UK Met Office in December predicted a 15% chance of Jan-Feb-March being the wettest category. Instead the UK got “Biblical floods”.
Cartoon thanks to Panda at It’sNotClimateScience
The Prediction
SUMMARY – PRECIPITATION:
Latest predictions for UK-precipitation show a slight signal for near or just above average rainfall during January-February-Marchas a whole. The probability that UK precipitation for January-February-March will fall into the driest of our five categories is around 20% and the probability that it will fall into the wettest category is between 10 and 15% (the 1981-2010 probability for each of these categories is 20%).
Photo Chris Murray
The flooding continues:
[RT] England’s largest river, the Thames, has burst its banks, devastating homes in the southeast in the worst floods in 50 years. PM David Cameron has called the flooding “biblical,” as economists predict the crisis will cost close on $1 billion.
The latest bout of rainfall caused the Thames River to swell and burst its banks, forcing people in Berkshire and Surrey from their homes. On Monday evening Surrey Police issued a statement saying that over 150 people had been rescued from their flooded homes. So far about 5,000 homes across the country have been flooded and some have remained under water for over a month as the government struggles to bring the situation under control.
The UK Met Office has described the period of rainfall the country has experienced as “the most exceptional in 248 years.”
“We have records going back to 1766 and we have nothing like this. We have seen some exceptional weather. We can’t say it is unprecedented, but it is exceptional,” said the Met Office’s chief scientist, Julia Slingo, speaking ahead of the publication of its report.
The UK Met Office response — blame it on climate change:
Climate change is behind the storms that have struck Britain this winter, according to the Met Office.
Dame Julia Slingo, the Met Office’s chief scientist, said while there was not yet “definitive” proof, “all the evidence” supported the theory that climate change had played a role.
She warned that the country should prepare for similar events in future.
What evidence showed that climate change was to blame? Evidence from climate models based on the same principles that didn’t predict the rain?* Climate models chop up the Earth into individual cells, then they predict the weather in each cell and add up all the mistakes cells.
They will tell us that weather is not climate, but they don’t tell us how adding up a bunch of bad predictions can ever produce a good one.
The weather-is-not-climate excuse is a fail. The Met Office can’t predict either beyond a week or two.
The religion is unfalsifiable
If the rain had been average they would have said their models “worked”. But if it turns out to be a drought or a flood, they call it an extreme weather due to “Climate change”. As long as journalists are too stupid to question this, the witchdoctors at the Met Office can’t lose. Blame the journalists — if British newspapers mocked the Met Office mercilessly (as they deserve), the Met Office would lift their game.
The media IS the problem.
Forecast? Some areas will get worse before they get better.
Photo: Chris Murray via BBC Stornoway Feb 1.
—————————————————————
*Edited to change “same models” to “same principles” for clarity. <http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/modelling-systems/unified-model/climate-models/explained>The UK Met Office</a> describes the models as being “the same family” because they are built from the same underlying bases. They are based on the same principles (and the same misunderstandings). For example, none of the climate models include things like solar magnetic or potential lunar effects on atmospheric standing waves. What matters is that none of these models work. h/t to Will Browne and Tom.
UPDATE: Link to Met OFfice Prediction PDF fixed.
Jo, check out this effort by Australia’s newest world-class Education (AKA mendacious propaganda and outright lies) website.
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Rob Gell, the geographer, is condemned to repeat history. Good find Paul
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Thanks Tom but I can’t take credit for it. The link was forwarded to me by my 14yr old niece who found out about it through this site. I have now added it to my favorites for regular checking.
H/T to little Miss V, your uncle is proud of you, it looks like the time you spend with me is rubbing off. And knowing full well you also read this site… go do your homework. 🙂
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David Karoly and other Melb Uni “experts” offering their thoughts back in 2010.
What a joke! Be sure to comment!
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bNs8sFKKviI
David Karoly
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q1nTJ1UCz5Q&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dq1nTJ1UCz5Q
Martin Bortz (dressed up this time, not [snip]… )
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Northern Norway at the same time, January, had little or no precipitation at all. Many places dried up and we have had some spectacular fires.
The story here is that the UK stole our rain.
The important question is are there any trends in the total precipitation for the whole of Europe and Scandinavia or globally?
What climate change is causing this?
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Is the idea behind this human made disaster taken from Michael Crichton book?
State of Fear is a 2004 techno-thriller novel by Michael Crichton in which eco-terrorists plot mass murder to publicize the danger of global warming.
ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Fear
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Political climate change. Rain god is angry, though it’s not clear at whom.
