From The GWPF and Dr. Benny Peiser
Met Office Apologises For Wrong Forecast – And Makes Another One
Warm Bias: The Met Office’s Disastrous Track Record
Met Office apologises for warning of ‘dry spell’ before wettest April on record. —The Daily Telegraph, 29 March 2013
For February and March the range of possible outcomes is also very broad, although above-average UK-mean temperatures become more likely. —Met Office forecast, 20 December 2012
Sub zero temperatures, snow, blizzards, gale force gusts, school closures, traffic chaos that just about sums up March 2013. The Met Office has confirmed it looks like it could have been the coldest in the UK for 51 years. —ITV News, 28 March 2013
If you want a laugh I recommend reading the Resilience Of England’s Transport Systems In Winter, an interim report by the DfT published last July. It is shockingly complacent. Rather than look for solutions to snow-induced gridlock the authors seem intent on avoiding the issue. The Met Office assured them “the effect of climate change is to gradually but steadily reduce the probability of severe winters in the UK”. –Daily Express, 3 December 2010
Which begs other, rather important questions. Could the model, seemingly with an inability to predict colder seasons, have developed a warm bias, after such a long period of milder than average years? Experts I have spoken to tell me that this certainly is possible with such computer models. And if this is the case, what are the implications for the Hadley centre’s predictions for future global temperatures? Could they be affected by such a warm bias? If global temperatures were to fall in years to come would the computer model be capable of forecasting this? —Paul Hudson, BBC Weather, 9 January 2010
Britain will be colder than parts of Greenland this Easter with temperatures plunging to an Arctic -10C (14F). Though the clocks go forward tomorrow night, marking the start of British Summer Time, there is no end in sight to the bitter weather. This has already been the coldest March since 1962, the Met Office confirmed yesterday, and the fourth coldest since records began. –Lianne Kolirin, Daily Express, 29 March 2013
The Met Office three-monthly outlook at the end of March stated: “The forecast for average UK rainfall slightly favours drier than average conditions for April-May-June, and slightly favours April being the driest of the three months.” A soul-searching Met Office analysis later confessed: “Given that April was the wettest since detailed records began in 1910 and the April-May-June quarter was also the wettest, this advice was not helpful.” –Roger Harrabin, BBC News, 28 March 2013
The [Met Office’s] probabilistic forecast can be considered as somewhat like a form guide for a horse race. It provides an insight into which outcomes are most likely, although in some cases there is a broad spread of outcomes, analogous to a race in which there is no strong favourite. Just as any of the horses in the race could win the race, any of the outcomes could occur, but some are more likely than others. — Met Office chief scientist Prof Julia Slingo, BBC News, 28 March 2013
It all makes perfect sense to me. When the Met Office makes a statement, the opposite is true. So the earth is cooling, their models don’t work and they are pretty useless at forecasting. Now I understand what they told John Beddington. —Schrodinger’s Cat, 29 March 2013
“She says last year’s calculations were not actually wrong because they were probabilistic.” So, using Slingo logic, the statement “The Met Office is probably a criminal waste of money” is not wrong. —David Chappell, 29 March 2013
In both winter and summer, year on year temperature variations in recent years are pretty normal, or even low, when compared with the historical record. Could it be that the UK’s Chief Scientist, Sir John Beddington, is overreacting to the events of just one year, or is not aware of the historical facts? It is difficult to understand how a top scientist could make such basic errors, but it is hard to come to any other conclusion. Coming hard on the heels of Environment Agency head, Chris Smith, making unsupportable claims about convective rain without first checking, it appears that facts no longer matter to our public servants. –Paul Homewood, Not A Lot Of People Know That, 27 March 2013
Complaining about the weather has reached epidemic proportions in northern Germany this “spring.” And with good reason. With Easter just around the corner, meteorologists are telling us this could end up being the coldest March in Berlin and its surroundings since records began in the 1880s. —Spiegel Online, 28 March 2013
No one seems upset that in modern Britain, old people are freezing to death as hidden taxes make fuel more expensive. Instead of making sure energy was affordable, ministers have been trying to make it more expensive, with carbon price floors and emissions trading schemes. –Fraser Nelson, The Daily Telegraph, 29 March 2013
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Sparks.
