From Dr. Benny Peiser at The GWPF
Questions Over Met Office Rain & Drought Predictions
The forecast for average UK rainfall slightly favours drier-than-average conditions for April-May-June as a whole, and also slightly favours April being the driest of the 3 months. With this forecast, the water resources situation in southern, eastern and central England is likely to deteriorate further during the April-May-June period… This forecast is based on information from observations, several numerical models and expert judgement. —Met Office 3-month Outlook, 23 March 2012
Seventeen counties in South West England and the Midlands have moved into official drought status, after two dry winters have left rivers and ground waters depleted. The news comes as the Environment Agency warned that the drought could last beyond Christmas. While rain over the spring and summer will help to water crops and gardens, it is unlikely to improve the underlying drought situation. —Environmental Agency, 16 April 2012
There’s evidence to say we are getting slightly more rain in total, but more importantly it may be falling in more intense bursts” — Julia Slingo, Met Office, 3 January 2013
The frequency of extreme rainfall in the UK may be increasing, according to analysis by the Met Office. Statistics show that days of particularly heavy rainfall have become more common since 1960. The analysis is still preliminary, but the apparent trend mirrors increases in extreme rain seen in other parts of the world. –Roger Harrabin, BBC News, 3 January 2013
In the wake of the “more rain and more intense rain” story, Doug Keenan sends this graph of England & Wales rainfall records for 1766-2012. Let’s just say the trend towards more rainfall is not obvious. As indeed is any trend towards less rainfall, which is said to be more likely by the UK Climate Impacts Programme. –Andrew Montford, Bishop Hill, 5 January 2013
Suddenly, after a wet year, which naturally the Met Office failed to forecast, they have reversed their customary fiery slogans to “Après nous le deluge”. Their antediluvian joy has given way to postdiluvian melancholy. They appear to have difficulty with the concept of random sequences of events, such as the precise positioning of the jet stream, and the fact that they produce apparent patterns and records. It was primitive man’s inability to envisage an effect without human cause that gave rise to much of religion. Of course it would have been most impressive if they had predicted all this a year ago, but they did not. Their predictions are as changeable as the weather and the only constant is the putative cause. –John Brignell, Number Watch, 3 January 2013
The Met Office continues to suffer from its recently acquired pretensions about climate. Careless remarks about BBQ summers and snowless winters and droughts in the UK have all been followed by Mother Nature failing to comply with their wishful thinking – the wishful bit being their hope that their faith in the power of CO2 in the system, or at least in computer models giving it a powerful effect, can be relied upon. –John Shade, Bishop Hill, 5 January 2013
My take on all this is that the alarmists are just getting desperate, spinning any weather and data to suit the CO2 thesis. Remember that the record annual rainfall for England is still less than the average annual rainfall for Scotland, hence if the average track of the jet stream is a little further south than usual then England gets a fair bit more rain. It has nothing to do with the alleged warmer atmosphere having more potential to store H20; if it was why did north-west Scotland have a drought in the spring and early summer? More bollocks from the Met Office. The UK weather and climate is determined by the track of the jet stream (and moderated by the Gulf Stream), and CO2 has feck all to do with it. –Lapogus, Bishop Hill, 5 January 2013
A bit OT, but
“It was primitive man’s inability to envisage an effect without human cause that gave rise to much of religion.’
I’ve seen this sort of claim repeated over and over again for more than fifty years. I’ve never seen a single solid argument to support it. It seems to be a dogma.
“The facts are the NH ice is still melting while………..”
I mean NH sea ice is still melting while……
“The Met Office continues to suffer from its recently acquired pretensions about climate. Careless remarks about BBQ summers and snowless winters and droughts in the UK have all been followed by Mother Nature failing to comply with their wishful thinking – the wishful bit being their hope that their faith in the power of CO2 in the system, or at least in computer models giving it a powerful effect, can be relied upon.” –John Shade, Bishop Hill, 5 January 2013
One could substitute the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) in Australia for the UK Met Office in the above statement and it would be equally as true. BOM constantly overhypes and over-estimates in line with the CAGW theory.
However, so many people in Australia are now onto the pattern of skewing that BOM (& CSIRO climate “research” areas) are on the backfoot – whenever they have to take the foot out of their mouths, that is.