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Did anywhere in Australia get above 50°C? A lot of predictions that didn’t eventuate but did any place actually get there.
My town, Mildura just had its twentieth day above 40°C. And its making the news, because it is unusual. There are no official temperatures before 1950, though.
In 1906, the postmaster was taking official temperature readings from a Stevenson Screen in the middle of a 30 m wide nature strip lined with trees. There were two days in a row near 51°C reported in the papers. (6th and 7th Jan 1906).
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for 15 years every Xmas I spent my childhood and early teen years in Mildura. It was always stinking hot as far as I can remember. Its supposed to be. Anecdotal I know.
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I liked this review of short term accuracy
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Ok the link http://freakonomics.com/2008/04/21/how-valid-are-tv-weather-forecasts/
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How valid are the climate models?
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The ABC is a lost cause and the damage it has caused due to its unwavering support of AGW has undoubtedly influenced policies which have cost $billions; all wasted.
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And his references were???? Non existent or from the BoM which is roughly the same.
00
One would think with the major advancements in computers and science the meteorological people would be better today at predicting the weather. The trend lately has been worse. I smell a rat, the same sort of smell coming from climate scientists who are still peddling the AGW hoax. It really is about time they were taken to court. If only we had some really rich people who would do it – I’m sure the evidence is sufficient and plentiful for a court of law to prove the global warming climate scientists and their leaders are carrying out a scam – in fact the biggest scam in history – certainly big enough to warrant length prison sentences. That would certainly shut down the scam.
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The Met. O is so fixated on the global heating narrative, as we must now call it, that they don’t even bother to check their own records when coming up with the next epicycle.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/02/11/did-they-have-global-warming-in-1929-as-well-julia/#comments
Mind you, as it is data from before the self-imposed and totally arbitrary, not to say cherry-picked 1953 start-date for CAGW, That probably will be used as justification for wilful ignorance.
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The British population should vote for the UK Met Office to be on ‘payment-by-results’ system of financing. That may wake them up!
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PeterS
In 1988 I was at a seminar at Colorado State University. I don’t remember the exact topic or the presenter but I do vividly remember when, in question time, he told us that he’d just had a look at one of the latest climatic modelling efforts (it wasn’t named, but Boulder is just down the road) and was horrified.
Their approach to plant evapotranspiration was a model of a single plant pore, which was extrapolated to cover the world.
About 15 years later I told this to a gathering here which included people around the Autralian part of the global climatic modelling effort and said that I presumed with bigger and better computers and more knowledge that things had improved.
Imagine my suprise to be told that things had probably got worse in that area.
On the basis that the CAGW proof in in the models I’m not a denier – I’m a rejector until presented with evidence from models whose code has been “scrutenised with a very intense public scrut”.
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At an applied maths lecture at Adelaide University once the lecturer “proved” that an elephant was the same as an ironing board using a series of vague correlations and outrageous assumptions, very much in the Greenbottle (Yes What!) style. It had us in stitches. (It wasn’t actually those two items but it may as well have been.)
From what I’ve seen, climate science works in much the same way.
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For the o/s readers:
Yes, What? was an Australian radio comedy first broadcast in 1936 until finishing in 1941, and is one of the best known examples of Australian radio drama.
e.g.: Yes What – Episode 223 – 18th Century Poets
. . . .
It stands the test of time.
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I remember it well! It was also notorious for what, today, would be regarded as child abuse, as the teacher would thrash the students on the least pretext, as was customary at the time. Why has this sadist not been hauled up, posthumously, before a Royal Commission?
Shame!
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I guess in the tradition of all cartoons, the coyote and roadrunner for example, everyone bounces back as if nothing had happened!
The Greenbottle house would also be condemned by the Health Department.
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Yes What, and Greenbottle were still getting a thrashing on the radio during the 1950s; they must have been repeats; I wouldn’t call the carryon’s drama though!
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Your post is evidence that skeptics are not in the pay of big oil and big tobacco otherwise the warmists would indeed have been taken off to the legal cleaners long ago – sad that it is often the other way around with big money supporting global warming political agendas that always seems to resort to litigation rather than presentation of facts.
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Yes the climate changed recently to cooler temperatures in the UK and I predict the climate to warm over the next 6 months and then cool again for another 6 months, this bizarre atmospheric cycle has never been seen before and the Met office will need more taxpayer’s money to figure it out and save us all. sarc/
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I believe one of the English writers claims the UK Met has gotten about 14 wrong out of the last 15 tries. Don’t quote me on the exact number. A couple of years ago they predicted a Barbecue Summer so when it was cool and wet they got ridiculed.
