From the organization that can’t forecast its way out of a paper bag, and then can’t bring itself to tell the public about long range forecasts anymore, it has come to this. OK, I’m not against citizen science, but when you start asking the “Chemtrail” watchers to do “science” to help check your models, there’s no hope for you. They apparently have no idea what they are getting themselves into asking for contrail watching. If they thought they were going to catch flak for long range forecast issues, just wait until the Chemtrail people start in on them.
Check out these statements:
Researchers are also urging schoolchildren to blow bubbles to measure wind speed and direction near the ground, to reveal how the built environment affects the wind, as well as watching cloud movement to record wind direction in the sky.
The Open Air Laboratories (Opal) survey also involves the public recording how hot or cold they feel as part of efforts to see how people might cope with temperature changes.
…
Scientists are also keen to discover what confuses people about climate change so that they can widen public understanding of the topic.
Dr Geoff Jenkins of the Met Office said: “We’re asking people to get outside observing and measuring the weather.
“What they see and record will be useful for checking the systems we use for forecasting weather and predicting climate.”
How hot or cold they feel? Sure that will reduce the “uncertainty” The only thing missing is tea leaves or tarot card readers.
Barking mad they are. Either that or this is simply a propaganda tool to engage children in the idea that they can do something supposedly useful to “change the climate”.
Full story here
Details on the project here: http://www.opalexplorenature.org/climatesurvey
The contrail submission page is here It’s a hoot.
WOW! A month too early!
If we thought that the SurfaceStation.org project revealed contamination of the data, what kind of contamination will this data entail?
GPlant
Maybe the “Folks” at the MET office should spend more time observing the Weather than their SIM Planet Models trying to create a climate scenario!
UKMET’s December three-month forecast to the government, received via FOI today, shows they forecasted the following:
—————-
Issued 22 December 2010
This forecast is for contingency planning purposes only.
It represents the Met Office’s assessment based on our current understanding.
The public should be directed to our monthly outlook and the continually updated 1-
5 day forecast information that can be found on our website
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/uk_forecast_weather.html and via our
broadcast partners including the BBC
Outlook for January – March 2011
For the period January-March 2011, there is a 15% chance of mild conditions, a 30%
chance of near-average and a 55% chance of cold conditions over northern Europe.
—————-
In the event, the UK was very slightly cooler than 1971-2000 average in January and experienced its ninth warmest February in the last 100 years. Now they want us to count con-trails and watch bubbles float around. And they still want tens of millions of pounds for more supercomputing capability.
Aren’t we Britons lucky?
Where do they mention ‘Chemtrails’. Aren’t the Chemtrail watchers you are referring to a bunch of eccentric conspiracy theorists that seem to think that governments and scientists are working together to mislead us and get lots of fat research grants?
Now where have I seen something similar..oh yeah…oops
the Met may be secretly trying to increase skepticism by showing that in many ways, AGW true belief is not significantly different from believing in UFOs and men in black.
As for the propaganda tool for children that you mention Anthony, you need to look no further than the government sponsored site that went live yesterday after a written announcement in Parliament:
http://autonomousmind.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/the-war-on-co2-updated-2050-pathways-analysis-launched/
Enjoy.
UK taxpayer funds put to good use. How much are they paying these knuckleheads?
It’s a propaganda tool. They are just the worst scum bags ever closely followed by their government sponsors.
I wonder if they’ve ever considered focussing their attentions on forecasting the weather?
It seems to me that any politician worth his salt whose trying to make cuts in their department would have to ask him/herself why the public were paying for these games.
Let me get this straight. The powers that be appear so unconvinced regarding the accuracy of Joe and Suzy Public recording the temperature inside those white boxes, they feel they must “make stuff up” according to their own emails. But apparently counting chem trails and goosebumps will be the gold standard against their own forecasts?
At least some might question if all of them are actually vapor trails or chemtrails.
OMG! What a load of rubbish.
I am ex-RAF aircrew and when I flew on V-force we were told at what levels we would produce persistent, and non persistent contrails to help to keep a low profile. These were caused by varying humidity in the atmosphere and would vary every day not with climate. So as expected this ‘survey’ will bring meaningless answers especially with untrained observers.
