length in proportion to the anticipated severity of the next coming winter. The worms’ fur length last Summer and Fall was especially long and, sure enough, here in Alabama we have had three rather generous snowfalls in late December, and thus far in January, following several years of no snow at all. A couple of low temps in single digits F, too.
Sometime in March, the famous groundhog, Punxatawney Phil, will be grudgingly pulled from hibernation to see if he casts a shadow. If he does, six more weeks of Winter will be in store. As with the woolly worms, Phil has a fairly formidable record.
The carbon footprints of these forecasting tools are vanishingly small and, dare I say, provide serious challenges to the Met Office’s output.
Russ Blake says:
January 21, 2011 at 11:52 am
Is it just me, or does it seem like someone should be thrown in jail for a lifetime for trying to dupe the world??
No, there’s probably even a consensus of you and me’s, but we do have to compromise, dontcha’ know: fire them before the mob gets ’em, so they’ll at least have a running start.
Aside, I just heard on ABC U.S. radio “news” that Vietnam is at “26 degrees” somewhere instead of a usual ~ “60 degrees” [F.].
I predict it will be cold in the winter and hot in the summer.
Or was it the other way round?
3 in 10 chance of a mild start
3 in 10 chance of an average start
4 in 10 chance of a cold start
Increased cold because 4 is higher than 3, you morons!
I do wonder though what that guy in the pic is pondering?
Hmm, the cheapo pc they got for me at least came with a mouse.
I have a £50,000 hammer that could ‘fix’ that supercomputer.
Anyone?
Guy in the pic pondering after calling tech support.
Hmm, how to turn it off and on again?
Commenters at Bishop Hill have pointed out the curious use of the word “risk” in these forecasts, as if any kind of weather is risky. An increased “risk” of a mild end to the winter? Heaven forfend!
TV weather forecasters should adopt the same practice:
“For the rest of the week, there’s an extremely high risk of clear skies, light winds and temperatures in the mid 70s.”
Where are the complaints about the UK Government accepting this as a ‘forecast’?
Who is questioning the government about why so much money was spent on the ultrasuperduperradiator to get such a poor result?
Don’t let your political representatives get away with not questioning the value of the Met Office.
Sorry, I don’t believe the report. It seems to convenient. They publicly put out something different and the Mayor of London wrote an article in the Telegraph wondering why the Met office got it so wrong and Piers Corbynn right. If the Met office had put out a secret forecast then the Mayor of London would have received it. He didn’t or he wouldn’t have wrote the article. The Met office is lying. Take it to the bank.
Unfortunately, we must simply accept that the Met Office and all their 1500 cronies are a complete and utter waste of time. What I often wonder is which was the lead criminal in the CRU or MetOffice joint effort to steal from the British Taxpayer?
Traditionally, prophets are regarded as having a role in society that promotes change due to their messages and actions.
In the late 20th century the appellation of “prophet” has been used to refer to individuals particularly successful at analysis in the field of economics, such as in the derogatory “prophet of greed”. Alternatively, social commentators who suggest escalating crisis are often called “prophets of doom.”[3][4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophet
Further, I note the life of Nikola Tesla
Because of his 1894 demonstration of wireless communication through radio and as the eventual victor in the “War of Currents”, he was widely respected as one of the greatest electrical engineers who worked in America.[2] He pioneered modern electrical engineering and many of his discoveries were of groundbreaking importance. In the United States during this time, Tesla’s fame rivaled that of any other inventor or scientist in history or popular culture.[3] Tesla demonstrated wireless energy transfer to power electronic devices as early as 1893, and aspired to intercontinental wireless transmission of industrial power in his unfinished Wardenclyffe Tower project.
Because of his eccentric personality and his seemingly unbelievable and sometimes bizarre claims about possible scientific and technological developments, Tesla was ultimately ostracized and regarded as a mad scientist by many late in his life.[4] Tesla never put much focus on his finances and died with little funds at the age of 86, alone in the two room hotel suite in which he lived, in New York City.[5]
The International System of Units unit measuring magnetic field B (also referred to as the magnetic flux density and magnetic induction), the tesla, was named in his honor (at the Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures, Paris, 1960).
In addition to his work on electromagnetism and electromechanical engineering, Tesla contributed in varying degrees to the establishment of robotics, remote control, radar, and computer science, and to the expansion of ballistics, nuclear physics, and theoretical physics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla
Any knowledge and be used to abuse . . . . I will never forget it. . .
Doctor Gee says:
January 21, 2011 at 10:07 am
“So 1 Whattaflop of computing power […]”
Excellent!
R. Gates says: January 21, 2011 at 11:08 am
“The Met Office Super Climate computer, after running non-stop for weeks on end came up with the ultimate answer to the puzzle that is the climate…the answer was:
And your not going to like this….
42.”
Funny, I like it. Are you starting to come around to the possibility that Global Climate Models (GCMs) might not be particularly accurate yet? Maybe I can help some more…
“Many atmospheric general circulation models (GCMs) and chemistry–climate models (CCMs) are not able to reproduce the observed polar stratospheric winds in simulations of the late 20th century. Specifically, the polar vortices break down too late and peak wind speeds are higher than in the ERA-40 reanalysis. Insufficient planetary wave driving during the October–November period delays the breakup of the southern hemisphere (SH) polar vortex in versions 1 (V1) and 2 (V2) of the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) chemistry–climate model, and is likely the cause of the delayed breakup in other CCMs with similarly weak October-November wave driving.”
” Clearly, if CCMs cannot duplicate the observed response of the polar stratosphere to late 20th century climate forcings, their ability to simulate the polar vortices in future may be poor.”
http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2009/EGU2009-651.pdf
“It is unclear how much confidence can be put into the model projections of the vortices given that the models typically only have moderate resolution and that the climatological structure of the vortices in the models depends on the tuning of gravity wave parameterizations.
Given the above outstanding issues, there is need for continued research in the dynamics of the vortices and their representation in global models.”
http://www.columbia.edu/~lmp/paps/waugh+polvani-PlumbFestVolume-2010.pdf
RE JPeden at 12:39
The Met Office prediction amounts to 40% chance of colder than average and 60% chance of average or warmer than average.
The further problem is that the categories are undefined. Does “average” mean average +/- 0.1 degree, +/- 1.0 degree or +/- 10.0 degrees? Without that information the prediction is completely useless. Even without pointing out that the probabilities are so close to uniform that it is virtually random anyway.
FrankK says: January 21, 2011 at 12:06 pm
Thank you for expanding my engineer’s limited and rather rudimentary vocabulary. I am planning on using this term on from friends at a local sipping event later today to see how many may be familiar with it.
@Twiggy
You mean a dog race like this ?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1348863/Who-No-nose-At-odds-millions-greyhound-race-ends-astonishing-triple-dead-heat.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
see pics of the heat emissions from the met office
http://metofficehypocrites.wordpress.com/