From the GWPF: Met Office To Hold Crisis Summit On Epic Forecast Failures
The Met Office’s temperature forecasts issued in 12 out of the last 13 years have been too warm. None of the forecasts issued ended up too cold. That makes the errors systemic and significant.
Met Office To Hold Summit On Disappointing (sic) UK Weather
The Guardian, 14 June 2013: Climate scientists and meteorologists are meeting next week to debate the causes of UK’s disappointing weather in recent years.
Washout summers. Flash floods. Freezing winters. Snow in May. Droughts. There is a growing sense that something is happening to our weather. But is it simply down to natural variability, or is climate change to blame? To try to answer the question the Met Office is hosting an unprecedented meeting of climate scientists and meteorologists next week to debate the possible causes of the UK’s “disappointing” weather over recent years, the Guardian has learned.
Met Office 2008 Forecast: Trend of Mild Winters Continues
Met Office, 25 September 2008: The Met Office forecast for the coming winter suggests it is, once again, likely to be milder than average. It is also likely that the coming winter will be drier than last year.
Reality Check: Winter of 2008/09 Coldest Winter For A Decade
Met Office, March 2009: Mean temperatures over the UK were 1.1 °C below the 1971-2000 average during December, 0.5 °C below average during January and 0.2 °C above average during February. The UK mean temperature for the winter was 3.2 °C, which is 0.5 °C below average, making it the coldest winter since 1996/97 (also 3.2 °C).
Met Office 2009 Forecast: Trend To Milder Winters To Continue, Snow And Frost Becoming Less Of A Feature
Met Office, 25 February 2009: Peter Stott, Climate Scientist at the Met Office, said: “Despite the cold winter this year, the trend to milder and wetter winters is expected to continue, with snow and frost becoming less of a feature in the future. “The famously cold winter of 1962/63 is now expected to occur about once every 1,000 years or more, compared with approximately every 100 to 200 years before 1850.”
Reality Check: Winter Of 2009/10 Coldest Winter For Over 30 Years
Met Office, 1 March 2010: Provisional figures from the Met Office show that the UK winter has been the coldest since 1978/79. The mean UK temperature was 1.5 °C, the lowest since 1978/79 when it was 1.2 °C.
Met Office 2010 Forecast: Winter To Be Mild Predicts Met Office
Daily Express, 28 October 2010: IT’S a prediction that means this may be time to dig out the snow chains and thermal underwear. The Met Office, using data generated by a £33million supercomputer, claims Britain can stop worrying about a big freeze this year because we could be in for a milder winter than in past years… The new figures, which show a 60 per cent to 80 per cent chance of warmer-than-average temperatures this winter, were ridiculed last night by independent forecasters. The latest data comes in the form of a December to February temperature map on the Met Office’s website.
Reality Check: December 2010 “Almost Certain” To Be Coldest Since Records Began
The Independent, 18 December 2010: December 2010 is “almost certain” to be the coldest since records began in 1910, according to the Met Office.
Met Office Predicted A Warm Winter. Cheers Guys
John Walsh, The Independent, 19 January 2010: Some climatologists hint that the Office’s problem is political; its computer model of future weather behaviour habitually feeds in government-backed assumptions about climate change that aren’t borne out by the facts. To the Met Office, the weather’s always warmer than it really is, because it’s expecting it to be, because it expects climate change to wreak its stealthy havoc. If it really has had its thumb on the scales for the last decade, I’m afraid it deserves to be shown the door.
BBC Analysis: A Frozen Britain Turns The Heat Up On The Met Office
Paul Hudson, BBC Weather, 9 January 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?
A Period Of Humility And Silence Would Be Best For Met Office
Dominic Lawson, The Sunday Times, 10 January 2010: A period of humility and even silence would be particularly welcome from the Met Office, our leading institutional advocate of the perils of man-made global warming, which had promised a “barbecue summer” in 2009 and one of the “warmest winters on record”. In fact, the Met still asserts we are in the midst of an unusually warm winter — as one of its staffers sniffily protested in an internet posting to a newspaper last week: “This will be the warmest winter in living memory, the data has already been recorded. For your information, we take the highest 15 readings between November and March and then produce an average. As November was a very seasonally warm month, then all the data will come from those readings.”
Met Office 2012 Forecast: Drier than average conditions for April-May-June
Met Office 3-month Outlook, 23 March 2012: “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.”
Reality Check: Wettest April for 100 years
April: 2012 had wettest April for 100 years, Met Office says “It has been the wettest April in the UK for over 100 years, with some areas seeing three times their usual average, figures from the Met Office show. Some 121.8mm of rain has fallen, beating the previous record of 120.3mm which was set in 2000.”
June: June on course to be wettest in a century: Flooding, storms and persistent showers have blighted the country in recent weeks putting this June in line to become one of the soggiest in 100 years.
25 June: Spring is wettest in Britain for 250 years – England and Wales are on course for the wettest late spring and early summer for 250 years, experts said yesterday. June has just seen its fourth washout weekend and yet more downpours are forecast. Now it is feared combined rainfall for April, May and June will break the record of 13.2in (336mm) set in 1782 and be the highest since records began in 1766.
Met Office 2013 Forecast: Feb-March Above-Average UK Temps More Likely
Met Office, 20 December 2012: For February and March the range of possible outcomes is also very broad, although above-average UK-mean temperatures become more likely.
Reality Check: Met Office confirms coldest March in more than 50 years
Press Association, 29 March 2013: This March is the coldest in the UK since 1962, forecasters have confirmed. After weeks of speculation about whether this miserable March would top the list, the Met Office has announced it is the coldest in 51 years according to provisional statistic.
Paul Hudson: Met Office global forecasts too warm in 11 out of last 12 years
Paul Hudson, BBC Weather, 10 February 2012: Although this discrepancy is within the stated margin of error, it is the 11th year out of the last 12 when the Met Office global temperature forecast has been too warm. In all these years, the discrepancy between observed temperatures and the forecast are within the stated margin of error. But all the errors are on the warm side, with none of the forecasts that have been issued in the last 12 years ending up too cold. And, in my opinion, that makes the error significant.
Martin Rosenbaum: The Met Office and its seasonal problems
BBC Open Secrets, 23 December 2010
As Britain remains cold and snowy, an interesting little dispute has boiled up between the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) and the Met Office over the quality of longer-range weather forecasting.
And this is illuminated by documents obtained by the BBC under freedom of information from the Met Office. These shed new light on the problems faced by the Met Office in its public communications and the strategies it has adopted for tackling them.
The Met Office is under attack from the GWPF, for its “poor advice” on the likelihood of a harsh and cold winter.
The GWPF is drawing attention to a map published on the Met Office website in October which indicated that the UK was likely to experience above-normal temperatures in the ensuing three-month period.
For the GPWF, which is sceptical of the Met Office and other mainstream analysis of global warming, this is evidence of a Met Office tendency to under-predict cold weather and over-predict mild winters…..
A binomial distribution would strongly suggest the coin being flipped is loaded.
Next they will say that climate change will prohibit any accurate forecast.
Even before the Met Office 2013/4 winter forecast I have purchased the 4WD with snow tyres and purchased a snow blower. The Met Office is a disgrace to its once fine name. How they managed to write political code into the climate model both amazes me and embarrasses me as an Englishman.
Lysenko seems to be having some problems producing new traits.
Uh … maybe, just saying “maybe” your models are crap? Just a thought to throw out there.
This is exactly the same as the CFC and the Canadian version, they default to above normal.
The Torygraph says “A Met Office spokesman told the Guardian: We have seen a run of unusual seasons in the UK and northern Europe, such as the cold winter of 2010, last year’s wet weather and the cold spring this year.
This may be nothing more than a run of natural variability, but there may be other factors impacting our weather. There is emerging research which suggests there is a link between declining Arctic sea ice and European climate – but exactly how this process might work and how important it may be among a host of other factors remains unclear.”
So global warming is still to blame; please send cash for better supercomputers ….
Here’s what they should do: Write out a number of possible forecasts, from colder to warmer, and drier to wetter on separate slips of paper, then hire a chimpanzee to “choose” one of the slips. Guaranteed to be more accurate than what they’re doing.
