By Paul Homewood
Last July, the Met Office published the second in a series of papers, discussing the recent pause in global warming.
On page 6, they state:
The start of the current pause is difficult to determine precisely. Although 1998 is often quoted as the start of the current pause, this was an exceptionally warm year because of the largest El Niño in the instrumental record. This was followed by a strong La Niña event and a fall in global surface temperature of around 0.2oC (Figure 1), equivalent in magnitude to the average decadal warming trend in recent decades. It is only really since 2000 that the rise in global surface temperatures has paused.
Source: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/q/0/Paper2_recent_pause_in_global_warming.PDF
They accept that the pause is unequivocal, certainly since 2000. They also seem to accept that the pause really started in 1998, although the period 1998-2000 was complicated by El Nino/La Nina episodes. (It is worth noting here that the two La Nina years of 1999/2000 more than offset the 1998 El Nino year – the average temperature of the three years together come out lower than 1997. It is arguable, therefore, that 1998 is a fair start point).
But, regardless of the exact start point, they fully accept that the pause is real and long lasting.
So why, in January 2012, in response to an article in the Mail by David Rose, did they issue a press release saying:
Today the Mail on Sunday published a story written by David Rose entitled “Forget global warming – it’s Cycle 25 we need to worry about”.
This article includes numerous errors in the reporting of published peer reviewed science undertaken by the Met Office Hadley Centre and for Mr. Rose to suggest that the latest global temperatures available show no warming in the last 15 years is entirely misleading.
Instead, they themselves fell back on the misleading “hottest decade ever” red herring.
However, what is absolutely clear is that we have continued to see a trend of warming, with the decade of 2000-2009 being clearly the warmest in the instrumental record going back to 1850.
And they were at it again a few months later in October that year. Again David Rose had published an article, pointing out the pause in global warming.
The Met Office had this to say:
An article by David Rose appears today in the Mail on Sunday under the title: ‘Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released… and here is the chart to prove it’
It is the second article Mr Rose has written which contains some misleading information, after he wrote an article earlier this year on the same theme – you see our response to that one here……
The linear trend from August 1997 (in the middle of an exceptionally strong El Nino) to August 2012 (coming at the tail end of a double-dip La Nina) is about 0.03°C/decade, amounting to a temperature increase of 0.05°C over that period, but equally we could calculate the linear trend from 1999, during the subsequent La Nina, and show a more substantial warming.
As we’ve stressed before, choosing a starting or end point on short-term scales can be very misleading.
So, who is actually doing the misleading? If the Met Office now openly accept that the pause is real, and started at least 13 years ago, why did they try so hard to cover this fact up two years ago?
The “hottest decade ever” line was used by Tim Yeo in the DECC committee yesterday. It wasn’t particularly persuasive there either.
Perhaps the MET Office and Tim Yeo share common standards with respect to impartial evaluation of the evidence?
What is that for a (met office) logo? Looks suspiciously like a hockey stick to me, all nice and green too.
Steve (Paris) says:
January 29, 2014 at 12:15 am
What is that for a (met office) logo?
They copied it from a pasta shop. It’s their green tagliatelle.
These fanatics will go to any lengths for their cause. However, the Met Office’s propaganda is far less damaging than Obama’s latest move: to force carbon reduction on industry by executive order.
It’s the classic warmist mistake: ignore or deny the plain truth until it becomes so controversial that they can’t deny it anymore. They thought when David Rose first reported on the Hiatus a simple character assassination would surely be enough. It wasn’t, that’s why they now have to back down. Since they’re in their ivory tower they’re of course going to pretend everything is fine.
Here in the UK the Met Office is simply seen as a big joke, what my elders used to call ‘A Music Hall joke’. Everyone takes the mick (pokes fun) out of them. They are so incredibly inept at getting our weather right that it’s actually really funny. I’m a tradesman, and I have worked in the home of a guy from the Met Office. When I asked him his occupation, he told me, then apologised.
“Why did Met Office try to cover Up ‘the pause’ two years ago?”
Because it’s not real. The climate is wrong, the models prove it.
The answer is of course that the Met Office put protecting their ‘global warming stance’ and political patronage above reporting the truth. Yet another once trusted institution showing that it is no longer worthy of the public trust.
The Met Office has been unfit for purpose for years, it is time for it’s demise!
If you live in the UK their weather forecasts are a joke, they are always wrong! I clean the car on a Saturday based on a 0% chance of precipitation, just as I have dried it, the Heavens open. An hour wasted, they are totally useless.