I read this in swiss french newspaper too.
How can we call this science ? it’s only propaganda as you wrote. It’s unbelievable.
In the same way in switzerland we pay taxes to feed this kind of people that like to be called : ‘scientists’. The real climate scientists have lot of problems to find money to work correctly … in french we call this : ‘pensée unique’.
Excellent blog Antony.
My word, Sesame Street Meteorology! Booker and/or Delingpole should have a field day with this one.
JFK whom is secretly a lizard alien was spraying chemicals from a commercial airliner when he crashed it into one of the twin towers. Elvis was in the parking garage below setting demolition charges with Hitler.
I thought the Met always used soap bubbles to track wind speed. It’s the best way to model AGW since the bubbles contain high levels of Anthropogenic CO2. It’s all very organic and harmonius.
If the met office issues a forecast with a 55% probability, as stated earlier.
This is just slightly a head of tossing a coin which is a 50/50 probability or 50%…….
Now the Met office has a vast supercomputer, but according to their own probability matrix, you might as well have got a Uk £1 coin. Wrote cold one side, warm the other and tossed it !
its also bloody freezing in the UK at the moment, for march with temps around 3 Degrees in Sheffield, where i live.
Well it was this morning according to my own digital weather station, upon which i’ve now come to rely.
i.e. Look outside, look at said thermometer and decided on the day ahead.
Its better than the met office………
When I used to hang glide, I often chucked grass up to gauge wind direction and speed. I can see how blowing bubbles would be even better. If this catches on I can just see glider pilots taking out their bubble solutions before climbing aboard. Maybe Heathrow will employ an official Met office licenced bubble blower to send regular wind readings to the tower.
Tower: Land at your discretion. Wind at 140 degrees and 15 bubbles.
@ur momisugly madrigal says:
March 4, 2011 at 6:08 am
Where do they mention ‘Chemtrails’. Aren’t the Chemtrail watchers you are referring to a bunch of eccentric conspiracy theorists that seem to think that governments and scientists are working together to mislead us and get lots of fat research grants?
Now where have I seen something similar..oh yeah…oops”
It’s not chemtrails, it’s contrails. It says so right in the article:
“The research, led by scientists at the Met Office and the Royal Meteorological Society, will look at various aspects of how humans are affecting the climate, and how people may adapt to rising temperatures.
People are being asked to look out for aeroplane trails, or contrails, which may be contributing to climate change and which can only be recorded by the human eye. “
Early lessons have a lasting impact. They are obviously attempting to salvage the fraud through the next generation,
The formative years are important to the development of children and they intend to use that to further their agenda. Having children participate in a theory not proven may seem nutty but they know very well what they are doing. It is tantamount to corrupting their development. And it is at least a disgusting tactic.
Science projects in elementary school have to be based on proven science otherwise it is recreation or propaganda.
I believe that Anthony suspects that the contrail reporting will be overrun by the ‘chemtrail conspiracy theorists’ — who might very well see this as the perfect opportunity to report all those suspicious looking top-secret-chemical-laden faux-contrails sprayed by certain unnamed government agencies for very scary purposes.
I love this part, Dr Geoff Jenkins of the Met Office said: “We’re asking people to get outside observing and measuring the weather.” Is this so he can plug the results into a computer?
Absolutely and totally bloody mad. Cold I may be, but also ashamed to be an Englishman. Right out of the University of “You Couldn’t Make It Up”.
Robert Fitzroy, founder of the Met Office, and Charles Darwin’s Captain of the Beagle, was a brilliant surveyor and mapped much of the Cape Horn, Magellan Straits, Southern Chile area, in the most meticulous and precise way.
He must be spinning in his grave at the sheer idiocy of these folk.
One hears the sound of tumbrils in the distance!
On the survey site for youngsters:
Milder winters? Haven’t they learned anything from experience?
Autonomous Mind says:
March 4, 2011 at 6:11 am
As for the propaganda tool for children that you mention Anthony, you need to look no further than the government sponsored site that went live yesterday after a written announcement in Parliament:
The online game is at: http://my2050.decc.gov.uk/ where you can have minutes of fun.