This video of the head of the UK Met Office being grilled on the BBC raises a number of interesting questions:
Given that short-term prediction is really pretty good (in the UK and elsewhere), should weather forecasting agencies be in the seasonal forecasting business (where they are just rolling dice)?
Should weather forecasting agencies be in the climate change prediction business (where everything is so political)?
In the late 1990s, did the UK Met Service really predict a "leveling off" of temperatures (as seems to be claimed in the video near the end)?
a. Not when they are consistently wrong. Peirs Corbyn predicted this Winter though with his sun-moon theories so he has upped his cred. b. Nobody should be doing that until the models prove they are adequate for it. c. A blatant untruth. Most of the temperature plateau (which they hadn't expected) had occurred by the time they published a paper saying it would continue until 2009 after which the temperature would shoot upwards.
The most annoying thing is the weaseliness. They predict a dry Summer for 2006 due to global warming then the UK gets it's wettest ever Summer and they then say that's due to global warming too. They predict things with 50 to 60% probability and when wrong they say well we only said it was 50 to 60% probable: Why even bother? Worse they now want to claim their predictions are about averages, so if it's a mild February then their prediction might be still ok. Well not in the real world.
And this line about long range predictions obviously being easier to do than shorter term forecasting can only be plausible if their assumptions about natural variation are correct, which they clearly aren't.
Still at least they admitted it has not warmed for 12 years. It's still a devil of a job to get certain other alarmist scientists to even admit that blatantly obvious fact. They're Probably waiting for it to be adjusted out again. Without Roy Spencer's independence that would have already happened.
If I were a betting man, I would be his bonus is based on R&D funding that is brought into the institution. Given the work up to COP 15, there was probably money flowing like crazy to develop the scientific basis to twist arms into action. So if his salary, like most other managers, is base on the bottom line, its not suprising. Now next year, given the quality of their predictions and no major meeting where are twisting is needed, his agency will likely not do as well.
As far as seasonal forecasting goes, the climatologist should leave it to the meteorologists, particularly those that study the historic set up of the oceans. They may not be 100 percent correct all the time but they do much better than the climatologists. In fact, if the global circulation models that look at the atmosphere were instead redesigned to look at the global circulation of the oceans, they'd probably become better forecasters over the seasonal time frame.
I never seen Andrew Neil (former Times editor) losing his temper. His subject seemed to be 'avoiding the truth' all the way through. According to the Met Office, every season is going to be warmer than normal. They operate on the Ed Cook principle.
Publish, retire, and don't leave a forwarding address
The medium term forecasts are surely the ones that the counties relied on to determine what stocks of grit to order for this winter. There is thus an obvious impact from having these forecasts wrong, since the counties, cities etc are now starting to run out.
Further it appears that the recognition that this would be a bad winter did not appear until after Copenhagen was over. Tsk!
Quote: "In the late 1990s, did the UK Met Service really predict a "leveling off" of temperatures (as seems to be claimed in the video near the end)?"
I would have thought that this is easy to prove either way. So why not ask the UK Met Service to provide the information that they did indeed predict in the late 1990s a leveling off of temperatures.
In 1996 the Met Office became a Trading Fund within the Ministry of Defence. As a Trading Fund we are required to operate on a commercial basis and meet agreed performance targets as set by our Ministerial Owner.
Our owner
The Under Secretary of State for Defence and the Minister for Veterans, currently Kevan Jones, is the individual charged with directing and overseeing the Met Office on behalf of the Secretary of State for Defence.
The ultimate responsibility and accountability lies with the Secretary of State for Defence, currently the Right Honourable Bob Ainsworth MP.
"The MET Office has become a powerful and vocal climate-change lobbyist, contributing hiugely to the climate-change conference in Copenhagen last month,a t which it launched its predicition that this year would be the hottest on record."
The idea that the head of the Met Office's salary should be tied to the success of *probalistic* forecasts is preposterous.
That the BBC thought that this is somehow a 'gotcha' story says more about their understanding of elemementary earth sciences than anything else. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Of course if the reponses on this thread are any indication, they probably are safe in assuming that most of their viewers will be too clueless to call them on their idiocy.