All good points and I do draw on historical stuff but there is little or nothing in that old material which closely links the component features of the climate to latitudinal shifting as a negative system response to any forcing element other than mass gravity or insolation.
Nor has anyone else suggested that the degree of jetstream meridionality can account for global cloudiness variations without having to involve the Svensmark hypothesis or magnetic field variations. Changes in the gradient of tropopause height between equator and pole would be enough for that and changes in the balance between ozone creation and destruction at different heights (as recently observed) will do the trick.
Peter Stroud says:
March 29, 2013 at 8:38 am
It seems almost impossible that our Met Office can be so wrong, so many times. Then it also seems impossible that just about every chief scientist, appointed by governments, can also spout so much rubbish, so convincingly. What is wrong with this great nation these days?
Uh, Mr. Stroud, Britain stopped being a “great nation” long ago. Ms. Thatcher notwithstanding. The “science” of the Met Office and UEA being simply symptomatic of a much broader decline in the rigor of day to day expectations and performance. The US is rushing to join you.
Perhaps freezing the elderly is the UK gov’t strategy to control the cost of National Health. Coming soon to ObamaCare near you.
If the model forecasts cooler, average or warmer conditions with just a slightly higher probability for warmer, then the forecasters should be honest enough to say that their models are unable to give a useful forecast. For some reason, “we don’t know” seem to be very dificult words.
Much of northern Europe seems to have experienced an unusually cold March this year and snow still covers most of eastern Europe. It will be interesting to see the temperature maps in a few days.
Perhaps they should look at their own data!
I posted this on the Speccie which I cut from here:
Statistics from the Met Office Central England Temperature Record from the year 2000 onwards show:
2000 – 2012 annual trend figures: -0.7°C
this is equivalent to almost all the agreed global warming since 1850
2000 – 2013 winter months December January February trend: -1.5°C
this is equivalent to twice the agreed global warming since 1850
After I posted this I thought that, you know, perhaps I should check. . . .
So I went here: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/data/download.html
Downloaded Monthly HadCET Mean.txt, double clicked it to open it in Excel and after some messing about, the negative trend is quite clear from 2000, maybe later today I’ll play with it and see if the negative trend is even older.
” You have to, of course, with probabilistic forecasts, look over a large number of events and we do that and on about 65% of occasions we do give indeed very helpful advice,” Ms Slingo told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“Likewise, I did also emphasise that there was also quite a chance that April would also be wetter than normal but in the context of where we were at that particular point as a country I felt it was right to emphasise the risk of dry conditions continuing as a precautionary principle.”
The Met Office explained it this way: “The probabilistic forecast can be considered as somewhat like a form guide for a horse race.
Well, she does not specify the criteria of what constitutes “very helpful advice” and there are a million ways to rig the statistics to back up that kind of vague and non-falsifiable claim, but taking it at face value that means they are slightly ahead of flipping a coin to make whether predictions.
“I did also emphasise that there was also quite a chance that April would also be wetter than normal “. As you would do if you used a coin flip to make predictions.
Race horse form guide ! LOL . Probably about the truth.
I know several people who spend their lives in the bookie’s following every horse’s fart. They don’t seem to make any more money than my grandma who has a flutter once per year.
It will be interesting to see whether their hit rate goes up now they are using a model that does not show hysterical global warming. I think they may be in with outside chance.
I’ll call Ladbrook’s later to see what the odds are 😉
The long term forecast for the next three months currently reads: “For April below-average UK-mean temperatures are more likely than above-average. For April-May-June as a whole above-average temperatures are weakly favoured. However, there is still a significant chance that this period will be colder than it was in the majority of the last 10 years.”