To be fair, it’s difficult to predict the weather, the problem is that the weather occurs too soon after the prediction. It’s much easier to predict the climate because that’s 30-50+ years away which is the length of a whole career.
The climate realists need to bury the “warmest decade” image, by stating that a man in his 50s is still the tallest he has been in his life, even though he stopped growing 30 years ago.
May I just echo how poor the MetOffice is at actual forecasting. Just last weekend, the forecast in my location, was for rain to die out overnight and the following day to be cold but clear. The following day it rained almost solidly all day! These are 12 to 24 hour forecasts – and they can’t even get those 50% right! Nowaday noone expects the Metoffice to predict beyond what they can see in front of their own noses!
In the UK, they are indeed considered to be a massive joke – but not a pleasant one at that – indeed, they are a complete and expensive waste of taxpayers money. (But then, aren’t most government ‘departments’?)
The MetOffice is always right because, you know, they only rely on peer-review sources. It is the past that is in denial.
There could be a Yes Minister TV series on the Met office.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c274/richardlinsleyhood/HansenUpdated_zpsb8693b6e.png
This updated Hansen graphic with new data from WFT says 1998 was the turning point
Have they now reached the Meteopause? Does this explain their irrational behaviour?
The Met Office has yet to release this press release…….”The Met Office has recently released some misleading and quite cherry picked rubbish regarding a “pause” in global warming. In July of 2013 the Met Office wrote about a pause starting sometime around the year 2000. Well, the Met Office also wrote about (twice…links somewhere) the “pause” not being real and we rather put a MrRose down hard with those two press releases. So, in summary, that’s all the Met Office has to say! Cheers.”
“It is only really since 2000 that the rise in global surface temperatures has paused.”
Since 2008 I’ve been telling everyone prepared to listen that I first noticed the change in jet stream behaviour from the previous zonal/poleward behaviour to more meridional/equatorward behaviour in 2000.
because they are propagandists?
a vernon hills, Illinois company with a wicked sense of humour!
28 Jan: PR Web: Thermosoft Offers Radiant Floor Heat as Solution to Global Cooling
This winter it became perfectly clear that mankind’s effort to solve the global warming crisis is a mission accomplished. Now is the time, and Thermosoft is the company, leading the way to winning the war against global cooling with energy-efficient radiant floor heat.
Never was it more evident that the mission against global warming was fait accompli than when the December 2013 Australasian Antarctic Expedition of global warming scientists verified the existence of abundant levels of ice in Anarctica. The enduring photo of the two-ton, ice-strengthened ship, the Akademik Shokalskiy, stuck in the Antarctic ice, demonstrated global warming’s retreat as convincingly as the adventuresome polar bear, cruising adrift a tip of the iceberg, alerted millions to its inconvenience.
With the global warming bump-in-the-road behind us, now is the time to move forward to the real crisis plaguing humanity. Global cooling’s debilitating effects have been felt across America during this winter’s record low temperatures and high snowfalls. The absolute truth is that there’s nothing that can be done about the weather, but there is something that can be done to defeat global cooling and keep warm, comfortable, healthy and in good spirits.
Don’t neglect the feet. One of the primary ways to keeping warm, comfortable and healthy is keeping the feet warm. There is no better way to keep the feet and the whole body warm than with Thermosoft’s electric radiant floor warming…
Speaking about Thermosoft’s energy efficient electric radiant floor warming systems coupled with the latest energy-saving programmable floor thermostats, Thermosoft’s President and CEO, Eric Kochman stated, “Together we can [make the world warmer]. We are definitely in the right place at the right time to solve global cooling. Thermosoft’s mission is to warm the world through education, dedication and floor heat installation.” …
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/01/prweb11518657.htm
I assume that’s a rhetorical question.
Au contraire, I find the Met Office weather forecast wonderful. But I am on the coast so I can see exactly where I am on their map. I note the time when the rain arrives or departs and you can almost set your watch by it.
To call the halt in global warming ‘the pause’ implies knowledge that it will resume in the future. Better to term it ‘the halt’ – for that’s what it is.
The climate research activity of the Met Office should be privatised immediately. The weather forecasting part should be reduced to a small team of 20 – 30 competent meteorologists with appropriate support staff.
Flydlbee says:
January 29, 2014 at 1:30 am
Have they now reached the Meteopause? Does this explain their irrational behaviour?
No. It’s the Metopause – characterised by the expectation of permanent hot flushes.