Speaking of which, Roger do you miss the days on Prometheus when your posts generated reasonably intelligent discussions? I know I do.
A while ago you mentioned taste and tone when I asked you why you covered certain subjects and not others. Do you ever wonder how the quality and tone of the comments that now tend to predominate on your blog reflect on your reputation?
Put slightly differently, what is the purpose of this blog for you and on what basis do you judge its success/failure?
1. If they are truly rolling the dice, then they shouldn't be doing it. That said, most seasonal forecasts I've seen in the US have some amount of skill. Also, Dr. Grey and Klotzbach have had some success predicting the number and strength of Atlantic hurricanes seasonally. I think this is an area weather agencies should continue to persue. As I see it, current seasonal forecasts are simply early attempts at extrending our generally strong short-term predictions (at least up to 5 days). Agencies should make it clear to the public that season forecasts are experimental with uncertainty increasing the more specific and longer range the forecast is.
2. Not really. I think weather forecasting agencies should focus on short to mid term forecasting and monitoring current weather. They should provide the starting data to other people that focus more on long term climate prediction. I do believe weather services could share some best practices with the climate science community.
3. Beats me. I haven't been able to find a documented place where they made that prediction and obviously no kind of verification. This is where these best practices could be very helpful. As an example, I can go to the US CPC site and I can view previous forecasts in most cases, specific tools used to determine their forecasts and links to those individual tools, detailed discussions of the forecasts, and skill scores of their forecasts at various lead times going back to 1995. If the climate science community would document their work in a similar professional manner for the public to see, a lot of the issues the skeptic community have would be solved.
The term used was a "bonus". In a for profit business this is variable compensation tied to performance on top of salary. It is usually tied to aspects of profitability. If the MET sells services and makes a profit then there is logic to it. Also if his job was cost control there would be logic. If it doesn't meet either criteria then there is reason for the BBC being critical. MET sounds like a mix of public and private.
The forecast may be probabilistic, but the presentation isn't. On its own website we see
"A combination of man-made global warming and a moderate warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean, a phenomenon known as El Niño, means it is very likely that 2010 will be a warmer year globally than 2009"
Very likely is good as certain, given the universal understanding that certainty isn't possible.
What angers Neil and many of us in Britain is how these forecasts are used as part of a full scale global warming propaganda campaign. Government departments, NGOs, think tanks and the BBC are used in this war. The Guardian and Independent environment sections have been heavily sponsored by Shell.
I do literally mean propaganda
The Principles of Climate Change Communication
Why were the principles created? The game is communicating climate change; the rules will help us win it. These principles were created as part of the UK Climate Change Communications Strategy, an evidence-based strategy aiming to change public attitudes towards climate change in the UK. For the full evidence for these rules, and the climate change communications strategy itself, please visit: www.defra.gov.uk For the new UK sustainable development strategy please visit: www.sustainable-development.gov.uk
"Use 'opinion leaders' and trusted intermediaries to reach your audience".
If people won't listen to elected politicians, get someone more plausible to deliver the message. The most convincing messengers are not boffins or journalists, local councillors or civil servants - we are most likely to believe our next door neighbour.
thanks for the link eric. I suspect that Roger, Ted and Michael N. would support the rules of the game piece wholeheartedly.
tell me, do you think the government has a role in discouraging the public from smoking? if so, would these efforts constitute propaganda? If not, then what is the distinguishing feature of propaganda?
The British government propaganda documents (and there are a great many) are very grubby. They aren't designed to persuade citizens, but to encourage covert manipulation in a manner the Stasi would have been proud of.
The evidence for global warming is treated by many people (including myself) with the same credibility as the MI6 evidence for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
According to Christopher Booker, it looks like the Hadley Centre was created by Margaret Thatcher to promote AGW.
I do not believe for one second that the British government's motivation is concern for the safety of its citizens, it is likely this
Carbon trading could be worth twice that of oil in next decade
The carbon market could become double the size of the vast oil market, according to the new breed of City players who trade greenhouse gas emissions through the EU's emissions trading scheme.
