Met Office – COPing to predictions

People send me stuff. Today I got a document dump, not quite on the Scale of ClimateGate but interesting nonetheless.

These are the Met Office’s past reports to the COP climate conferences  going back to 1998, containing predictions about climate change. WUWT readers will surely be interested in examining how accurate those predictions have turned out to be. For example, here’s a figure from the COP4 report in 1998:

There is too much information here to take in today, so this seems like a perfect opportunity for crowd-sourcing bu WUWT readers. In comments make your points with references to the document, and excerpts, and compare to what we know today with appropriate references and citations.

I’ll publish another thread on what you’ve found.

These are all PDF files, some as large as 5MB.

COP4

COP5

COP6

COP7

COP8

COP9

COP10

COP11

COP12

0 0 votes
Article Rating

Discover more from Watts Up With That?

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

42 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Fred
April 14, 2012 2:52 pm

There have been no negative consequences, if fact quite the opposite these people have prospered very well from their data manipulation and production of scary models.
So this will continue until they face negative consequences.
Terminate a couple of careers and stop the financing for all the nice new toys would send a strong signal.

April 14, 2012 3:27 pm

the first thing you would have to do is plot out the ASSUMED emissions scenario ( BAU) verses the ACTUAL emissions data. If that’s close, then you can compare the prediction to the actual.
Its like this: Suppose I have a model that predicts miles to empty given an Assumed fuel flow rate
So, if you run your car at the current throttle setting for the next 2 hours, your MTE (miles to empty) will be Xt, Xt2, etc etc. You run that model based on an assumed throttle setting.
Now you get to test it. But, instead of a throttle setting that you assumed the driver sometimes runs above that setting and sometimes runs below that setting.
Problem: you cant simply compare the model run ( which assumed condition X ) against a test run where the test conditions were not controlled.
Since we cant control the experiment ( the emissions ) we cant SIMPLY compare a prediction to reality. You first must check the emissions scenario and see how well it tracks with reality.
If you want controlled experiments then your only hope is to install a world government that controls emissions. And we dont want that. Or you can do a range of emissions scenarios..

Werner Brozek
April 14, 2012 3:54 pm

Which data set should be used when analysing these predictions versus reality? I was given the impression that CRUTEM3 was not good because it did not cover the polar regions well. Presumably, we now have the cream of the crop with both CRUTEM4 and BEST. Is one better than the other? I checked out the year 1996 with both and there are HUGE differences! For example, with BEST, January 1996 was 0.282 and August was 1.095 for a rise of 0.813 between January and August of the same year. However with CRUTEM4, January 1996 was 0.208 and August was 0.220 for a rise of only 0.012 between January and August of that same year. The net difference is 0.801 C, which is supposedly the total warming since 1750. See
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/best/from:1996/to:1997/plot/crutem4vgl/from:1996/to:1997

MikeN
April 14, 2012 5:14 pm

For the posted chart, how can global temperature change be more than sea or land? Shouldn’t it be between the two, about 70-30 towards the sea end?

Phil's Dad
April 14, 2012 5:25 pm

Steven Mosher says:
April 14, 2012 at 3:27 pm
the first thing you would have to do…

Of course Mr M is right about looking at the assumptions in the models first. Perhaps we could ask them to release their data and code so we could do that. What do you think Mr M?
In the mean time – as afar as I can tell – emissions seem to be about the same or slightly higher than their A1F1 assumptions and temperatures well below.

Allan MacRae
April 14, 2012 5:34 pm

“I am always happy to be in the minority. Concerning the climate models, I know enough of the details to be sure that they are unreliable. They are full of fudge factors that are fitted to the existing climate, so the models more or less agree with the observed data. But there is no reason to believe that the same fudge factors would give the right behavior in a world with different chemistry, for example in a world with increased CO2 in the atmosphere.”
– Freeman Dyson
___________
COP10 (2004) excerpt:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/cop10.pdf
The Hadley Centre has developed a method to estimate the uncertainty in climate models, the largest source of uncertainty in climate predictions over the next 50 years. Preliminary results suggest that:
– the most likely global average temperature rise for a doubling of the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide is predicted to be 3.5 °C, with a 90% probability that the warming will be between 2.4 °C and 5.4 °C;
______________
Not a word about aerosols in this COP10 document – I presume their FABRICATED aerosol numbers are buried within the climate computer models.
How do I know the aerosol numbers (pre-1970) are FABRICATED? Because if they used real aerosol numbers, the “most likely global average temperature rise for a doubling of the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide“ (Climate Sensitivity to CO2) would not be 3.5C – it would probably be 1.0C or less.
They use the phony aerosol data to fudge their climate computer models so that they can falsely claim to hindcast (model the past) accurately, and voila – can therefore claim to accurately model the future.
It is all nonsense – their models grossly over-predict global warming due to many fatal flaws in their input assumptions – the phony aerosol data is needed to then “adjust” the more obvious resulting consequences of these false inputs (particularly exaggerated Sensitivity) – one lie begets another.
______________

Gail Combs
April 14, 2012 5:43 pm

Steven Mosher says:
April 14, 2012 at 3:27 pm
If you want controlled experiments then your only hope is to install a world government that controls emissions. And we dont want that…..
________________________________
Yea, but the UN, World Bank and WTO does.

GloGov.org
The 2012 PhD Training School on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change: Earth System Governance will be held at the University of Twente in Enschede, on 18-21 June 2012…
New Working Papers
The latest (downloadable) Global Governance Working Papers:
* The Effectiveness of Transnational Rule-Setting Organisations in Global Sustainability Politics: An Analytical Framework
* Technology Transfer through Water Partnerships. A Radical Framework of Assessment for Legitimacy
* Global Democracy Without Global Justice? Why a Procedural Account is Flawed
* Towards a World Environment Organisation: Identifying the Barriers to International Environmental Governance Reform
…….