Ken Hall says:
The climate realists need to bury the “warmest decade” image, by stating that a man in his 50s is still the tallest he has been in his life, even though he stopped growing 30 years ago.
===
Bad example, he’s probably slightly shorter than he was in his prime. Especially if he has been involved in physical work , not sitting on his butt in an office drinking coffee and doing climate modelling.
Also everyone considers themselves a “climate realist” ( Dana Nuttercelli included ) , it’s just conceited way of saying “I’m right. Now we’ve got that established, listen to me and educate yourself”.
“I clean the car on a Saturday based on a 0% chance of precipitation, just as I have dried it, the Heavens open. An hour wasted, they are totally useless.”
If your car is just as dirty after a shower of rain, it did need washing anyway.
😉
The warmists consistently refer to the current 17 year period without any increase in temperature as ‘The pause in global warming’. We believe it is not a pause, it is simply a normalisation of what we sceptics have been forecasting since the scare was falsley postulated by those who saw financial gain from their unproven forecasts.We need to point this out to these silly people at every opportunity.
The metoffice forecasts are hopeless.
I play football(not soccer i hate that term) twice a week outside in the evenings.
Thursday and Tuesday. I often watch the week ahead forecast on a sunday for the coming week.
And pick Thursday, then watch how the models and forecasts change as the week progress. Their useless.
Because the activity is outside, knowing if its going to be raining or not is quite useful. Its a skill the metoffice are not just hopeless at. They are useless.
“They accept that the pause is unequivocal, certainly since 2000. They also seem to accept that the pause really started in 1998, although the period 1998-2000 was complicated by El Nino/La Nina episodes.”
But look at the propaganda they were pushing out in the UK prior to the UN Copengagen negotiations in Dec 2009 in their brochure “Warming – Climate Change the facts” published in September 2009. And that was over a decade into the stasis in global warming. Note particularly the graph on page 4 of their brochure describing the Met Office ‘prediction’ – mega,mega ‘hockey-stick’ with no indication of a ‘pause’ !!!
http://www.worcester.gov.uk/fileadmin/assets/pdf/Environment/climate_change/DECC-MET-office-warming-brochure.pdf
From the BBC – or a free-thinking part of the BBC anyway…
Met Office global forecasts too warm in 13 of last 14 years
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/posts/Met-Office-global-forecasts-too-warm-in-13-of-last-14-years
Greg says:
January 29, 2014 at 2:08 am
“If your car is just as dirty after a shower of rain, it did need washing anyway. ”
Much better to get all that dust, particulates, pollutants out of the air anyway. Lets the sun shine through 🙂
Now if that was happening to some sort of pattern…….?
It probably has been suggested many times before – but aren’t commenters wanting to say that global temperatures have “plateaued” rather than “paused”?
It is all in the definition and who is doing the defining. A living being can be a ball of cells depending on it GPS positioning in the birth canal
The end of the warming trend was denied two years ago because it was being pointed out in a an unacceptable forum. Now a ratinoalization has been developed which is more acceptable. This is similar to the grapsing of the oxymoron regarding harsh winters being predicted by global warming. Think of how the reinsurance industry is now openly admitting that storms are not getting worse…once they got their rate increases for storms.
Bill, a “plateau” is a halt in a slope. A “halt” is an end to a trend.
Pause is actually more diplomatic, and allows the AGW faithful more time to realize the fact that they have been fooled by the promoters of climate apocalypse.
Come on guys. I doubt if anyone on here is as sceptical as I am but I have to disregard ’98 as a starting point because it was a clearly anomalous year in terms of temperature. It’s followed by an expected fall and not until about 2001-ish (by eyeballing all the temp graphs) do we unambiguously hit the start of the plateau that we’re currently on. I make that no more than a solid 12 years which is a drop in the ocean of time. This debate isn’t going to be ended by a 12 year halt (or a 30 year one either). That means zilch in the history of climate evolution on this planet.
That doesn’t mean that I think that climate change has anything to do with human caused CO2 release, and, nor am I convinced that the temperatures reported and processed are utterly accurate or carry much meaning for various reasons.
The Earth is a pretty big and vastly complex energy machine in the midst of numerous external forces (about which we know less that we like to admit) and our lives by comparison are very short, our knowledge is extremely limited, and our perceptions are skewed by the brevity of our span.. Much more than this we can hardly claim. The rest, despite the various formulae brandished by the more mathematically accomplished (in a vast ocean of ignorance – whose limits we don’t know) is speculation, some of it loaded with excessive ego,and some with lashings of ideological prejudice. Many of the featured writers on here are luke warmist sceptics (Monkton etc) but they simply don’t have the weapons to deal with the incredible number of variables full understanding will almost certainly need,.Their conclusions are hardly more viable than those in the other camps.