The ETS market may see $3tn (£1.8tn) worth of transactions a year in the next decade or two, according to Andrew Ager, head of emissions trading at Bache Commodities in London, with it even being used as a hedge against falling equities or rising inflation. "It is still a relatively new industry with annual trades of around €300bn every year. But this could grow to around $3tn compared to the $1.5tn market there is for oil," says Ager, who used to be a foreign currencies trader.
The speed of that growth will depend on whether the Copenhagen summit gives a go-ahead for a low-carbon economy, but Ager says whatever happens schemes such as the ETS will expand around the globe.
Paven Sukhdev, a career banker for Deutsche Bank who now works on the issue for the UN and EU, argues that at least 65% of reductions must be made within developed countries. That means firms such as AEP may still be limited in how much they can invest in projects abroad. Firms in developing countries may not have to buy credits at all. That has led to worries in the City that there won't be enough money to buy all the forest carbon. London's financial centre is the main home to the incipient global carbon market. Prof Heal believes that in a decade, the trade could be worth trillions of dollars.
The massive AIG credit default swap operation that has Mr Geithner in trouble at the moment was actually run out of London, the home of Thatcherite deregulation. Carbon trading based derivatives are the new game in town.
However, I suspect that the "out" in such a claim is that modellers will run very large number of scenarios and they could find one to rationalise the post hoc claim made above.
22 comments:
And this guy got a bonus? It's like the banksters, "Heads I win, Tails you lose".
a. Not when they are consistently wrong. Peirs Corbyn predicted this Winter though with his sun-moon theories so he has upped his cred.
b. Nobody should be doing that until the models prove they are adequate for it.
c. A blatant untruth. Most of the temperature plateau (which they hadn't expected) had occurred by the time they published a paper saying it would continue until 2009 after which the temperature would shoot upwards.
The most annoying thing is the weaseliness. They predict a dry Summer for 2006 due to global warming then the UK gets it's wettest ever Summer and they then say that's due to global warming too. They predict things with 50 to 60% probability and when wrong they say well we only said it was 50 to 60% probable: Why even bother? Worse they now want to claim their predictions are about averages, so if it's a mild February then their prediction might be still ok. Well not in the real world.
And this line about long range predictions obviously being easier to do than shorter term forecasting can only be plausible if their assumptions about natural variation are correct, which they clearly aren't.
Still at least they admitted it has not warmed for 12 years. It's still a devil of a job to get certain other alarmist scientists to even admit that blatantly obvious fact. They're Probably waiting for it to be adjusted out again. Without Roy Spencer's independence that would have already happened.
If I were a betting man, I would be his bonus is based on R&D funding that is brought into the institution. Given the work up to COP 15, there was probably money flowing like crazy to develop the scientific basis to twist arms into action. So if his salary, like most other managers, is base on the bottom line, its not suprising. Now next year, given the quality of their predictions and no major meeting where are twisting is needed, his agency will likely not do as well.
As far as seasonal forecasting goes, the climatologist should leave it to the meteorologists, particularly those that study the historic set up of the oceans. They may not be 100 percent correct all the time but they do much better than the climatologists. In fact, if the global circulation models that look at the atmosphere were instead redesigned to look at the global circulation of the oceans, they'd probably become better forecasters over the seasonal time frame.
I never seen Andrew Neil (former Times editor) losing his temper. His subject seemed to be 'avoiding the truth' all the way through. According to the Met Office, every season is going to be warmer than normal. They operate on the Ed Cook principle.
Publish, retire, and don't leave a forwarding address
What about this year ?
Climate could warm to record levels in 2010
I'm shocked.
Thanks, Roger, this is a hoot!
The medium term forecasts are surely the ones that the counties relied on to determine what stocks of grit to order for this winter. There is thus an obvious impact from having these forecasts wrong, since the counties, cities etc are now starting to run out.
Further it appears that the recognition that this would be a bad winter did not appear until after Copenhagen was over. Tsk!
Thank goodness "climate" is so much easier to accurately forecast!
He gets his bonus for keeping calm in the hot seat ;-)
The answer to the 3 questions posed by RPJ are:
NO, NO, and NO!