Perhaps their famous computer had source code entered with the wrong assumption.
~~~~~
Despite the nature of the event, that is a nice photo by Chris Murray.
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John;
From Pierre Gosselin’s NoTricksZone blog
Global Laughing Stock UK Met Office – “Lost Touch With Reality…Corrupted Valuable British Institution”
&
Veteran German Journalist On Met Office Global Temperature Forecasts: “It Is Stunning, But Some Never Learn”!
[quoted ]
And climate institutes just keep on sounding alarms of hotter years ahead. Kulke writes:
Example: The climate scientists at the British Met Office. They have always issued false alarms, and today we can even say systematic false alarms. Of all the annual forecasts on global temperature made this century, 14 in total, the scientists have wound up landing above the actual value 13 times. Paul Hudson, climate and weather expert of the BBC, points this out.”
Flipping a coin would already represent a vast methodological improvement for the Met Office. Kulke writes that it is obvious that the Met Office has “learned nothing from their experience“, and adds:
Apparently they just refuse to accept the reality that the trend is no longer going up in any significant statistical way (as even the IPCC has admitted this in the meantime). It is stunning, but some never learn.”
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Dame Julia Slingo?
The same says it all.
HAHAHAHAHA!
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*name*
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The Pantomime Dame
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I just can’t take those fools seriously anymore.
The scam is on its last legs and I predict all the green rubbish will be gone in Australia by the end of the year.
That will open the way for the lawyers to have a field day. Target number one…FLANNERY!
Climate science is voodoo alchemy in my opinion. Predicting the future climate? Fools, the lot of them!
240
So everything is climate change? Is that because anything unusual is therefore different, so it is a change, so it is Climate Change etc.? Especially if it has not occurred before, as far as anyone remembers but who knows that? Thousands of warmists wiped out the other warm periods as CO2 had not changed and it defeated their arguments. We are to believe warming never occurred before the industrial revolution? That was a baldfaced lie. In fact a number of lies. Even the maunder minimum was wiped out but people have paintings of skaters on the Thames. No, never before.
The MET bureau has shown shown again they cannot predict the weather or the rainfall even in the short term. However despite this failure, this extraordinary demonstration that their computer models are wrong, they are absolutely sure it is climate change. Must be. Yep. Now how else could they be wrong? What about incompetence?
With all the data measurement, many ordinary people can predict the weather quickly and accurately. With satellites we can see the clouds and the storm fronts, see how fast they are moving, see the rain and snow and measure the wind. We only need forecasters to predict the results only an expert could predict. Here they fail miserably. Science? Hardly. Astrologers and race tippers are more accurate.
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The Thames will not freeze these days because its flow is now too fast due to various “alterations” since way back when.I should remind all that the B. Channel froze over in 1939.
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You can’t stop the rain, but you can take measures to make sure that people aren’t too badly inconvenienced.
EUReferendum’s latest article on the subject reiterates that the problems of flooding originate from implementation of policies adopted by the EU and implemented via the Environment Agency thanks to a well-connected planet saving, Quango-Queen Baroness Barbara Young who wanted to restore wetland habitat following the EU’s “Natura 2000” strategy which she had championed for some time; even chairing a workshop (PDF) in 1998 on how to “communicate” the strategy.
As head of the Environment Agency, she curtailed (in 2000) the dredging of rivers under the Agency’s control and made it difficult/impossible to dispose of the silt dredged from tributaries and drains by locals.
She was correct that it was then a matter of “Just add water” to create wetlands. It was simply a matter of time for the silt to build up. Now that the water has been added, people have been made homeless, crops and agricultural land destroyed and infrastructure severely damaged because the water isn’t draining quickly enough.
Still, lots of habitat to promote the return of birds and other critters such as malaria.
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The natural environment of coastal England is dense forests and marshlands. When you remove the forests and build houses in low-lying areas you are just asking for trouble when massive storms inevitably arrive.
These areas have been severely flooded many times in the past – long before “Greenies” had any influence.
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In the south of the country. trees are mostly deciduous. I understand that to mean they are dormant in Winter and therefore would not have any effect on the water table. In the Spring, a universal systolic leap sucks up the water. in the Autumn, the trees gradually drain down releasing water into the ground. Trees make no difference to winter flood levels but do act to trap soil which would otherwise be washed away by the flood. The flooding, was long as it’s not salt water, will actually act to enrich the floodplain with the silt washed in from higher land. The silt for dredging traditionally would be spread over the flood plain to act as a natural fertiliser. It worked for centuries in the Nile valley, and the Egyptians are now having to import artificial fertilisers now that there is no inundation due to the Aswan Dam. Another modernising project with unintended consequences.