Total scepticism in the face of our overwhelming ignorance is the only justifiable position so far as I can see. And if it’s ultimately about showing the models are faulty . . then that doesn’t take us very far either, though, admittedly, it’s worth pointing out if Joe public thinks they have value. But in reality AGW supporting models represent only one thing accurately: hubris. And sceptics who claim a hiatus of 15-17 years are letting their prejudices interfere with their vision. I know it’s boring to say it but we need to keep reminding ourselves that we know very little. The past is full of mysteries, and the future is more of the same except that it just hasn’t happened yet. .
Today the Mail on Sunday published a story written by David Rose entitled “Forget global warming – it’s Cycle 25 we need to worry about”.
Good point, not only SC25 but SC26 and SC27 . With the slowdown in the projected solar activity in the next 30 years, energetic solar events (CMEs –cause of geomagnetic storms and measured by the Ap index) are likely to slow down too.
Employing variability in the energetic solar events, natural variability in the N. Hemisphere’ temperatures is reconstructed as shown here .
As one may anticipate, despite calculations being simple, background for any past temperature (climate) reconstruction is very complex, more information for the reconstruction is given here .
Oops – the usual typos. Apologies; think there should be a “than” instead of a “that” somewhere in there . . . but I can’t be certain!
jim hogg:
You begin your post at January 29, 2014 at 3:07 am saying
Sorry, but that displays a complete misunderstanding of the issue and the remainder of your post is based on that misunderstanding.
The only valid starting point is NOW.
One can then assess back in time to address how long the ‘pause’ has existed.
And one needs to define the ‘pause’.
It is the most recent period of no statistically discernible global warming when the previous period with similar or lesser length did show global warming.
Climastrology uses linear trends and 95% confidence for its assessments. There are reasons to dispute the use of linear trends and to dispute whether 95% is the appropriate confidence assessment. But those are the standards adopted by climastrology and, therefore, they are the only appropriate standards for the assessment of the ‘pause’.
Each time series of global average surface temperature anomaly (GASTA) provides at least 17 years of no linear trend which differs from zero at 95% confidence; RSS says 22 years. But there was a linear trend of warming discernible at 95% confidence over the previous 17 years.
Hence, the ‘pause’ started at least 17 years ago.
Richard
I thought I would paste a link to this article on the Facebook page of the Met Office. It was up for no more than 5 minutes before it was taken down.
I am given to the occasional bout of self-doubt on the “global warming” debate and am quite willing to concede that there is very little doubt that the activities of man affect the climate in some ways and that it is possible ( if one could ever figure out a way to determine such a thing ) that the overall effect may be “bad” in some way. I am however utterly convinced that the “solutions” put forward are mad in EVERY way.
Things that UNEQUIVOCALLY ease my doubts in some aspects of the debate are things like this story. My immediate reaction is to move on, nodding sagely and unsurprised as I followed the whole thing at the time, as I expect a lot of the readers here did ……..but really we ought to be filled with rage.
Who will hold these people to account? Instead they are showered with honours.
richardscourtney says:
January 29, 2014 at 3:27 am
“Hence, the ‘pause’ started at least 17 years ago. ”
As this graphic rather nicely shows 🙂 (I created it to prove to Nate that the GISS data I was using to update th old Hansen graphic was correct but it turned out rather nice 🙂
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c274/richardlinsleyhood/GISS_zps5858ba9b.png
Why? Apparently they are activists with an agenda. What motivates their activism is less obvious but likely not based on anything rational.
Because they are waging a political contest. Science is something different. Agree with the post that UK should consider reducing the MET to a few weather forecasters and staff. Try it for 5 years and see if anybody notices.
It’s not a “pause”, since that implies a continuation in the future.
It’s not a “plateau”, since that implies stability.
It’s more likely a “peak”. After this the temperatures go down.
It will be interesting to see their rationale and spin in another decade when the “drop” becomes obvious no matter how they try to hide or justify it. Then the “new ice age” warnings will begin in earnest, and somehow it will still be the fault of that eeeeevil Carbon.