There’s a small chance that it will be heads more often than tails but there is still a significant change that it will be tails more often than heads.
Perhaps Mz. Sligo could remind us how much money was spent in order to have that level of insight.
Met Office 3-month Outlook Period: April – June 2013 Issue date: 21.03.13
The forecast presented here is for April and the average of the April-May-June period for the United Kingdom as a whole. This forecast is based on information from observations, several numerical models and expert judgement.
SUMMARY – PRECIPITATION:
For both April and April-May-June as a whole the uncertainty is large, leaving the forecast largely indistinguishable from climatology. The probability that UK precipitation will fall into the driest of our five categories is around 20% and the probability that it will fall into the wettest category is also around 20% (the probability for each of these categories is 20%).
SUMMARY – TEMPERATURE:
For April below-average UK-mean temperatures are more likely than above-average. For April-May-June as a whole above-average temperatures are weakly favoured. However, there is still a significant chance that this period will be colder than it was in the majority of the last 10 years.
The probability that the UK-mean temperature for April-May-June will be in the coldest of our five categories is around 15% and the probability that it will be in the warmest category is around 20% (the probability for each of these categories is 20%).
Nothing that more taxpayers’ money won’t fix, I’m sure.
We went to Spain for New Year 2010, on the day we were due to fly back we went to Malaga Airport to be told that our flight to Newcastle had been cancelled due to Newcastle Airport being closed. I phoned work to tell them I would not be there the following morning , and in fact did not know when we would be back to be told that there was 6 inches of snow, blizzards and the temperature was down to -9 celsius, according to one of the girl’s car thermometer. We went back to the house, where I logged on to my e-mail acccount and used the free weather facility that BTYahoo provide.The Weather Channel told me sunny spells, max 3 celsius min 0 celsius, of course the Met Office got it wrong as well. We ended up flying to Leeds 3 days later and picking up a hire car to drive home.Had I listened to the Met Office or The Weather Channel we would have had 3 more fruitless trips to Malaga and I would not have booked the last three seats on the Leedds flight
It was at this point that I realised that the data the weather forecasters provide is based on wishful thinking and flawed computer models, I have ignored the weather forecasters ever since.
Are Statisticians -> Scientists? I believe not. I think that they are just accountants/bookkeepers gone wild under the employ of the politicians/tax men!!
It has been proven that the Sun’s output has increased from 1650 until 2005. From 2005 until now, the Sun’s output has decreased. Why? Not a result such as the magnetic fields are decreasing, but what is the underlying science of the decreasing magnetic fields?
Statistically, the Sun was going to have the “largest Sunspot cycle ever” ; remember. Instead, it has been the smallest in over 100 years.
How does that saying go, “Climate Science will be correct when ‘The Thames freezes over’ “.
Shouldnt that be “when the Thames freezes over again?And in Ontario the official highs have been consistently 1 to 2 C above reality most days, they forcast +1 and freezing rain we get (thankfully) -1 and snow, 3 times in the last few weeks, thing is do these inflated “highs” go towards the average temp records for canada?
Interesting that BBC and the Economist have been letting go and getting more critical CAGW, and the UK Met Office but, even in the face of the coldest winter in over 50 years, the Guardian still soldiers on (my link here is that they no longer get mentioned). I wonder what a chart of their newspaper sales looks like these days.
The Met Office should stick to weather forecasts that can be fairly accurate at times. Anything to do with climate or longer periods than a few weeks, their bias is overwhelming any true science involved in it and the political agenda dictates it for them. This method in supporting science putting other political issues ahead of it, can only lead to failure and that has proved so.
p.s. About the Thames freezing over again would be very unlikely even in the coldest winters, where urban built-up areas around it has speeded up the river flow.
Radi-Aid For Norway
Oh, god, i like those people. Let them all be successful in their lives.
Eugene WR Gallun