It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future. ;->
Of course, even when they are wrong they are somehow right, in their eyes. Too warm, too cold, too dry, too wet – these are all officially cited as evidence of human-induced climate change. The USSR would’ve been proud of them.
In the UK the Met Office is a laughing stock. When they predict a warm summer people stock up on umbrellas and raincoats and vice versa.
Sir Robert Napier took over as chairman of the Met Office in October 2006. He has warming on the brain and his appointment followed up from eight years as Chief Executive at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Need I say more.
It’s not only the Met Office with warm brains. Others persistently told us to expect warmer, less snowy winters and they have been largely shown by observations to be tellers of fairy tales.
The Met Office has now largely ruled this Arctic effect out.
Slowly, but surely the Met Office is being dragged kicking and screaming away from AGW, like it or not.
It would seem that is just plain MESSING with UK Met. It is probably those darned druids….
Met Office internal memo:
From; The Chief Scientist
As you all know the weather is not following the trajectory predicted by our models. This is a very serious matter and we must all examine our fundamental programming assumptions.
Therefore, I set it as our highest priority task to reprogram the weather. You all know the outputs that are required. Please consult Modelling Central Command in case of any doubt.
The Social Club will be brought into use for Anti-rain dancing. We will burn down our buildings one at a time in an attempt to make it warmer. Windafrms will be run as fans to generate the required amount of wind.
You know that our very survival as a respected institution depends on making sure that the weather matches the models.
Good luck. All of us here in fantasy land – and the piece of seaweed on the windowsill – are relying on you.
Julia
“Climate scientists and meteorologists are meeting next week to debate the causes of UK’s disappointing weather in recent years.”
Rofl. It is not the models which dissapoint, it is the weather.
Being skeptical of AGW is so much more fun!
I do t think it’s too surprising that they are having trouble predicting weather in a country so near the arctic. The inputs to the system have adjusted, so the output models aren’t going to be very accurate.
Correcting above:
“…that (insert your deity of choice) is…”
My apologies.
@Ryan Spear
‘. The inputs to the system have adjusted, so the output models aren’t going to be very accurate’
Translation:
‘The models aren’t much good’.
Their predictions are wrong because of their original conclusion that human emissions have an overpowering catastrophic warming effect over natural processes.
After they have their “Unprecedented” meeting they will have a new conclusion that human emissions have an overpowering catastrophic weather effect over natural processes.
Yet they tell us that the dice is now loaded to warm. Ha, ha. If you tossed a coin with heads for warm and tails for cold you would have done better than the Met Office. A ten pence piece V a £30,000,000 super computer. A bunch of chimps throwing darts would also have done better.
The solution is obvious: the Met Office has to start predicting cold winters and wet summer. They’ll still be wrong but the poor Englishmen will finally get a decent year of WEATHER!
sarc
Bill
These days the Met Office is all about getting it wrong and its jefes awarding themselves big fat bonuses.
Britain’s top bureaucrats were once the envy of the world: honourable, decent, hard working and dedicated to public service. Now it’s all about the money, taking no responsibility for their mistakes and repeatedly demonstrating they would be unemployable in the private sector.
The jefes in the Met Office need to be replaced and their replacements demonstrate a commitment to adopt the standards of yesteryear. A little bit of real science might help a bit as well as a lot less reliance on deeply flawed computer models.
BTW disappointing weather is not the problem! failure to predict the weather is the problem. I have also noted the suggestion of the new deceitful terminology emerging from the Met office, “anthropogenic weather disappointment”.
But it’s also been wrong about global temperatures:
Bruce Cobb says:
June 14, 2013 at 12:31 pm
Here’s what they should do: Write out a number of possible forecasts, from colder to warmer, and drier to wetter on separate slips of paper, then hire a chimpanzee
They don’t need to hire the chimps, there are plenty there already.
Jimbo says:
June 14, 2013 at 12:48 pm There is emerging research which suggests there is a link between declining Arctic sea ice and European climate
Jimbo they only ruled it out after everyone started laughing. It was presented on the BBC environment program for children ‘Countryfile’ only 2 months ago by a Met off spokesman. He even drew the jetstream variations in the snow to prove it. They just tried to flim flam as usual. No science just bullshit. They are an utter disgrace.
A bunch of chimps throwing darts would also have done better.
JIMBO
I’ve told you already that the chimps were there. You hit paydirt. That’s how they do their forecasts. :))
I hope they do not stop predicting. Now at least everyone can accurately interpret the prediction to be the opposite, and be correct 12 out of 13 years!
They obviously need more money for a bigger computer and higher paid staff.
/sarc.
Do we have to bring our own whitewash to the conference or is it supplied by whitewash specialists. There may be a shortage after all the post climategate whitewashes on both sides of the atlantic. Jones, Mann and others must have looked like Stephenson screens until the droughts rain washed it off.
The meeting will be about how the little turds get themselves out of the fosse sceptique that they have dug. I can’t weight for the next piece of stupidity that Betts will come along to defend.
Whatever the Met Office says the reality is very different. My sister lives in the Gloucester area and she tells me she is still having to wear a thick coat, usually the reserve for winter, in the middle of June.
I still remember times when weather forecast a day ahead was so inaccurate it was target of many jokes. This seems to me to be exactly the same, just a few decades later and on bigger time scale.
Clearly their models are not up to the task yet. And all they need to do is to admit that and continue making their models better.
They definitely shouldn’t resort to tossing coins because while such models may provide better forecasts now, they’re not going to improve over time.
had changed the equator to pole temperature in a systematic way to affect the circulation this spring
They can’t even write english anymore. It’s Systemic, nincumpoops Systemic not systematic.
Perhaps the right way to think of the meeting is a disappointed coven of witches, wondering why their weather curses have gone awry. After all, did they not feed the beast in the cellar with a thousand twinkling lights, with sacrifices of old people who can’t afford their power bills?
The bottom line is the MET stopped making long term forecasts public because they were so wrong ,so often and these forecasts were always ‘by lucky chance ‘ in favour of ‘the cause ‘
Now can anyone spot a pattern ?
This is not what random error looks like. I would suggest chart pattern watching like a lot of stock brokers do to sound important to some of the uninformed clientele with money to lose.
Some of the links are not working, here or on the GWPF site. I tried the last two and gave up, I hope you can sort them.
PaulH says:
June 14, 2013 at 12:33 pm
“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future. ;->”
Good old Yogi. How about this update? It’s tough to formulate a prediction, especially when you know squat about scientific method. (Some say that Galileo was referring to Ptolemy when he made the remark to Kepler.)
There is always the possibility that you can junk the supercomputers, add some low pass filtering and ‘zero’ crossing detection to the output of the UAH global data series and…. a betting’s man guide to the immediate climate future 🙂
http://s1291.photobucket.com/user/RichardLH/story/70051
Sparks says at 1:08 pm:
“… the new deceitful terminology emerging from the Met office, ‘anthropogenic weather disappointment’.”
I love it! Unlike global warming, “weather disappointment” is indisputably anthropogenic. If the IPCC were to drop AGW and begin to discuss AWD instead, it would be a net gain for civilization.
More…
Global warming will step up after 2009: scientists
http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/08/09/us-climate-warming-idUSN0837368420070809
“Met Office To Hold Summit On Disappointing (sic) UK Weather
The Guardian, 14 June 2013: Climate scientists and meteorologists are meeting next week to debate the causes of UK’s disappointing weather in recent years.”
They could broadcast this live, sort of like a concert for Bangladesh, and make a blinking fortune. It would be the most amusing program of the year. The contract for reruns would be huge.
I would like to have a video of the meeting. I would really like to see who attends and what they say.
I may be a bit thick, but isn’t natural variability by definition climate change?
The Met Office is much like a distracted driver, too busy looking at his/her mobile phone, satnav, it will ultimately result in a spectacular crash..only hope as with all car crashes the innocent do not get harmed and the driver gets the full force of the law thrown at them.They are an utter laughing stock in this country(UK)
Hmmmmmm… Could it be that the models are wrong. Just sayin’.