Martin A says:
January 29, 2014 at 1:47 am
To call the halt in global warming ‘the pause’ implies knowledge that it will resume in the future. Better to term it ‘the halt’ – for that’s what it is.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I agree with another commenter. It should be called a plateau since we could be headed down in temperature, and if this winter is any indication we are.
…..
On Stephen Wilde’s change in 2000, you can see indications of a change in these Northern Hemisphere Snow Records.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/snowcover-nhland/201310.gif
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/snowcover-nhland/201311.gif
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/snowcover-nhland/201312.gif
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/snowcover-nhland/201301.gif
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/snowcover-nhland/201302.gif
If one takes out the warming attributable to the CO2 increase since 1998 one finds not a ‘pause, not a ‘plateau’, not a ‘halt’ but a downturn. We will need extra CO2 in coming years so we can stay reasonably warm.
I like using HadCRUT4, not because it’s quality (it’s not – it’s adjusted to death). Rather, because the downtrend began at Jan 2001. A nice date to sneer at the warmies with. Gorebull warming hasn’t occurred this century – this century’s school kids had to learn about 20th century warming in history class – that kind of thing. Annoys them.
Goodness me, I have no desire to defend the Wet Office in any shape size or form, but I sing with a couple of scientific types who work there, one now retired (lucky young bugger) & an ex-Navy young woman (BIG respect, with a hearing difficulty contracted 3 years ago – & she reads music & has perfect pitch, blast her!). They are very nice decent & honourable people. It’s the organisation & corporate system of state bodies that they are influenced by, when your upline says frog, you leap, careers & pensions are at stake! It’s that “all singing from the same hymn sheet”, if you forgive the pun. However they ended up like this partly as a result of that untimely hurricane of 88 or 87, the year is irrelevant here, they got it wrong big time, shit happens! They were always fairly honest beforehand in their forecasts all tinged with “we think” or “not entirely sure”, it was honest! Then came the disaster, Then an executive decision was taken because someone high-up didn’t enjoy the bollocking they got from on higher, then computers, modelling, enrichment – you want more accurate forecasts you must pay for them! So we did. Unfortunately, anyone who looks at the 5-Day forecast on a daily basis, will know that they change every day, with more information being input as it happens, nowcasting as Piers Corbyn would say! Their politically astute overlords are greenalists through & through, they care nothing about science, or truth or honesty, 13 years of a Socialist Guvment with its spinmasters saw to that. The overlords that run the WO are politicians after all, self-promoting, self-enriching, venal, mendacious (have I left anything out?). Yes the WO has always come in for some stick through honest misjudgements, & we here in the PDREU sub-state of the UK just love talking about the weather, but now no one is allowed to get it wrong, the “State” is always right!
CodeTech says:
January 29, 2014 at 4:14 am
My guess is a rush to place emphasis on ‘natural variation’ which they’d ‘always expected’, and claims along the lines of ‘a return to rising temperatures is expected in 2070’ or whatever. And they’ll probably have a model to prove it… 🙂
Ken Hall says:
January 29, 2014 at 1:11 am. Old man and height
I have been using the following analogy, Please critique.
“We are on a long distance bike trip, without a topographic map and in a fog. We know we have been on a trend of increasing altitude, going up steep grades at time, but through ravines and valleys as well. Because of the fog and lack of topo info we have had no clue which one was next. Now we notice we have been on a plateau for a while….but we have no clue what is next.”
Thoughts??
Considering their track record on temperature predictions for the UK, I can see why they cannot get even their fudged numbers correct.
Factoring out the effect of increased CO2 since 1998 we find not a pause, nor a plateau, nor a halt but a downturn. That extra CO2 is keeping us warmer than we would otherwise be – and a good thing too.
I would like to make a prediction. I believe it is true that if you live in the UK and are still young enough to play football (not soccer) you’re 95% less likely to know the difference between they’re, their and there, as well as you’re and your. I am 100% more certain of my prediction than the Met Office can be about tomorrow’s weather.
Here’s what the first google dictionary definition says:
Nothing there about it being at the end of a slope. That’s why “plateau” is a nice, neutral word. It has no baggage.
Only for as long as the plateau lasts. No plateau is endless. The plateau atop Table Mountain ends in a descent. Others (smaller, probably) end in ascents.
troe says:
January 29, 2014 at 4:11 am
Agree with the post that UK should consider reducing the MET to a few weather forecasters and staff. Try it for 5 years and see if anybody notices.
=================
In Oz they found that if they simply forecast yesterday’s weather today it was more accurate than the official forecast. Sacked the whole lot of them and replaced the forecast with yesterday’s weather.