@ur momisugly Grumpy Old Man
The only programmable computer in the world sat at Bletchley Park, having been invented by Tommy Flowers, with the support of Turing.
I suppose the real question is how long this sort of thing can go on for, before the game is up!
I covered all this back in June 2008 when the jet stream shift had already been obvious to me since 2000.
The trend has been consolidating ever since in line with declining solar activity
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=1458
“Weather is the key after all”
“If jet streams, on average, are further south then the high pressure systems to the north of them predominate and the globe is cooling. If, on average, they are further north then high pressure to the south of them predominates and the globe is warming.”
Since then I have formed the view that the degree of zonality or meridionality might well have as much influence as net latitudinal positioning.
Question to Anthony IS the met office notified when and were weather modification tech’s are being carried out? And what sort of affects would you expect to see from weather radars when weather modification is being carried out? Would you expect to see things like this http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=australian+radar+anomalies&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.1355534169,d.dGY&bpcl=40096503&biw=1175&bih=585&wrapid=tlif135742993461710&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=vrzoUP2oC4mrkQWX4oHQBg These can’t all be GAIN problems can they ? Your response would be app as would anybody elses that would like to respond.
cheers.
James Abbott says:
“Also, since when has the
GWPFMet Office been a reliable source of scientific information?”There. Fixed it for you.
Turing was very late to the game. The father of the computer was Babbage who came from my home town
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage
tonyb
At what point do these “predictors” start to feel stupid? Seriously. Again and again wrong, they must know by now not to trust models. Yet, that’s not what it’s about, is it? Such continuation points more firmly at conniving and further away from misguided. Perhaps they should be made aware that the mask is slipping. It really can’t be a mistake any longer, it is deliberate – their true colours are clearly showing. Time they stopped trying to hide behind innocence – it’s not working – even the dumbest would be expected to twig by now that the models are wrong. So, they are looking way beyond what would normally be categorized as stupid, or criminal, neither of which will help them in the future.
Hell, my Ouija board is better than the Met’s tens of millions of pounds super computers at predicting the climate. :p
Thanks D Böehm
Now answer the question – why is the GWPF taken seriously ?
They routinely alter the titles of published articles to suit their own biased position and recently completely invented one over an article they pinched from Nature. The author was not best pleased.
Forecasts tell us very little about climate – including forecasts from the Met Office. But measurements taken using scientific methods can tell us a lot. The GWPF article was clearly an attempt to distract attention from the measurements – which show that 4 out of the 5 wettest years in the UK since the records began in 1910 have occured since 2000.
There also looks to be a modest trend towards higher rainfall in the 30 year running means
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2013/2012-weather-statistics
RoHa says:
January 5, 2013 at 3:39 pm
A bit OT, but
“It was primitive man’s inability to envisage an effect without human cause that gave rise to much of religion.’
I’ve seen this sort of claim repeated over and over again for more than fifty years. I’ve never seen a single solid argument to support it. It seems to be a dogma.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Actually my SWAG is it was more likely an older very observant sort decided to make sure he was well taken care of in his declining years by ‘predicting’ stuff and spinning a bit of a story to go with it. If you are a messenger of the gods your are less likely to end up being killed by the younger folk when the pickings get lean.
Those tribes that preserved a few old folk as ‘shaman’ aka keepers of knowledge would have a bit of an advantage over those who wiped out all their old folk in the lean times.
It is the embellishment that lead to religion as the knowledge was handed down within a family. It is also the source of “killing witches’ when you wipe out a tribe and make off with the women the last thing you want is the older female ‘ keeper of knowledge ‘ from the other tribe taking revenge. So best off to kill the ‘witch’ aka wise woman.
Goldie on January 5, 2013 at 3:48 pm
I suppose the real question is how long this sort of thing can go on for, before the game is up!”
Ancient texts are full of references to court soothesayers. This can go on as long as there are human beings.
Maybe they should issue “whether or not” forecasts instead.
Matt G says:
January 5, 2013 at 3:42 pm
I mean NH sea ice is still melting while……
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The Arctic Ice may have been melting due to a warm North Atlantic Oscillation (which is headed for the cool half of the cycle now) however the Arctic Melt Season has been getting shorter for the last five years.