And us in the UK are paying for their Crystal Balls-ups
Interesting, damaging problems brought on by ideology.
If you forecast on physics, you must prepare to defend your methods and failed predictions.
If you forecast on faith, you must be able to pick up and run out of town quickly.
Please do not knock the Met Office , we Brits know full well how to judge their long range predictions , you dont ever believe what they say – it will be the opposite , therefor twelve out of thirteen predictions have been spot on ! Do not confuse the country by trying to get them to predict it right every time ,as this will cause total confusion .
What’s been screwing things up for the Met Office?
ln a word the “jet stream”.
There has been a consistent trend of the jet stream taking a more southern track during the summer since 2007, and with a less consistent trend during the winter since 2008/09.
This has lead to a run of mostly poor summers since 2007 as the track of the Atlantic lows moved over or very close to the UK. Also this more southward movement of the jet helps to cut off the warm air moving up from the south. The jet stream is now beginning to become more consistent with this southward movement during the rest of the year. Which leads me to expect to see further cooling of the UK climate in the future. As this more southern tracking jet starts to have a impact on the Gulf Stream.
The Met solution will be to ask us UK taxpayers to divvi up a huge chunk of Wonga for a bigger, faster, more expensive computer and a bunch of monkeys to run it………
or…….
a weekly supply of seaweed and a druid to interpret the results.
I expect the seaweed/druid combo to be closer to reality than any Met model…….
Doh!
Why is the weather (or climate since it has been going on for so long) disappointing? Continued warming would have been disastrous, not just disappointing, ‘cos they told us so.
The forecasts have been disappointing, but that is a Met. programming problem.
Also whoever said that weather / climate is not / has not / should not change?
33 million (not including costs) to miss the mark every time! Come on.
Can’t the old temperatures be adjusted up, to match the prediction values?
Peter Stott is Head of “Climate Monitoring and Attribution” at the Met Office. Now if your job is to attribute any changes in weather to human induced global warming, isn’t that exactly what you are expected to come up with?
One fun comparison would be to see try out a forecast that is just the weather from the previous winter. Easy to do, makes more sense than trying to come up with a random forecast, and very unlikely to be warm 12 out of 13 years. Unless it’s getting really cold!
Kasuha says:
June 14, 2013 at 1:32 pm
“Clearly their models are not up to the task yet. And all they need to do is to admit that and continue making their models better.
They definitely shouldn’t resort to tossing coins because while such models may provide better forecasts now, they’re not going to improve over time.”
Just to give a rough impression; the simulation of a chaotic system develops an error that grows EXPONENTIALLY over time. Meaning – each DOUBLING of computer power buys you a CONSTANT increase in forecasting horizon in the optimal case.
So you might be able in the next years to increase the weather model forecasting horizon from 5 to 10 days; but don’t even dare to simulate stuff out to years.
I know, next the alarmists will tell me that they only do projections not predictions and that the chaotic aspect is not important because they explore the boundary conditions; I say HOGWASH. Clouds are the major determinant of the radiative balance and they develop dynamically in the system and determine its future development. No GCM has ever managed to get cloudiness right.
Actually, the warm bias of the Met Office predictions is slightly worse than Paul Hudson (of the BBC) notes. He reported in 2012 that the Met Office forecasts had been warmer than the actual temperatures turned out in 11 of the last 12 years. In fact it was 12 out of the previous 13 years. And with the 2012 figures in that is now 13 out of 14 years that the Met Office predictions have been on the warm side of reality. I last posted on this in Dec 2012: http://climateedinburgh.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/met-office-forecasts-show-something.html
Here are the figures:
Year Forecast Actual
1999 …0.38 …0.26
2000 …0.41 …0.24
2001 …0.47 …0.40
2002 …0.47 …0.46
2003 …0.55 …0.46
2004 …0.50 …0.43
2005 …0.51 …0.47
2006 …0.45 …0.43
2007 …0.54 …0.40
2008 …0.37 …0.31
2009 …>0.40 . .0.44
2010 …0.58 …0.50
2011 …0.44 ….0.35
2012 0.48 ….0.45 (Jan-Oct)
2013 0.57 .. ??
During my economics degree in the 1980s something dawned upon me about economics forecasts. Their accuracy was inversely related to the utility to be derived from the forecast. That is, when you most need an accurate forecast, because there is an abrupt discontinuity from trend, the forecasts are most likely to fail.
The Met Office has too many believers in the climate models with an underlying warming trend. So that is their starting point. The usual starting point is the dumb forecast of same as last year, then build in the historical cycles. This is what economics forecasters do, and they probably do better directionally than the Met Office.
My expectation is that the Met Office had used the dumb forecasts it would have had a better hit rate. Which for me would indicate that the theoretical model they cling onto is, at a minimum, far the less significant than they assune.
The Met Office forecast on the BBC at 23.30 BST Friday for Sunday has just correctly advised that it will either be wet or it won’t in southern England. They have advised me to listen to future forecasts – doh!
The travesty of science and celebration of elaborate belief continues unabated because it is so thoroughly institutionalized.
It is time to convene a mechanism by which the landscape may be swept clear of the entrenchment. The life cycle of the Met Office has reached its twilight time. The kindest thing to do is to ease its passage into history. A far reaching Royal Commission is needed to separate science from politics. It was once managed for government and religion. The question remains, is it too late to accomplish such a feat without a bloody war?
I have learnt that the Guardian lost 33 M pounds last year…. The readership dropped 12.5 % to 261,000.
Perhaps if they stopped publishing their Global Warming bullsh, the readership would pick up.
Back in the Sixties – we schoolboys, Dixon, Nancekievill, and Upstill, and self – managed to approximate the Met Office with ‘same as yesterday’ for about a month. We were about nine years old . . . .
I guess the Met Office has improved, so it’s a decade or more since ‘same as yesterday’ has out performed their forecasts.
But the British Isles have chaotic weather systems – so my guess is that trying to ‘forecast’ a week ahead is no better than guesswork.
A month ahead – astrology or – more likely – faith.
Auto
This is what happens when you allow number crunching men in white coats with too much funding at hand. Time to take stock of the last sixteen years and ask the question ” Do we really know anything ” .
The Met Office is staffed by bigoted, overpaid, morons. They believe so much in AGW that they have forgotten their main function; to produce accurate weather forecasts! If they reprogrammed their computers and took out the annual temperature rises that AGW claims will occur, they might actually produce the accurate forecasts that we as taxpayers pay them to do.
If I had followed their advice I would have vines, cacti and other tropical plants dead in my garden, instead I followed my own counsel. I have a 4WD Audi S8, 360BHP,V8, 4.2litre (to hell with CO2 emissions) sat in the garage that has dealt with the snow and ice of last winter very comfortably. My garden, with snowdrops, apple trees, a lawn, elder and beech is doing well. Why? Because I didn’t listen to the Met Office, who are not fit for purpose and are a national embarrassment!
CAGW is PROVED! CAGW is now causing events of extreme differences between reality and weather forecasts. SOON, just a little after I’m no longer around, there is going to be disastrous irreversible worldwide weather forecasting.
Met forecasts are easy to interpret.
Dry summer..Buy a dinghy,welly boots.
Wet summer….Pending hosepipe ban.Bathe with friends
Cold summer …Invest in air con,and factor 100 sunblock
Hot summer…Thermal underwear,woolly hats.
Here right now, in the centre of England..cool,damp and miserable.
Gardeners have surrendered.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/13/met-office-uk-bad-weather-cause
Fortunately, if one longs for Arctic sea ice, there will soon be record Arctic sea ice. Unfortunately the result of record Arctic sea ice and record Northern Sea ice will be very, very, cold winters in the UK and a disruption of agriculture in the UK and in Europe.
“The one-day gathering will be led by Stephen Belcher, head of the Met Office Hadley Centre and professor of meteorology at the University of Reading, and will include up to 20 experts from the UK’s leading climate research institutions” … William: Meetings of the 20 experts from UK’s leading climate research institutes will not change planetary cooling. The cause of the cooling is the current anomalous slowdown of the solar magnetic cycle. Meetings will not change what is happening to the sun and will not change the mechanism by which solar magnetic cycle changes modulate planetary clouds.