If someone was to conduct the same study in the UK, odds are that the findings would be the same. In chaotic systems, today provides a better forecast of tommorrow than do the computer models.
The MET will not change until its current leadership goes for its very much a case of the leader setting the stage for the whole place and that leadership is fully politised to promote ‘the cause’ and dam the actual data.
And it work to , more cash for the MET , so that they can be wrong faster , and honours for its leader . Shame none of that has helped them to get their day job right.
Reblogged this on wwlee4411 and commented:
Figures don’t lie, but liars do figure.
From the MO blurb: “Although 1998 is often quoted as the start of the current pause, this was an exceptionally warm year because of the largest El Niño in the instrumental record.” [my bold]
For the benefit of Mann and Briffa, I wonder how they would have characterised the temperature in the proxy record.
Alan the Brit says:
January 29, 2014 at 4:39 am
“Yes the WO has always come in for some stick through honest misjudgements, & we here in the PDREU sub-state of the UK just love talking about the weather, but now no one is allowed to get it wrong, the “State” is always right!”
Well, sounds like it’s time to close the shop. Entire EU has become an empire of lies. Probably the disappearance of the USSR removed the need to keep moral posturing up and all the small and big bureaucrats in EU and NATO felt it’s time to do what they always wanted to do, change the world, become corrupt, lie and steal and murder and that’s where we are now; there’s no credibility left to ruin, good riddance, just sit out the collapse. This regime will go.
Here is the Met Office and their cousins at CRU again.
And what is “recent”? 2005? 2009? 2013?
These fellows have been aware of the ‘no upward trend’ since at least 2009 but resisted until 2012 / 2013 before finally accepting defeat. The longer the pause the harder it is for them to argue about dangerous warming for the rest of the 21st Century.
Typical ideologue behavior – so long as the noise of contrary evidence isn’t too loud, you simply pretend it isn’t there. But when it gets loud enough that the general public begins to notice (as with the spate of severe winters and poor summers in the UK over the last decade), then various contortions, rationalizations, and just plain bullshit must be resorted to. And when those fail, simple religious faith takes over: “Yes, we know our models are worthless, we know the evidence is against us, but we still BELIEVE!!”
Dr. Phil Jones – CRU emails – 7th May, 2009
‘Bottom line: the ‘no upward trend’ has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.’
This really says it all, because the implication from this statement is that Jones doesn’t give a hoot what happens to the planet as long as his pet CAGW theory is intact.
If you study the UK met forecasts as I have since 1962 you will note that they have good times and bad times of forecasting ability. Look at these periods closely and you will conclude that whilst the Met Off are not entirely useless they do not provide value for money.
The point is (briefly) that when the weather is fluid (NH strong jet stream) it’s predictability is high but it is high for those without a computer as well as those with. When the NA jetstream is not fluid, not powering across the atlantic, it is usually because there is an anticyclonic block over scandinavia and/or russia and this is when the UK needs good forecasting but precisely when the Met Off models fail. At critical times in this unpredictable period, such as the approach of snow; they are unable to be certain more than 6 hrs ahead. So I advocate a new way of measuring forecast efficiency by using a predictability index. When the weather is easily predicted the index goes down, when it is difficult the index rises. So if they are accurate in an unpredictable period as measured by time of arrival, intensity, disruption, etc they would receive a bonus for an accurate forecast 24, 48,72 hours ahead.
DirkH says:
January 29, 2014 at 6:48 am
I couldn’t agree more. The Met Office is overstaffed to the tune of 1,800 people, what on Earth they all do in their leaky trendy eco-building in Exeter I shudder to thing. I suppose one has to have their pencils sharpened, & another to shuffle paper on a desk, or to strenuously move a piece of paper from one in-tray down to the next level!
May I remind bloggers that the UK Meteorological Office is shortened to the “Met Office”. The “Met” is UK short parlance for the Metropolitan Police (there’s another story) based in London!
Maybe it’s because somebody made the MET office aware of provisions within the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010
This legislation placed the Civil Service values on a statutory footing and includes the publication of a Civil Service Code.
Integrity – putting the obligations of public service above personal interests
Honesty – being truthful and open
Objectivity – basing advice and decisions on rigorous analysis of the evidence
Impartiality – acting solely according to the merits of the case and serving governments of different political parties equally well
Paul Homewood
I emailed Time Yeo yesterday. Explaining that temperatures, from proxy ice core data, were warmer in the Medieval, Roman and Minoan Warm Periods. The longest instrument record being the CET only started in 1659 after these periods, and was near the bottom of the Little Ice Age and therefore temperatures have risen since, making the last decade the hottest on record. However also to note that the temperature between1659 to 2013 has only risen by 0.73 Deg C in 354 years..
