Energy
Michael Bastasch
11:19 AM 08/03/2017
A new study using an expensive climate supercomputer to predict the risk of record-breaking rainfall in southeast England is no better than “using a piece of paper,” according to critics.
“The Met Offices’s model-based rainfall forecasts have not stood up to empirical tests and do not seem to give better advice than observational records,” Dr. David Whitehouse argued in a video put together by the Global Warming Policy Forum.
Whitehouse, a former BBC science editor, criticized a July 2017 Met Office study that claimed a one-in-three of parts of England and Wales see record rainfall each winter, largely due to man-made climate change.
Using its $127 million supercomputer, the Met Office found in “south east England there is a 7 percent chance of exceeding the current rainfall record in at least one month in any given winter” and “a 34 percent chance of breaking a regional record somewhere each winter” when other parts of Britain were considered.
“We have used the new Met Office supercomputer to run many simulations of the climate, using a global climate model,” Met Office scientist Vikki Thompson said of the study.
The Met Office commissioned the study in response to a series of devastating floods that ravaged Britain during the 2013-2014 winter. Heavy winter rains caused $1.3 billion in damage in the Thames River Valley.
Scientists said supercomputer modeling could have predicted the flooding. Thompson said the supercomputer “simulations provided one hundred times more data than is available from observed records.”
But Whitehouse said the supercomputer’s models did “not give any better information than what could be obtained using a piece of paper.”
Using observational records, Whitehouse argued the 7 percent “chance of a month between October and March exceeding the record for that month in any year is equivalent to a new record being set every 86 months.”
“New monthly records were set twice in the 216 October-March months between 1980 and 2015,” he said. “Therefore the ‘risk’ of a new record for monthly rainfall is 5.5% per year, according to the record.”
“Between 1944 and 1979, there were three new record monthly rainfalls – an 8.7 per cent chance of any month in a year exceeding the existing record,” Whitehouse continued, adding that “between 1908 and 1943, there were 4 record events – a risk of 14.5%.”
“The risk of monthly rainfall exceeding the monthly record in the Southeast of England has not risen, contrary to many claims,” he argued based on the observational data, adding the “Met Office computer models do not give any more reliable insight than the historical data.”
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I wrote this a long time ago, but it seems appropriate:
Dedicated to the UK Meteorological Office.
To the tune of ‘American Pie’ by Don McLean – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAsV5-Hv-7U
A long long time ago
I’d look out the window and predict the
Weather for the day.
If I saw clouds I’d call for rain,
If not I’d say “It’s fine again.”
And folks were fairly happy
Either way.
But lately we’ve been automated,
My good intentions are frustrated.
All of my predictions
Turn out to be fictions.
Last week I said it would be dry.
It nearly made me want to cry
When floods demolished Hay-on-Wye,
The day the forecast died.
“Bunk, bunk, our programs are junk!
They’ve been written by a kitten or a twelve-year-old punk.
The modeller’s a toddler, or perhaps he was drunk.
And now our reputation is sunk.”
Now, if you don’t have any skills
And you’re hepped up on happy pills,
If you can’t make a living,
You’ll find the Met forgiving.
You don’t have to get it right,
Say hot is cold and black is white!
If snow clouds are a-forming,
Blame them on global warming!
If your critics point out flaws,
Tell them that you know the cause.
Say the machines have blundered
Because you’re underfunded!
When you have a CPU,
You can let it think for you!
Although sometimes its thoughts aren’t true..
The day the forecast died.
I started singing: “Bunk, bunk, our programs are junk!
They’ve been written by a kitten or a twelve-year-old punk.
The modeller’s a toddler, or perhaps he was drunk.
And now our reputation is sunk.
Now our reputation is sunk.”
We were happy girls and boys,
We had lots of brand new toys.
A high-tech installation
To model the whole nation.
Now taxpayers are getting mad.
Despite the money that we’ve had,
Our forecasts are appalling.
It’s really rather galling.
They just don’t seem to understand.
The finest programs in the land
Can’t make predictions work
When weather goes berserk.
So here’s the burden of my song,
Our models were right all along!
It’s the real world that got it wrong
The day the forecast died.
I started singing: “Bunk, bunk, reality’s junk!
It’s been written by a kitten or a twelve-year-old punk.
The modeller’s a toddler, or perhaps he was drunk.
But still, our reputation is sunk.…
Still, our reputation is sunk.”
Nice! I bet today you would get sued for defaming them if you released that on youtube.
whither forecasting
It’s not a supercomputer, it’s a dupercomputer.
weird now everyone here believes in the observational record.
[massive generalization FAIL – “everyone”? certainly Mosh has developed amazing mind reading powers -mod]
I live in the South East of England and if the weather forecast shows a rain cloud passing over my house at 3pm then I expect rain at 3pm because their computer is brilliant for short range forecasting. If the price of good short range forecasting is politically correct long range forecasting then I can easily igno0re that.
That is more to do with high resolution doppler radar and satellite imagery combined to get specific, accurate short range forecast of your local weather, showing exactly what fronts moving towards your area are actually doing and gauging the time and amounts of precip in specific areas and times.
What this “super” computer is for is to backstop and propagate the lie that humans have to stop all energy production, agriculture and manufacturing because we are hurting their Mother Gaia. Nothing to do with meteorology or science.
You will not be able to easily ignore the huge increase in power bills you will see in the near future, resulting from the actions taken that were justified with these long-term forecasts.