If the planet is cooling and will continue to cool, (due to current solar magnetic cycle change) what is required is low cost, reliable energy to heat homes and to help provide a strong industrial base to provide funds to purchase food from countries in southern latitudes. As the cooling becomes more sever military action might be necessary to resolve problems to ensure sufficient food is available in southern countries, particularly in Africa.
Meetings of the 20 experts from the UK’s leading climate research institutes will not help the UK develop low cost energy sources and will not help the UK develop a strong industrial base to purchase food from southern latitudes. The leading UK climate research institutes are ironically a principal reason why the UK and the EU are no longer competitive.
WaPo offers some explanations for the Met Office!
14 June: WaPo Wonkblog: Brad Plumer: Global warming appears to have slowed lately. That’s no reason to celebrate
So what should we make of this recent “slowdown” in global warming? Is it just a random blip — the sort of natural variation we’ve seen before and will likely see again? Or does it tell us anything interesting about climate change?
Here are are a couple of big points to consider:…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/14/global-warming-appears-to-have-slowed-lately-thats-no-reason-to-celebrate/
smile:
14 June: UK Daily Mail: Are first class passengers to blame for global warming? Flying up front multiplies your carbon footprint by more than nine times compared to economy class
The paper (PDF), published in May, explains that those who enjoy first class service have a carbon footprint that is over nine times larger than the humble passenger crunched up in coach class…
The research does point out that is doesn’t calculate for the relative weight of passengers between classes, but that’s a more controversial issue…
The research was carried out by The World Bank, which is attempting to reduce its own carbon emissions, according to Quartz.com…
The Washington Post stated that employees at World Bank HQ in Washington made around 189,000 trips in 2009, which clocked up 447 million miles…
Quartz reported that by stopping luxury travel for virtually all employees by 2012 the World Bank has reduced its carbon footprint by around 20,000 tons.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2341988/Are-class-passengers-blame-global-warming-Flying-multiplies-carbon-footprint-times-compared-economy-class.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
anthony – your comments on the map please!
14 June: Boston Globe: Kevin Hartnett: Global warming refuges in the 50 states
Forget literacy rates and per capita income. In this age of rising sea levels, elevation is what’s really going to distinguish states in the union. Michael Scott Cuthbert of MIT and designer Nate Barksdale have created and shared on Facebook a map of the United States in which each state is scaled according to its volume above sea level. As you’d expect, Colorado takes over nearly half of the midwest. Elsewhere, doomed California shrivels to half its current size, the Great Plains become a great puddle, Appalachia turns out to be a lot shorter than its reputation, and New England ends up submerged like a penny in a bathtub. The surprise global warming refuge, though? Volcanic Hawaii, which more or less holds its size.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/06/global_warming.html
Indeed, very disappointing weather: “You’ve let us down, you’ve let yourself down….”.
Now the weather has human charateristics, can we talk about anthropomorphic climate change?
I hear a lot about the poor Met forecasts on this blog. I’m curious about how well national agencies in other countries are forecasting, e.g., Germany (DWD?)?
@Manfred –
Since global warming is a religion, we need another separation of church and state. And incidentally, stop teaching this religion in the schools.
The biggest problem (okay, just one of them) with the Met Office is the simple fact that they see the weather as being unusual. In other words, if they can’t predict it with a model then it’s the weather that is wrong and not them. Got news for you, nature will do whatever it wants and when it wants. Always has, always will.
Turn off the computers, and break out some pencils and open up the CET. If they did that might notice that all this ‘unusual’ weather happens with regularity and plenty of it was before any pre-industrial CO2 rise.
I note with interest that the Met Office, with all their expensive technology, is unable to give reasonably good forecast for this weekend. Yet they insist that when using this same technology they can predict decades into the future with remarkable accuracy. Until they can give valid, accurate, and verifiable forecasts for at least 1 month ahead they should be called to task for wasting tax-payers money.
http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2013/06/14/forecasting-challenges-this-weekend/
When checking the UK, I got this.
Chief Forecaster’s Commentary
There is a lot of uncertainty with regard to the potential spread of rain from the south across England and Wales during Sunday.
At least the Met Office can admit to a lot of uncertainty in forecasting the weather less than 2 days ahead.
A bunch of hubris-sodden embarrassments playing darts while blindfolded. The gall!
The MET record is a convincing demonstration that even one of the world’s most powerful super-computers should be expected to produce garbage if it is FED garbage. The imposition of adult supervision of this monstrous “toy” would seem to be indicated.
“The Met Office’s temperature forecasts issued in 12 out of the last 13 years have been too warm.”
It might be time to consider the tiny possibility that the Met Office climate models tend to over-estimate warming.
“Washout summers. Flash floods. Freezing winters. Snow in May. Droughts. There is a growing sense that something is happening to our weather. But is it simply down to natural variability, or is climate change to blame? ”
This is a question best asked by Chicken Little. Seriously. We must do something!!! (sarc/off)
KNR says: “The bottom line is the MET stopped making long term forecasts public because they were so wrong ,so often and these forecasts were always ‘by lucky chance ‘ in favour of ‘the cause ‘ Now can anyone spot a pattern?”
It’s my understanding that a few years ago Mad Madame Metoff had two forecasts, one for the public, and another private forecast for paid subscribers. In order for the latter to have enough value to warrant purchase. it must be better in some way than the former. I.e., the two forecasts were different.
So why did they drop the public forecast? What were they afraid of?
Mike Smith says:
June 14, 2013 at 8:49 pm
“The Met Office’s temperature forecasts issued in 12 out of the last 13 years have been too warm.”
It might be time to consider the tiny possibility that the Met Office climate models tend to over-estimate warming.
++++
FUNNY 🙂 It’s too late for that. I think about a decade ago, many people more than considered that to be the case!
As a Brit I’m ashamed at this happening, especially as it’s the weather that’s “disappointing” – implying that it’s the weather that’s wrong, not the forecasting. How our amateur scientists of past centuries, some of them sincerely enquiring noblemen, would have given wry laughs.
I hope they don’t overlook their own corrupt collusion with the BBC and the CRU..
“Disappointing weather” You see they WANT IT TO WARM, even though they cry GW as bad. Sick minds.
Starting a few years ago, I had never in my life been so excited about the future, because I could see, as many here also see, that the end of this yet another liberal attack on sensibility will come crashing to an end. But, with so much news about this administrations self inflicted economic wounds with regard to energy policy, money printing, spying on citizens, lying about Mexican gun running, fabricated stories about Benghazi, IRS political attacking, and most current offensive with regard to a no fly zone and getting more involved with the war on Syria, to continue helping the Arab Spring, I fear what’s coming. I pray the US actions do not get us into a war with Russia.
“People are always complaining about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” Anon
Rather than the usual suspects having a pointless gabfest in an echo-chamber of mutual affirmation, I would prefer to see an independently-led enquiry. This is how it might proceed:
Chairman: “So, this 33 million quid supercomputer of yours, can it forecast the weather?
All: “Not so that you could rely on it, no.”
Chairman: “But you’ve invested a million man-hours of programming into the model! Surely it can at least hindcast the weather?”
Julia Slingo: “No. It suggested that we should have been planting bananas in Scotland.”
Chairman: “So, what do you propose to do about it?”
Sheepish Professor: “We’ve ordered twenty pieces of peer-reviewed seaweed.”
Chairman: “Why twenty?”
All: “Our science is firmly based on consensus.”
We need to have two Met offices. At the end of each year, the more accurate Met office gets bonuses paid for from the salaries of the less accurate Met office.
They just withdrew their support of the Marcott mess. They were not smart enough to figure out the problems themselves. Exactly how much confidence does that instill in educated readers regarding a crisis conference that they would conduct? Morons.
Mark T
Seems that the Met Office has overloaded its model dice.