I also pointed out that although the very short measurement of global temperatures rose for a period there has been no rise since 1998. And finally, nearer to home, the UK temperature trend has been in decline for 21 years.
As if it will make any difference.
@Paul Homewood
did You ask the Met office, to answer your question? Open letter? In the end: FOIA?
They signed the Kyoto Protocol and global warming stopped in its tracks.
Who says executive orders have no power or effect? This ‘cessation’ is a documented, data-driven, downright unavoidable fact.
Or is the cessation in the warming trend just an ‘effect without a cause’? I don’t think so people, I don’t think so!
If you can believe that all human CO2 emissions cause global warming, then you can believe that signing a powerful document will have a measureable effect on the global temperature. And now we have proof.
1 x Anti-global warming treaty = 1 x global warming stoppage
Even the Met agrees. It is really elementary, Watson.
Greg says:
January 29, 2014 at 2:05 am
Ken Hall says:
The climate realists need to bury the “warmest decade” image, by stating that a man in his 50s is still the tallest he has been in his life, even though he stopped growing 30 years ago.
===
Bad example, he’s probably slightly shorter than he was in his prime. Especially if he has been involved in physical work , not sitting on his butt in an office drinking coffee and doing climate modelling.
===
Ah but they tiny amount of shrinkage would be natural variability. The overall measured average height of such a man would mean that from his 40th to 50th Birthday, each year would have been the 10 tallest of his 50 years. Once the un-natural growing kicks in again, he would be another foot taller by the time he is 120, and suffering from catastrophic growing pains.
M Courtney says:
‘The “hottest decade ever” line was used by Tim Yeo in the DECC committee yesterday. It wasn’t particularly persuasive there either. Perhaps the MET Office and Tim Yeo share common standards with respect to impartial evaluation of the evidence?’
YES. They both understand from where the money comes .
“Tim Yeo is chairman of Univent plc, Chairman of TMO Renewables and non-executive chairman of Eco City Vehicles plc and AFC Energy plc. Yeo is also a director of ITI Energy Ltd.” -Wikipedia
“Conservative Party members in South Suffolk are being balloted over whether to deselect sitting MP Tim Yeo”. – BBC see below.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-25808012
Every year UKMO has the lowest prediction of the summer minimum arctic ice extenr among 25 or so predictions – I mean 30-40% too low. Two thinks about this. One they do believe in and are the banner carriers of CAGW. Two, they created Hadcrut 4 to “correct” for the underestimate of arctic temperatures. Having added a 0.1C here and there, and GISS’s machete work on slashing down the pesky mid30s – mid 40s US record temps, I would say the pause might in fact be even 20yrs or more.
jim hogg says: January 29, 2014 at 3:07 am
Come on guys. I doubt if anyone on here is as sceptical as I am but I have to disregard ’98 as a starting point because it was a clearly anomalous year in terms of temperature.
Jim, as someone who has followed this since ’98, I would like to remind everyone how many times this ‘anomalous year’ was used to show their computer models were still accurate until well beyond 2005. If you want to disregard the spike, go back and tell everyone you were lying then.
In regard to the Met’s forecasting, I am reminded of a story a co-worker told of a TV weatherman in Denver in the late 60’s / early 70’s. Seems he was almost always wrong, so much that the residence could depend on it. If he said it would be sunny and clear, better take the raingear. Forecast of rain this weekend, go ahead and plan the picnic. Everyone was happy. Then a big surge of outsiders moved in, didn’t know about the system and got him taken off the air. The results, they when from 95% of not what to expect to 60% of knowing what to expect.
“Here in the UK the Met Office is simply seen as a big joke, what my elders used to call ‘A Music Hall joke’. Everyone takes the mick (pokes fun) out of them. They are so incredibly inept at getting our weather right that it’s actually really funny. I’m a tradesman, and I have worked in the home of a guy from the Met Office. When I asked him his occupation, he told me, then apologised.”
The Billions of pounds that Met Office gets are not a joke.
Why does a bureaucracy spin, twist the truth, deny reality?
Surely you jest.
It is imperative not to acknowledge reality when it contradicts the myth your pay check depends upon.