Quote: "In the late 1990s, did the UK Met Service really predict a "leveling off" of temperatures (as seems to be claimed in the video near the end)?"
I would have thought that this is easy to prove either way. So why not ask the UK Met Service to provide the information that they did indeed predict in the late 1990s a leveling off of temperatures.
enquiries@metoffice.gov.uk
It should be noted their short term predictions predicted 20 cm of snow which didn't turn up.
Another question that is pertinent is: should the chairman of the Met Office board be closely involved with green activist organisations?
Even I was surprised by this
Management of the Met Office
In 1996 the Met Office became a Trading Fund within the Ministry of Defence. As a Trading Fund we are required to operate on a commercial basis and meet agreed performance targets as set by our Ministerial Owner.
Our owner
The Under Secretary of State for Defence and the Minister for Veterans, currently Kevan Jones, is the individual charged with directing and overseeing the Met Office on behalf of the Secretary of State for Defence.
The ultimate responsibility and accountability lies with the Secretary of State for Defence, currently the Right Honourable Bob Ainsworth MP.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/board/
The tone of "our Ministerial Owner" doesn't sound very positive.
from the Daily Mail on Jan.12,2010
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1240082/
"The MET Office has become a powerful and vocal climate-change lobbyist, contributing hiugely to the climate-change conference in Copenhagen last month,a t which it launched its predicition that this year would be the hottest on record."
Geez, they're everywhere, them warmists. Reminds me of the "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers"...
"They're here already! You're next! You're next! You're next!"
The idea that the head of the Met Office's salary should be tied to the success of *probalistic* forecasts is preposterous.
That the BBC thought that this is somehow a 'gotcha' story says more about their understanding of elemementary earth sciences than anything else. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Of course if the reponses on this thread are any indication, they probably are safe in assuming that most of their viewers will be too clueless to call them on their idiocy.
Speaking of which, Roger do you miss the days on Prometheus when your posts generated reasonably intelligent discussions? I know I do.
A while ago you mentioned taste and tone when I asked you why you covered certain subjects and not others. Do you ever wonder how the quality and tone of the comments that now tend to predominate on your blog reflect on your reputation?
Put slightly differently, what is the purpose of this blog for you and on what basis do you judge its success/failure?
1. If they are truly rolling the dice, then they shouldn't be doing it. That said, most seasonal forecasts I've seen in the US have some amount of skill. Also, Dr. Grey and Klotzbach have had some success predicting the number and strength of Atlantic hurricanes seasonally. I think this is an area weather agencies should continue to persue. As I see it, current seasonal forecasts are simply early attempts at extrending our generally strong short-term predictions (at least up to 5 days). Agencies should make it clear to the public that season forecasts are experimental with uncertainty increasing the more specific and longer range the forecast is.
2. Not really. I think weather forecasting agencies should focus on short to mid term forecasting and monitoring current weather. They should provide the starting data to other people that focus more on long term climate prediction. I do believe weather services could share some best practices with the climate science community.
3. Beats me. I haven't been able to find a documented place where they made that prediction and obviously no kind of verification. This is where these best practices could be very helpful. As an example, I can go to the US CPC site and I can view previous forecasts in most cases, specific tools used to determine their forecasts and links to those individual tools, detailed discussions of the forecasts, and skill scores of their forecasts at various lead times going back to 1995. If the climate science community would document their work in a similar professional manner for the public to see, a lot of the issues the skeptic community have would be solved.
#16 MaloweJohnson
The term used was a "bonus". In a for profit business this is variable compensation tied to performance on top of salary. It is usually tied to aspects of profitability. If the MET sells services and makes a profit then there is logic to it. Also if his job was cost control there would be logic. If it doesn't meet either criteria then there is reason for the BBC being critical. MET sounds like a mix of public and private.
Marlowe Johnson
The forecast may be probabilistic, but the presentation isn't. On its own website we see
"A combination of man-made global warming and a moderate warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean, a phenomenon known as El Niño, means it is very likely that 2010 will be a warmer year globally than 2009"
Very likely is good as certain, given the universal understanding that certainty isn't possible.