That was just the first listed in a search on “Global Governance”

George E. Smith
April 14, 2012 7:43 pm

So I looked at just one of their graphed predictions; the green one, since it is the most prominent, and it raised a question. Starting at around 2050, and going to 2100, the climate is predicted to start undergoing much larger temperature swings, than anything in the history up to 2000.
So what is it in their green model that causes everything to go pear shaped in 2050; do they switch to a different random number algorithm in 2050 ?

Werner Brozek
April 14, 2012 7:57 pm

MikeN says:
April 14, 2012 at 5:14 pm
For the posted chart, how can global temperature change be more than sea or land? Shouldn’t it be between the two, about 70-30 towards the sea end?

They are. The red (global) is between the green (land) and blue (sea). And in about the ratio you say. But over the last 11 years, neither the land, sea, nor globe warmed. See
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:2001/plot/wti/from:2001/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2001/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2001/trend/plot/crutem3vgl/from:2001/plot/crutem3vgl/from:2001/trend

clipe
April 14, 2012 8:24 pm

I just threw a dart at numberwatch.co.uk
http://www.countercurrents.org/cc-leahy060406.htm
“There is no practical hope of saving small island states like the Maldives Islands (in the Indian Ocean),” Griggs told IPS. “This is a hugely important new issue.”
And
On the other side of the world, rising waters will drown many beaches on Canada’s Atlantic coast by 2030, says John Shaw, a research scientist with the Geological Survey of Canada. Adding to the problem is the fact that much of the eastern North American continent is subsiding as a result of the last ice age.
Meanwhile back at the ranch…$

Marian
April 15, 2012 12:12 am

“Gail Combs says:
April 14, 2012 at 5:43 pm
Steven Mosher says:
April 14, 2012 at 3:27 pm
If you want controlled experiments then your only hope is to install a world government that controls emissions. And we dont want that…..
________________________________
Yea, but the UN, World Bank and WTO does. ”
Dread the thought.
So the Global Dictatorship would have to be in power for 800yrs of ‘controlled emission’ to get to see if there really is anything to CO2 AGW/CC due to the 800yr lagtime effect. Am i right?

son of mulder
April 15, 2012 12:27 am

Just looking at the 1998 COP unperturbed model thay seem to have temperature going down in 1998 as opposed to the El Nino. Are they implying that the 1998 El Nino was caused by anthropogenic CO2 or is their unperturbed model rubbish, not being able to predict a very significant climate event in its year of production? And if their unperturbed model is rubbish what do we expect the others to be?

Stephen Richards
April 15, 2012 1:16 am

Pat Frank says:
April 14, 2012 at 1:31 pm
Pat, I suspect that it has been taken down from the UK Met Off site by now but in about 2007 they announced a brand new model for their brand new £30m computer which would PREDICT the daily weather and climate to 10 years out and that they would be selling these forecasts commercially. They used that model to predict that the majority of years from 2009 would be hotter globally than 1998. That’s why they had to invent HadCru4. They needed it to make 2010 the warmist year ever, ever ever. They crooks and thieves. They take money from the UK pensioners (£482 / month maximum) to play their dangerous climate games. Richard Betts has been putting himself around the internet with his “be polite and you will be alright” method in support of his friends at the CRU and their climate model which, incidentally, in case you didn’t know, is accurate and has predicted everything that has happened.

Stephen Richards
April 15, 2012 1:18 am

Mosher says
Since we cant control the experiment ( the emissions ) we cant SIMPLY compare a prediction to reality. You first must check the emissions scenario and see how well it tracks with reality.
So, Steven, we should stop all model research in favour of real, empirical science, yeh ?

David A
April 15, 2012 3:38 am

Steven Mosher says:
April 14, 2012 at 3:27 pm
————————————————————–
Well then we can take their most dire predictions, as emissions have been about as great as the worst case do nothing to control CO2 scenarios, what with India and China as well as many other nations developing. Therefore the accuracy of the predicted result is worse then we thought.

TXMichael
April 15, 2012 7:27 am

The worm has turned —
What was a trickle of dissent has become a stream. 16 Scientist here, 49 Astronauts there, and treasure troves of documents. The release of this UK Met Office material is another component of what will soon become a torrent of rebuke; as scientist and policy makers flee the sinking ship that is CAWG dogma. Soon people will begin to brag about having left first — the ” I knew it was all a load of ____ when . . . ” crowd. For the money/power grubbers in the CAGW camp, I hope they ride it into the depths. For those easily mislead, I hope that they will learn to exert some independent thought next time. And for a generation of young scientist with degrees in climate studies and computer modeling, I feel sorry. Populist band-wagons may be great social moves, but then often leave one’s career in disarray.

April 15, 2012 8:42 pm

Stephen, coincidentally, I recently made a comparison between the retrodiction of that particular brand new UK Met climate model, and the 2011 and 2012 CRU global temperature anomalies.
Here’s the plot: http://i43.tinypic.com/160plhj.jpg
All the lines are zeroed at 1985. The white line is the UK Met model retrodiction with 95% confidence intervals in fading red. The dark blue line is the CRU global temperature anomalies to 2011, and the dark green line is the CRU global temperature anomalies to 2012.
Darned if in the 2011 data, the observed anomaly trend wanders away from the retrodicted anomalies after about 1996. By 2011, the measured anomalies are threatening the 95% confidence limit.
But somehow by 2012 the anomalies were corrected by the Ministry of Truth in Climate Science, and voila!, they are properly right on target over the model line. Climate science, by Winston Smith, et al.