As with most government climate studying agencies, the media and consensus followers worldwide, why has it taken near 2 decades to admit the failure of global temperatures to follow the script?
Imagine the thinking of any teenager, Having been swamped in global warming propaganda, doom and gloom, through out their voyage through public school.
Now they are told there has been no global warming in their lifetime.
Think these kids are going to be good little government trusting citizens?
DEEBEE sez: “It is all in the definition and who is doing the defining. A living being can be a ball of cells depending on it GPS positioning in the birth canal.”
-The proper scientific term is “blob of cells.”
Whatever the actual temperature forecasts, I wouldn’t mind hearing some from the non-alarmist camp begin to forecast warming temperatures. That way, headlines can read either “Temperature Increase are Below the Non-Alarmists Forecasts Again.” Or they can read, “Non-Alarmists Forecasts Come in Closer Than Alarmist Forecasts, Again.”
For The Ghost of Big Jim Cooley, I guess you could say the Met office don’t command respect.
Well, here in the UK we have a healthy disrespect for every organisation!
“MET- Office: New four year ‘decadal’ forecast spaghetti”
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2014/01/30/met-office-new-four-year-decadal-forecast-spaghetti/
“It’s a “Decadal forecast”, which runs from now to the beginning (not the end, Ed) of 2018.”
Felipe Grey says:
January 29, 2014 at 5:16 am
I would like to make a prediction. I believe it is true that if you live in the UK and are still young enough to play football (not soccer) you’re 95% less likely to know the difference between they’re, their and there, as well as you’re and your. I am 100% more certain of my prediction than the Met Office can be about tomorrow’s weather.
Well said. You can add its and it’s to that.
Paul Homewood said: “(It is worth noting here that the two La Nina years of 1999/2000 more than offset the 1998 El Nino year – the average temperature of the three years together come out lower than 1997. It is arguable, therefore, that 1998 is a fair start point).”
However, the 1997 global temperature figure was boosted by the El Nino. Even though the El Nino peaked in 1998, it started in 1997. That El Nino, like most El Ninos, was centered in northern hemisphere winter.
I would say the pause started in 2001.
It’s nice to be read. But it’s better to be read, and understood.
DDMore’s reply to my posting above about the length of the “pause” contains these words:”If you want to disregard the spike, go back and tell everyone you were lying then”. That’s not only libellous it’s also based on a complete misunderstanding of what I said in my posting. Lying about what and when I have to ask? I’ve only been commenting on the “global warming” situation for a few years and I’ve always been a sceptic ( a real one, which is obvious from my posting and previous ones – and the short poem Doubting’s a Disease – search for title and my name if you care). The El nino of 98 produced a marked spike. Fact. Making that year’s temps anomalous. That seems pretty straightforward to me. I’m not interested in scoring points or supporting any side. I’m only interested in the pursuit of greater knowledge and understanding, and the greatest weapon in that pursuit is doubt.. I doubt that the data presented to us supports the claim of a 17 year hiatus/plateau/halt etsemanticetera. I also doubt the data but that’s a separate issue.
Richardscourtney: I’m only interested in trying to engage with objective reality so far as that’s possible – which this whole debate shows is very difficult for human beings. I try to keep it as simple as possible by not being reductionist and also by disregarding as much statistical processing as possible. 98 was an obvious spike and temps dropped off immediately afterwards. Using your view of working back from the present – perfectly appropriate as an option in this situation if we’re to looking.to identify the length of the pause – still takes me back just 12 years give or take a few months. I am simply trying to be as accurate as possible with the info we have to hand (and the next sentence isn’t a contradiction). I never said it was accurate info, and in fact made it clear that I have grave doubts about it’s accuracy. But it’s all we have – at the moment -, and those claiming a 17 year hiatus do the sceptical cause no good for 2 reasons: 1) the thinking man on the street who has to deal with the world as he sees it will look at the graph and see something very like I saw: a reliable 12 year flat line, and thus be more inclined to be doubtful of other anti AGW claims. And 2) it gives ammo to the opposition. Cherry picking is the accusation that’s bandied back and forth all the time, why give them the ammo? It’s boring I know, but sticking to the supportable – and at this moment incontrovertible (but for how long) – direct evidence scrupulously is the way to demolish the unfounded.
I’m not the biggest Willis Eschenbach fan – though he’s very bright, I’ll give him that, and that’s a very important quality in the search for understanding – but, I sympathise with his concern that detractors read carefully what he has to say, and further, it would be good not to have attributed to me anything I’ve never said. .