What angers Neil and many of us in Britain is how these forecasts are used as part of a full scale global warming propaganda campaign. Government departments, NGOs, think tanks and the BBC are used in this war. The Guardian and Independent environment sections have been heavily sponsored by Shell.
I do literally mean propaganda
The Principles of Climate Change Communication
Why were the principles created? The game is communicating climate change; the rules will help us win it. These principles were created as part of the UK Climate Change Communications Strategy, an evidence-based strategy aiming to change public attitudes towards climate change in the
UK. For the full evidence for these rules, and the climate change communications strategy itself, please visit: www.defra.gov.uk For the new UK
sustainable development strategy please visit:
www.sustainable-development.gov.uk
Full document is here
http://www.futerra.co.uk/downloads/RulesOfTheGame.pdf
The IPPR, a New Labour think tank has over 400 publications on global warming communication
http://www.ippr.org.uk/search/?title=climate&Submit=search
BBC British government social engineering
"Use 'opinion leaders' and trusted intermediaries to reach your audience".
If people won't listen to elected politicians, get someone more plausible to deliver the message. The most convincing messengers are not boffins or journalists, local councillors or civil servants - we are most likely to believe our next door neighbour.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2009/08/perfect_storm_public_attitudes.html
thanks for the link eric. I suspect that Roger, Ted and Michael N. would support the rules of the game piece wholeheartedly.
tell me, do you think the government has a role in discouraging the public from smoking? if so, would these efforts constitute propaganda? If not, then what is the distinguishing feature of propaganda?
Marlowe Johnson
Thanks for your reply
The British government propaganda documents (and there are a great many) are very grubby. They aren't designed to persuade citizens, but to encourage covert manipulation in a manner the Stasi would have been proud of.
The evidence for global warming is treated by many people (including myself) with the same credibility as the MI6 evidence for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
According to Christopher Booker, it looks like the Hadley Centre was created by Margaret Thatcher to promote AGW.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5955955/Weather-records-are-a-state-secret.html
I do not believe for one second that the British government's motivation is concern for the safety of its citizens, it is likely this
Carbon trading could be worth twice that of oil in next decade
The carbon market could become double the size of the vast oil market, according to the new breed of City players who trade greenhouse gas emissions through the EU's emissions trading scheme.
The ETS market may see $3tn (£1.8tn) worth of transactions a year in the next decade or two, according to Andrew Ager, head of emissions trading at Bache Commodities in London, with it even being used as a hedge against falling equities or rising inflation. "It is still a relatively new industry with annual trades of around €300bn every year. But this could grow to around $3tn compared to the $1.5tn market there is for oil," says Ager, who used to be a foreign currencies trader.
The speed of that growth will depend on whether the Copenhagen summit gives a go-ahead for a low-carbon economy, but Ager says whatever happens schemes such as the ETS will expand around the globe.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/29/carbon-trading-market-copenhagen-summit
BBC - carbon trading
Paven Sukhdev, a career banker for Deutsche Bank who now works on the issue for the UN and EU, argues that at least 65% of reductions must be made within developed countries. That means firms such as AEP may still be limited in how much they can invest in projects abroad. Firms in developing countries may not have to buy credits at all. That has led to worries in the City that there won't be enough money to buy all the forest carbon. London's financial centre is the main home to the incipient global carbon market. Prof Heal believes that in a decade, the trade could be worth trillions of dollars.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8359397.stm
The massive AIG credit default swap operation that has Mr Geithner in trouble at the moment was actually run out of London, the home of Thatcherite deregulation. Carbon trading based derivatives are the new game in town.
"In the late 1990s, did the UK Met Service really predict a "leveling off" of temperatures (as seems to be claimed in the video near the end)?"
If I had the requisite access, this paper might provide some clues to the effifacy of that claim:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VFV-3XR2V33-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1164572153&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=cbbc1f545a89b94ac499df00cca5386a
However, I suspect that the "out" in such a claim is that modellers will run very large number of scenarios and they could find one to rationalise the post hoc claim made above.
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