They may wish to consult overload experts, such as
http://www.nairaland.com/1150145/picture-overloaded-car/2
http://www.nairaland.com/1150145/picture-overloaded-car/3
http://www.jokeroo.com/pictures/car/system-overloaded.html
As a Brit living locally to the Met Office I would like to say what a wonderful job they do and that their grant ought to be increased.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that I use their splendid archives and library frequently and the they contribute huge amounts to the local Exeter economy.
tonyb
I have a number of comments;
1. The repeated forecasts since say 2007 for milder/warmer winters has always surprised me, since if only they looked at CET, it is apparent that whatever may be happening GLOBALLY (temperature anomaly hiatus), as far as the UK is concerned, since 2000, there is a downward temperature anomaly trend, and one would have expected the Met Office to be guided by what CET is telling them. What is the purpose of CET, if it is to be ignored in favour of GLOBAL temperature anomaly data sets?
2. As from 2000, CET has now fallen by about 0.5degC, which is more than half of the last century’s warming!
3. As from 2000, CET winter temperatures have fallen by almost 1.5degC. That fall, which has occurred in just 12 years, is more than the rise in temperatures measured last century!
4. There is no such thing as GLOBAL warming, or GLOBAL climate change, but rather temperature and climate is subject to regional variations. Perhaps even more significantly, the effects of temperature/climate changes are sustained, on a local/regional basis, not globally. It is only for the political mantra, ‘we are all in it together, we must all act together, a world solution is required’, that the spin (and that is what it is), talks about GLOBAL warming/climate change. For many countries (those in high northern latitudes) climate change would be a god send; those countries would benefit enormously from a 3 to 6 degrees warming. For other countries climate change may be a problem. Even sea level rise (which, in any event, is unlikely to be felt globally) may adversely affect some countries, not others, eg., Switzerland is land locked, some countries have coasts only in the Med, Adriatic, Black Sea, if one looks at the Fjord nature of Norway with its coast line rising cliff like from the sea, sea level rise of several metres is unlikely to be a problem, etc.
5. The Met Office problem is that it has been subverted by the GLOBAL warming/change mantra and is failing to address what is happening to the UK. If it had been looking at CET, it would have been aware of the downward trend. How long that downward trend will last for is a different matter and many would say not capable of predictable. However, being alive to the downward trend, ought to have made the forecasts post 2007 far more cautious, and if anything, leaning towards a colder (and snowier) forecast. That is clearly what CET is telling us.
6. Climate change/global warming is also used by governments (and their departments) to cover up bad management. The Met Office have been singing global warming/climate change to cover up governmental failings. Rainfall/flooding is a particularly good example of this.
7. From the late 1980s/early 1990s to about 2007/8, the Met Office were always going on about drought, and water shortages. These predictions of a drier climate and drought conditions were surprising since the rainfall data for the UK since the 1960s has been showing a slight upward trend (ie., the UK is receiving slightly more rainfall, but not to a substantial effect). So why was the Met Office giving the impression of less rainfall/more drought, when its statistics were telling it the very opposite? The answer is to cover up immigration and poor water management. In the South East of England the population since the 1970s has grown by about 10 million (some would claim more). However, in all that time, not one single water reservoir has been built to meet increased demand. The water shortages in the South East (which have led to hose pipe bans) is not due to a shortage of rainfall, but simply due to increased demand (due mainly to immigration) and poor management (the failure to build new reservoirs and get on top of leaky infrastructure). To cover up these governmental failings, and not wanting to alert the public to one of the effects of mass immigration (ie., a strain on infrastructure), the Met Office sings the global warming is to blame mantra.
8. Since about 2007/8, there has been a change in the record being played by the Met Office. It is now all about floods. However, whilst there has been a slight rise in the amount of UK rainfall, it is not substantial. Further, rainfall is falling very much in traditional areas. So why the change in the mantra? The answer again is to cover up governmental failings. Much of the new housing that has been built in the UK (which has been required mainly as a consequence of immigration, and marriage breakdowns) has been build in the flood plains of rivers. Over the last decade many homes have experienced flooding as a consequence of poor town planning, poor building regulation. Flood plains are there for a reason, to enable the river to flood in times of heavy rainfall. Building on flood plains creates an obvious risk of flooding. Usually, this flooding is on the plains on which new housing developments have been built. No surprise there, if one is foolish to build in a flood plain, then flooding is a risk that one can expect. However, sometimes rivers have flooded in areas which in the past were not prone to flooding. This is largely because the natural flood plain has been built on and flood defences put in to protect the development. The river is then unable to flood in its usual area, and backs up causing flooding further up stream. All of this is simply bad management, and to cover up this bad management the Met office sings the global warming/climate change mantra of ‘more extreme weather, more flooding etc’ when in reality very little has changed.
9. The upshot of the points made in 7 and 8 is that in the past it was more critical to cover up poor water management and hence spin global warming/climate change as the cause for water shortages, but now the consequences of poor management are being felt more in flood damage and the inability to obtain flood insurance/house insurance at reasonable cost. So the mantra has now changed to cover up poor town planning/lack of proper building regulation. The rainfall data has not substantially changed, it is only the most serious consequence of poor governance that has changed.
tonyb says:
June 14, 2013 at 11:44 pm
./////////////////////////////////////////
Tony
Being an expert on CET, it might be useful for you, in advance of the meeting, to write to the Met Office providing them with a summary of what CET shows and is showing. CET shows quite a bit of natural variabilty but no correlation with a rise in CO2 levels. It is interesting that we are today experiencing temperatures seen in the 1500s not withstanding the rise in CO2 since pre-industrial times.
I know that you have been reconstructing CET back further in time. The other day I was watching a re-run of the Tudors which ties in with your historical reconstruction. During the marriage to Catherine Howard (I think round about 1540), there was a very warm summer, and a summer without rain. When I saw those scenes, it made me think of the reconstruction that you are undertaking (how sad when Catherine and her ladies were dancing in the muddy remains of a dried up lake, and then in the rain when it finally came!).
THE BRITS DON’T APPRECIATE WHAT THEY HAVE
Sure, the Met is comically bad at predictions, especially those about the future.
However, it could have been comically bad at recording the past as well, like NASA-GISS…
DirkH says:
June 14, 2013 at 3:36 pm
Just to give a rough impression; the simulation of a chaotic system develops an error that grows EXPONENTIALLY over time. Meaning – each DOUBLING of computer power buys you a CONSTANT increase in forecasting horizon in the optimal case.
__________________________________________________________
If engineers believed that, we wouldn’t have jet engines today.
Fortunately, making better models is not just matter of putting in more CPU power.
Being overconfident in immature models is bad.
But so is being too scared to even attempt to advance.
Consulting Soothsayers, Druids, chimps and flipping coins – all far more accurate. It’s probably because these “supercomputers” (that can only run the same garbage code faster – not better) are being fed the criminally “adjusted” data. No reasonable projection can be made of that.
Philip Bradley says:
June 14, 2013 at 6:46 pm
When checking the UK, I got this.
Chief Forecaster’s Commentary
There is a lot of uncertainty with regard to the potential spread of rain from the south across England and Wales during Sunday.
At least the Met Office can admit to a lot of uncertainty in forecasting the weather less than 2 days ahead.
They also admit to UHI effect in their daily forecast but according to their climate unit uHI is non existent.
Adrian O says:
June 15, 2013 at 12:38 am
THE BRITS DON’T APPRECIATE WHAT THEY HAVE
Sure, the Met is comically bad at predictions, especially those about the future.
However, it could have been comically bad at recording the past as well, like NASA-GISS…
They are !! CRU 2 (adjusted), CRU3 (adjusted), CRU 4 adjusted. UK Met = GISS + NOAA/NASA
tonyb says:
June 14, 2013 at 11:44 pm
As a Brit living locally to the Met Office I would like to say what a wonderful job they do and that their grant ought to be increased.
CREEP 🙂
MinB says:
June 14, 2013 at 5:29 pm
“I hear a lot about the poor Met forecasts on this blog. I’m curious about how well national agencies in other countries are forecasting, e.g., Germany (DWD?)?”
The DWD was never stupid enough to put out a seasonal forecast.