Hudson bay Ice is growing faster than normal this fall/winter
Phys.Org: Bering Strait influenced ice age climate patterns worldwide
…
You would think the MET would pay attention to papers like this: Persistent influence of the North Atlantic hydrography on central European winter temperature during the last 9000 years
The Met Office are missing a trick. Judging by their record, if they would forecast “unusually average” weather, they would be guaranteed more extreme weather.
That way, they could be proved right by being proved wrong.
I’ve gotten old enough to ache when a storm is coming. Some nerves are involved, and therefore I suppose my brain is involved to some degree, however it does not seem to involve my higher brain or any thought.
On certain occations, when a storm is blowing up rapidly off the coast of New England, and both the surface and upper air maps are rapidly being altered by the new weather feature, my left elbow will give you a forecast faster than a billion dollar computer.
When things are changing that swiftly, there is simply no way to get all the changed information into the computer, have the computer digest it and regurgitate it as a forecast, as fast as my left elbow does the job.
Therefore my left elbow (and a total lack of digitized thought) is worth more than a billion dollar computer.
If we take the much longer period using England and Wales going back to 1766, 2012 was the 3rd wettest in the entire series.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadukp/data/monthly/HadEWP_monthly_qc.txt
It was the wettest year since 1872 and another recent record broken that goes back, over or around hundred years. During the series there are similar wet and dry alternate periods throughout the data range.
Stephen Wilde says:
January 5, 2013 at 3:53 pm
“If jet streams, on average, are further south then the high pressure systems to the north of them predominate and the globe is cooling. If, on average, they are further north then high pressure to the south of them predominates and the globe is warming.”
Actually, Stephen, the reverse is true.
The Earth’s climate accumulates heat nearer to the equator, and loses heat toward the poles. The extent to which the climate warms or cools is significantly affected by how far poleward tropical and sub-tropical air reaches.
If the jets are keeping tropical air closer to the equator then the climate warms, even though the average air temperature is cooler.
King of Cool
And you will be bombarded from Green and Labor Politicians that the present heat wave in the south of the country and the current Tasmanian bushfires are “extreme events” as a result of CO2 caused global warming.
Why you chose to cherrypick Tasmania right now is a bit of a mystery. Why not Darwin, for example? As soon as the monsoon trough hovering just to the north of Darwin moves south, it will all be non-extreme up that way.
BTW, why are you pretending that what is happening in Tasmania is not an extreme event? Hobart has just set a maximum temperature record.
As a result of the same weather that brought Hobart its new maximum, around 100 houses and businesses in several towns have just been destroyed by fire, their embers have hardly cooled, there are fires burning out of control, firies are doing a desperate job to try and save lives and property, and right now thousands of people are holed up in evacuation centres or wherever they retreated to when the fires swept in. Your sense of decorum is not all that good. You could at least wait until it is actually over before trying to politicize it.
If Britain could only send some spare rain down this way, it would be very, very welcome.
Doctor Foster
Went to Gloucester
In the pouring rain
He fell in a puddle
Right up to his middle
And never went there again.
This nursery rhyme is at least 250 years old. But the Met Office/BBC think that the recent flooding in Gloucestershire was “unprecedented”.
By the way, a group of Polish mathematicians led by Marian Rejewski broke the Enigma machine code in 1932. The machines themselves were commercially available. Not a lot of people know that. For some strange reason…
James Abbott says:
January 5, 2013 at 3:16 pm
“This is just an attempt to distract from the real story, which is that 2012 saw the second highest recorded rainfall total in the UK and the highest ever recorded in England, since records began in 1910. But more revealing is the fact that 4 out of the 5 wettest years recorded have been since the year 2000.”
Only trouble with this is that the warmists predicted a warmer drier climate for GB in the face of CAGW!!!!.
So what the hell are you talking about?
Does GB have a drier future or a wetter future? Please be specific and state the reasons behind it.
Alan
Since 2007 there has been a trend of the Polar jet moving southwards over the UK during the summer which has lead to duller wetter summers in the UK. This was somthing that the Met Office was not expecting and so they have had to change tack with their claims about climate change, from warming to wetter. Because this southward movement of the jet will stop any warming in the UK in its tracks.
Well the MET gets one thing right.
Lying and in your face incompetence pays quite well.