Kasuha says:
June 15, 2013 at 1:02 am
“DirkH says:
June 14, 2013 at 3:36 pm
Just to give a rough impression; the simulation of a chaotic system develops an error that grows EXPONENTIALLY over time. Meaning – each DOUBLING of computer power buys you a CONSTANT increase in forecasting horizon in the optimal case.
__________________________________________________________
If engineers believed that, we wouldn’t have jet engines today.”
Incredible claim showing no knowledge of the history of technology. What was invented first, the Messerschmitt Me 262 or iterative computer models?
“Fortunately, making better models is not just matter of putting in more CPU power.
Being overconfident in immature models is bad.
But so is being too scared to even attempt to advance.”
Knowing history definitely helps.
I understand these is a proposal by the Met Office to introduce Smart Thermometers in the Uk. Embarrassing forecasts will become a memory of the past.
It’s a foregone conclusion the spin will be all about how any changes are due at least partly to reduced ice and that is somehow caused by ‘warming’ – conveniently overlooking recent lack of.
taxed said:
‘What’s been screwing things up for the Met Office?
ln a word the “jet stream”.
There has been a consistent trend of the jet stream taking a more southern track during the summer since 2007, and with a less consistent trend during the winter since 2008/09.’
The “jet stream” as a popular term is (another) American import. The first I ever heard about the jet stream was when I lived in the USA in the 80s. In Britain the weather was always explained in terms of blocking highs and depressions. And really it still is, because the jet stream typically goes across the north side of the high known as the “Azores high”, which of course moves about a bit, so there is a very strong correlation. At the moment the high is disappointingly far south, that is it is staying by the Azores instead of pushing up to Biscay or France or England.
The mean position of the Azores high probably reflects climate change in action – of the solar variety.
Rich.
The trouble is that they think they know it all and cannot be wrong. This is UK type institutional thinking of the worst kind.
Their forecasts are wrong because their models are wrong. forecasts are good for three days MAX not six months or one hundred years.
Perhaps they need a new chief scientist the present one is wore up. (An old Lincolnshire term for kn—–ed)
How can they brainstorm anything when they have sold their integrity to the devil. Yes that’s harsh, but they take home their salary’s on the proviso that they constrain their output, if not their thinking to the religious and political co2 beliefs of senior management.
I can understand that many must feel in a difficult situation, they have mortgages, families to feed, kids to raise, and for many, sacrificing their academic integrity is much the lesser of two evils. Who can blame them.
The met office will continue to perform badly until the suffocating influence of the current management team has been removed and replaced with open minded individuals who value honest scientific integrity unencumbered by any preconceptions.
The biggest mistake the MET ofice make is thinking they are experts on climate. Its as simple as that. They are experts at meteorology. When they finally realise this and also realise that the “climate scientists” that advise them are charlatans then they will improve their climate forecasts…. by not making any.
Is this an admission that their models do not work? If so, what about all the input the Hadley centre produced for IPCC AR4?
William Astley
“Meetings of the 20 experts from the UK’s leading climate research institutes will not help the UK develop low cost energy sources and will not help the UK develop a strong industrial base to purchase food from southern latitudes.”
But they will warm the climate with hot air.
J Martin says:
June 15, 2013 at 2:45 am
“I can understand that many must feel in a difficult situation, they have mortgages, families to feed, kids to raise, and for many, sacrificing their academic integrity is much the lesser of two evils. Who can blame them.”
Yeah who can blame a statist rent-seeker for being greedy. Any taxpayer maybe? I surely can. What gives them the right to eternal welfare when any worker in the private sector depends on producing enough surplus to justify his keeping his job, while the state takes a larger and larger share? Oh look at the poor statists; there might come a day where one of them might lose his job!
There might come a day where the parasites have killed their host; the UK is very close to it.
I think many are missing the true agenda here. This is not the failure of the Met Office, this is a (partial) failure in a global attempt to adjust world politics into a One World Government. The ‘world climate’ arm of this subversive global enterprise was decided in a secret 2006 meeting arranged by the Cambridge Media and Environment Programme, by One World Net and chaired by the Biased Broadcasting Corporation (the BBC).
Cambridge Media and Environment Programme
(which was part funded by the BBC … !!)
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/cambridge_media_and_environment
One World Net:
http://oneworld.net/file/oneworld-international-foundation/oneworld-international-foundation
Biased Broadcasting Corporation:
http://biasedbbc.proboards.com
There is a new article by Christopher Book about this secret BBC meeting in today’s Telegraph that is worth reading. He says:
Quote:
“A key moment in developing the new party line was a “high-level seminar” in 2006, attended by a bevy of top BBC executives. It was organised by Roger Harrabin, one of its senior environmental correspondents, and Dr Joe Smith, a geographer and climate activist from the Open University. They had set up the Cambridge Media and Environment Programme to promote the consensus line on global warming, funded by, among others, the Department for the Environment (then in charge of government policy on climate change) and WWF, one of the leading warmist pressure groups.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8901365/The-BBCs-hidden-warmist-agenda-is-rapidly-unravelling.html
.
In short, the elevation of weather into a global problem was one arm of a wider political agenda to take over the beliefs and consciousness of a nation and (if possible) the world. The BBC was to the national and global mouthpiece of that political goal, but the BBC needed reports to base their propaganda upon. It was to be the Met Office’s job to provide the biased ‘facts’ that the BBC was going to spout to the world and thus ‘demonstrate’ that the entire world had a problem. Of course a World Problem required a World Government to tackle it.
The SARS virus was used in much the same fashion. Even worse – who can forget the World Health Organization (WHO) announcing to the world that the 2009 H1N1 flu epidemic had become a ‘World Pandemic’, simply because 100 people who were already ill had supposedly died in Mexico. It was later claimed that drugs companies had put pressure on the WHO to announce a pandemic, so they could sell their nearly outdated stocks of Tamiflu. And it is true that drugs companies did indeed make a killing from this. But in addition here was yet another World Problem, just like Global Warming, that required a world organisation to deal with it. I remember traveling to remote locations in Africa and the Near East, and there were medical staff in all the airports – on the advice of a WHO-organised pseudo-World Government.
For IPCC, read WHO. Same goals, same methodology.
World organisations trump national governments, and tell the world what to do, and this is exactly what the One Worlders want – a One World Government. And if they are given a One World Taxation system and a One World Bank they are 90% of the way towards achieving their goal. This is what the Carbon Credits scam was designed to achieve. Its just a shame that their bank and their credits are now worthless (crocodile tears smiley face).
.
However, there are real tears on the other side of the fence, and the project is not goin according to plan (courtesy of the climate). As the Global Warming Policy Foundation notes about the Met Office’s Emergency Meeting Over Increasingly Unusual UK Weather, – “There’s only one problem: UK weather isn’t unusual at all”. In reality, the only ’emergency’ here is that the One World Government enterprise is unravelling at an alarming rate:
Quote:
There’s only one problem: UK weather isn’t unusual at all.
http://www.thegwpf.org/central-england-temperature-seasonal-trends/
.
A list of attendees at the Cambridge Media and Environment Programme / One World / BBC secret meeting in 2006. Andrew Lane is the contracts manager who sealed the contract with the Met Office:
Specialists:
Robert May, Oxford University and Imperial College London
Mike Hulme, Director, Tyndall Centre, UEA
Blake Lee-Harwood, Head of Campaigns, Greenpeace
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen
Michael Bravo, Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge
Andrew Dlugolecki, Insurance industry consultant
Trevor Evans, US Embassy
Colin Challen MP, Chair, All Party Group on Climate Change
Anuradha Vittachi, Director, Oneworld.net
Andrew Simms, Policy Director, New Economics Foundation
Claire Foster, Church of England
Saleemul Huq, IIED
Poshendra Satyal Pravat, Open University
Li Moxuan, Climate campaigner, Greenpeace China
Tadesse Dadi, Tearfund Ethiopia
Iain Wright, CO2 Project Manager, BP International
Ashok Sinha, Stop Climate Chaos
Andy Atkins, Advocacy Director, Tearfund
Matthew Farrow, CBI
Rafael Hidalgo, TV/multimedia producer
Cheryl Campbell, Executive Director, Television for the Environment
Kevin McCullough, Director, Npower Renewables
Richard D North, Institute of Economic Affairs
Steve Widdicombe, Plymouth Marine Labs
Joe Smith, The Open University
Mark Galloway, Director, IBT
Anita Neville, E3G
Eleni Andreadis, Harvard University
Jos Wheatley, Global Environment Assets Team, DFID
Tessa Tennant, Chair, AsRia
BBC attendees:
Jana Bennett, Director of Television
Sacha Baveystock, Executive Producer, Science
Helen Boaden, Director of News
Andrew Lane, Manager, Weather, TV News
Anne Gilchrist, Executive Editor Indies & Events, CBBC
Dominic Vallely, Executive Editor, Entertainment
Eleanor Moran, Development Executive, Drama Commissioning
Elizabeth McKay, Project Executive, Education
Emma Swain, Commissioning Editor, Specialist Factual
Fergal Keane, (Chair), Foreign Affairs Correspondent
Fran Unsworth, Head of Newsgathering
George Entwistle, Head of TV Current Affairs
Glenwyn Benson, Controller, Factual TV
John Lynch, Creative Director, Specialist Factual
Jon Plowman, Head of Comedy
Jon Williams, TV Editor Newsgathering
Karen O’Connor, Editor, This World, Current Affairs
Catriona McKenzie, Tightrope Pictures
Liz Molyneux, Editorial Executive, Factual Commissioning
Matt Morris, Head of News, Radio Five Live
Neil Nightingale, Head of Natural History Unit
Paul Brannan, Deputy Head of News Interactive
Peter Horrocks, Head of Television News
Peter Rippon, Duty Editor, World at One/PM/The World this Weekend
Phil Harding, Director, English Networks & Nations
Steve Mitchell, Head Of Radio News
Sue Inglish, Head Of Political Programmes
Frances Weil, Editor of News Special Events
With thanks to:
Andrew Orlowski of the Register, Tony Newbery of Harmless Sky, Guido Fawkes, Andrew Montford of Bishop’s Hill and others.
.
The Met Office should have been reading my material published since 2008.
I told everyone then that I had noticed a reversal of the earlier trends in jet stream behaviour from around 2000.
Bruce Cobb says:
June 14, 2013 at 12:31 pm
Here’s what they should do: Write out a number of possible forecasts, from colder to warmer, and drier to wetter on separate slips of paper, then hire a chimpanzee to “choose” one of the slips. Guaranteed to be more accurate than what they’re doing.
===========================================================
It would be considered animal cruelty to have a chimpanzee involved with climatology.
And it would be below the dignity of a chimp to be in the same working group as most “professional” climatologists.
Latimer Alder – June 14, 12.49pm – loved it..!
But there is another solution. The DECC is the Department of Energy and CLIMATE CHANGE – so surely the thing for the Met Office to do is simply to ask the DECC to change the climate..?
Next they will say that climate change will prohibit any accurate forecast.
Well, hasn’t it?
See ~ owe to rich
Am a keen user of the jet stream maps, as l find this the best way to show the trends in the weather patterns that are taking place. lt makes me aware of things that l would otherwise miss.
Over recent years the Azores highs have been moving northwards over the Atlantic. Which causes the jet stream to dive down south near NW europe . lt was this weather set up that gave us the wet spring in 2012.
The thing which always puzzles me is this – for such a small country, we get a lot of weather…
Constant forecasts of warm temperatures affect the perceptions of the credulous that it really is warmer. It just drones on ominously. (I stopped reading the Chicago Tribune, but when I did, the Enron treasurer’s weather man brother constantly published forecasts on the high side. They create a perception mistaken for proof.) They will keep doing it, because they are selling anything they can and fear sells.
ABM = Anything But the Models
The MET Office must be publicly funded.
The Met Office would make better forecasts with an old pine cone and a piece of dry seaweed.
They are utterly rubbish.
Richard Verney
I am currently writing a piece for the very purpose you mention. The met office misunderstand the nature of the British climate through history. As I think I have mentioned before until last year their web site proclaimed that climate was static until man started emitting large quantities of C02. With a mind set like that it is very difficult to make headway with them
The period around 1500 to 1540 was around as warm as today. They have excellent archives at the Met Office which amply demonstrate this.but ironically it appears that whilst I make extensive use of it the Climate scientists don’t.
For those who haven’t seen my reconstruction of CET here is one of the graphs from it
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/08/the-curious-case-of-rising-co2-and-falling-temperatures/
tonyb
THe key issue is looking at the assumptions of the Met Office computer models and seeing if they hold up in reality.
Reality tells us the following things:
1. Hale Cycles of 22 are detected in weather series, albeit with a bit of ‘fuzziness’ since each sunspot cycle is of slightly variable length.
2. Several other cycles of longer duration also occur, including a lunar cycle of 18.6 yrs, a Gleissberg cycle (which appears to correlate with a PDO cycle) etc etc.
3. Solar events impinge upon weather patterns, hence predicting solar events would appear to be critical in predicting weather.
Although I don’t think I could model things perfectly, I think it’s fairly safe to say that the whole basis of Met Office modelling is pointless beyond 5 days out.
Stephen Wilde.
So you noticed a change in the jet stream since 2000? That is nothing I noted them as being relevant to British weather for the period 1530 onwards in my article.
http://judithcurry.com/2011/12/01/the-long-slow-thaw/
This from;
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/long-slow-thaw-supplementary-information.pdf
13) Due to its geographical location British weather is often quite mobile and periods of hot, cold, dry or wet weather tend to be relatively short lived. If such events are longer lasting than normal, or interrupted and resumed, that can easily shape the character of a month or a season. Reading the numerous references there is clear evidence of ‘blocking patterns,’ perhaps as the jet stream shifts, or a high pressure takes up residence, feeding in winds from a certain direction which generally shape British weather.
—- —–
On a more serious note the jet stream is of crucial importance to us but I don’t think we understand its huge effect on our climate very well
tonyb.
tony b
Its true what you say about adding money to the Exeter economy..Unfortunately their AGW ponderings are adding extra money to our fuel bills!!
Will the meeting include the same 28 people who helped drive the BBC’s direction?
Is it possible to have an honest discussion of the weather in the UK?
I don’t think the science is mature enough there. They’re still blaming CO2, doh.
cn
With the Sun Quiet, the Gulf of Mexico cooling, the Gulf Stream less intense and cooler, prepare for a “Vicious Winter” in England and Europe. Watch the Mid to North Atlantic temperatures: as they continue to decrease the cold will follow. Stock-up on coal, wood, propane, extra insulation, “NOW”. Get portable generators, since the increasing load on the utility grid will cause increasing brownouts and failures.
Taxed says: “Over recent years the Azores highs have been moving northwards over the Atlantic. ”
Are you sure? Take a look at the current synoptic chart. There is high pressure between Newfoundland and Ireland, in a position like you mention. But I believe it is the Greenland high moved south, rather than the Azores high moved north. You can see the Azores high peeking at the bottom of the chart, south-west of Portugal, or roughly where the Azores are. It’s nice in the Azores so I suppose we can’t blame it for not wanting to come out to play…
Rich.
Mycroft
if it helps, send your MP my chart showing the drop in temperature graphed against the rise in fuel prices.
http://climatereason.com/Graphs/Graph11.png
They do want to get re-elected you know…
tonyb
elmer says:
June 15, 2013 at 6:16 am
The MET Office must be publicly funded.
I believe to the tune of some £200 million a year. They’re not worried about wasting money on a computer that doesn’t work or hosting a meaningless meeting, the taxpayer picks up the bill.
Ryan says:
June 14, 2013 at 12:51 pm
“I don’t think it’s too surprising that they are having trouble predicting weather in a country so near the arctic. The inputs to the system have adjusted, so the output models aren’t going to be very accurate.”
But I thought the purpose of a model was to use the inputs (whatever they are at the time) to generate the output? Essentially, you’re admitting that the models are crap by implying that the only time they would work is when the inputs don’t change. Alternatively, I suppose, your statement could imply that the models aren’t using relevant inputs. Either way, you’re saying the models are crap. Classic case of GIGO.
By the way, I agree with your implication, regardless which alternative you mean to imply.
WWF-UK Chief Executive Robert Napier has been appointed the new chairman of the Met Office.
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Absolutely stunning conflict of interest, dont you think?
Lets just hand the keys over to this leftist political operative so he can do his part for the WWF..
There is no way that a bunch of leftists (met office) will be able to call a meeting to self regulate the leftism out of their tax funded theater arts make work project.. No way.. They will call for greater funding and more time (please!) so they can continue to fund their political beliefs with tax dollars (illegal)..
No AGW for 20 years means no climate catastrophe.. No climate catastrophe means no AGW..
its high time “green” gets called on its predictions that put its political movement above the election laws in western democracies.. You can not use tax dollars to fund a political movement in a democracy..
What they are doing is illegal..
climatereason says:
June 15, 2013 at 6:24 am
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Tony
Very pleased to hear that you are preparing something for them. I am of the firm view that one problem in climate science is a lack of historical perspective.
Surprising as it may be, I strongly suspect that the majority of those attending the meeting will have little detailed knowledge about CET, its variability, and historic UK climate events. Accordingly, I envisage that your comments will be very enlightening. Having viewed many of your articles/comments, I know that you will make a good presentation.
A midwestern USA perspective. http://www.skinnyski.com/trails/articles/midwestwinters2006.pdf
Since 2006, we’ve had 3 mild winters and 3 harsh winters!
Pretty much the same.
Max
Richard Verney
Thanks for your kind comments. As they, say you can lead a horse to water…..
I very much doubt if anyone will see the document, let alone read it, let alone believe there might be a perspective on climate they hadn’t t considered. But you can only try!
Tonyb
See ~ owe to rich
Hi having looked back at the charts for the spring of 2012 it looks like you were right it was a Greenland high rather then a Azores high. What l mean was that l have noticed a increase in the Azores high forming a ridge to the north over the Atlantic and at times joining up with the Greenland high. lf you take a look at the chart for 18.00 hours Friday 14th June it shows a example of what l mean. But sorry my fault l should of made myself clearer.
Richard Verney
You mentioned way above about the hot dry weather in 1540 so I went to see what my own records said;
1540 Great heat and drought agc
Excessive drought rivers dried up ‘in other places (All over the country?) hottest and healthiest year in the memory of man (Short)
Summer exceedingly hot wof
Fine weather and heat Feb to Sept 19th mid harvest on June 25th grapes ripe in July, rain fell only six times exceedingly early spring cherries ripe by end may . Extreme drought at end of summer Baker
This year was remarkable for the abundance of corn and fruit Lowe
So the programme was right 🙂
tonyb
Fire your climate scientists, return the overpriced computers, sell the office buildings, and save a ton of money for your tax payers. One good, unbiased statistician with access to historical meteorological records and a laptop PC, working from home, would do a better job at making the official predictions than that expensive, over educated mob you’ve let your politicians hire on your behalf. The mob members know this and they are getting nervous.
Tonyb
Yes we could both send it to Bradshaw but seeing it was his party that drew up Climate Change Act what would you think his response would be?
Besides I emailed him last week on other matters and he hasn’t the decency to answer me on that yet..as you said you can lead a horse to water…
If you start with the assumption that global warming is real, which side of the coin toss would you favour.
Similar to the Gore Effect, MET Office predictions prove there is a God and he has A sense of humor
DirkH said @ June 14, 2013 at 3:36 pm
No-one has even attempted to “get cloudiness right” in a GCM. The resolution of a GCM is orders of magnitude coarser than even the larger clouds. GCMs model average cloudiness. Cilmate is driven by actual clouds, not average cloudiness.
Paul Hudson, BBC Weather, 10 February 2012: Although this discrepancy is within the stated margin of error, it is the 11th year out of the last 12 when the Met Office global temperature forecast has been too warm.
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the odds of this being due to chance are 4000 to 1.
OK, this is a pointless exercise and bad for one’s health. But if you look at the comments to the article in The Guardian, that Anthony has linked, the depth of denial (i.e., denial of there being any basis for suggesting there may be any doubt about the CAGW theory) is just astounding. So, Mr. Watts, keep the good work up. There are some very thick skulls out there.
The Ol’ sea dog. said; “I have learnt that the Guardian lost 33 M pounds last year…. The readership dropped 12.5 % to 261,000.”
Wonderful news to start the day with. Let’s hope the Guardian repeats or better still, increases it’s losses of readership and money this year, next year and every year.
As for the Met Office having a meeting, one wonders if they will take a leaf out of the BBC book and invite heads of comedy, Greenpeace, the WWF and assorted NGOs and people from foreign embassy’s to participate.
Perhaps they think that the problem with their forecasts is not really a problem with their forecasts, but rather a failure to communicate the science of global warming effectively enough, that the population of the UK need to be suitably indoctrinated to believe that co2 causes all known variations in the weather.
I’m sure they think that their forecasts are accurate and match reality perfectly, the problem must be that ‘denialists’ are falsely proclaiming that their forecasts were wrong. So they will seek to discuss how to silence the ‘denialists’ and how to better promote the message they want to get across about the need to destroy the economy and peoples lives in order to reduce co2 and increase their power and position.
The meeting cannot possibly be about weather and climate because it’s obvious the Met Office haven’t the faintest idea about either.
Fred Liebkemann said “One good, unbiased statistician with access to historical meteorological records and a laptop PC, working from home, would do a better job at making the official predictions than that expensive, over educated mob you’ve let your politicians hire on your behalf.”
Yes we have that already, he’s called Piers Corbin, for years he would place bets at betting agencies on his forecast being more accurate than the Met Office forecasts, until he had won so often that the betting agencies banned him.
Mycroft said “Besides I emailed him last week on other matters and he hasn’t the decency to answer me on that yet..as you said you can lead a horse to water…”
You need a better MP. I emailed my MP, John Redwood on a Sunday to ascertain his position on the climate change bill and received a reply just 17 minutes later.
climatereason said:
“So you noticed a change in the jet stream since 2000? That is nothing I noted them as being relevant to British weather for the period 1530 onwards in my article”
Relevance to British weather isn’t my main point though that is a help.
The points are:
(I) That the jet stream behaviour change was global although the effect is most pronounced in Western Europe presumably for geographical reasons.
(ii) A change in trend became discernible as long ago as 2000 and I have been saying as much since 2008 yet it is only now being acknowledged.
The implication is that close observation of jet stream behaviour on a global basis is a better diagnostic indicator of net global warming or cooling than the amount of CO2 in the air (or anything else for that matter).
I also suspect that total global cloudiness is linked closely to jet stream behaviour.
Dr. Lurtz says:
“prepare for a “Vicious Winter”…. Stock-up on coal, wood, propane, extra insulation, “NOW”. Get portable generators,…
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Excellent advice.
Good but far, far, far too verbose. Whilst most readers of this blog will read thoroughly many of the “undecided” – our target audience – will not bother. It needs to be half the length and attention grabbing.
Don’t be too hard on the met office. It’s not their fault the weather won’t do as it is told.
Apparently according to my nieghbours all the cold winters / adverse weather is my fault as it all started when I bought my Jeep Wrangler 4 years ago As its getting increased ‘action’ every winter, I’ve had to get it lifted with larger tyres. 😀
I’m applying to the consumer Dept for compensation for being miss-sold Vehicle Excise Duty based on CO2
Stephen
There should have been a smiley after my comment about the medieval jet stream.
Of course I agree with you that jet streams are crucially important to our understanding of weather and climate. Its one of the big factors in the constant change in climate I believe and was why I mentioned in with regards to my study of climate to 1538
tonyb
climatereason says:
June 17, 2013 at 7:52 am
Stephen
There should have been a smiley after my comment about the medieval jet stream.
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So ‘chemtrails’ go back that far in history? That is incredible! That clever Da Vinci, I presume.