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The periodic flooding was part of the agricultural cycle and controlled by drainage and the pumping the water into the rivers. River levels are too high to permit pumping and the silt dredged from other waterways was no longer allowed to be simply spread across the land, but was only pushed up onto the banks of the drains and tributaries. The result is that the silt is washed straight back into the waterway whenever the water level rises due to heavy rain.
All of that works together to limit the rate of drainage. Land, which has be used for agriculture and habitation is waterlogged by being submerged for over a month. And that land use isn’t new; it’s been going on for centuries; ever since the first rhynes were cut, probably before the 16th century (earliest records).
The damage caused by Environment Agency actions, was predictable and the effectiveness of dredging at limiting flood levels and duration clearly documented by the EA. In 2001, the Institution of Civil Engineers recommended a doubling of expenditure on flood defences (section 5.8). The UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) made similar recommendations. That didn’t happen.
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I wonder if they have carrying proper up-keep on the Thames river…
… or if it also has been allowed to silt up like the ones in Somerset, due to “green” policies.
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The problem isn’t a lack of dredging. The problem is people living on natural floodplains. When it rains very heavily they will get flooded (eg 1953). There is no practical and affordable solution.
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That’s true, Bananabender, but people have always lived on floodplains. My grandfather’s house flooded. My parent’s house was on a floodplain. One town I lived in had the park flood nearly every year–the river ran through it. The difference is nobody ran around screaming “Biblical proportions” and “never happened before”. People knew that living on a floodplain meant “you will get flooded” and they prepared for it. Some moved furniture upstairs during flood season, some stocked sand bags, etc. It was natural and expected. Now that nature is completely unnatural, the wailing picks up and people start to think this is not normal or natural.
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People have been living in the area since the Middle Ages. Dredging started in the 19th Century and has been a demonstrably good solution to the problem of rivers silting up, and maintenance of drainage, and would continue to be a perfectly good solution today if people were doing it.
One of the designers of the dredging process was none other than Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
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According to this article in the Daily Mail, dredging was stopped to protect a fresh water mollusc.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2558087/So-wasnt-Thames-dredged-In-case-rare-mollusc-disturbed-despite-region-described-one-undefended-flood-plains-England.html
00
o/t for now – but want to get this up:
12 Feb: Bloomberg: Mark Drajem: Capturing Carbon May Add 80% to Electric Costs: Official
Capturing carbon from coal-burning power plants would increase the cost of electricity at those facilities by as much as 80 percent, more than utilities would get by selling the carbon, an Energy Department official said.
Julio Friedmann, the deputy assistant secretary of the Energy Department, told a congressional hearing today that his office is working to develop joint carbon-capture projects with utilities. As the technology advances, costs to install the equipment can be cut in half, he said.
“We cannot attract private investment in the first plant, absent government support,” Friedmann told a panel of the House Energy and Commerce committee. “We need second-generation large pilot projects” to bring down costs, he said…
“We still don’t have a replicable model,” Louisiana Republican Representative Steve Scalise said. “Consumers are concerned about whether or not that’s going to increase their electricity rates.”
Friedmann said the first carbon-capture plants will increase the cost of building and operating a plant by 70 percent to 80 percent for wholesale electricity rates. Those plants can recoup about half the cost by selling the carbon dioxide…
The Energy Department provided $270 million to Southern Co. (SO) for its carbon-capture plant in Kemper County, Mississippi. Southern will sell the carbon dioxide it captures to oil drillers, who use it to boost production in old oil fields…
“Kemper has a special place in our hearts,” Friedmann said. The company has plans for future plants that would use similar technology, he said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-11/capturing-carbon-may-add-80-to-electric-costs-official.html
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I like the con. Predict nothing unusual so that the models look good if nothing unusual happens, global warming if its hotter, and climate change if anything else out of the ordinary happens.
Interesting UAH anomalies for this Jan.
2014 1 +0.291 +0.386 +0.196 -0.027
The tropics are not putting an unusual amount of water into the atmosphere due to being hotter.
The NH is hotter and the SH is cooler than Dec and Nov. Lets hear again how its global warming that created the heat wave in SE Australia in January and February.
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Best that I add the link.
50
Quoted from UK based Andrew Montford’s highly regarded Bishop Hill blog.
EA working with Labour against government?
Inside the Environment Agency is reporting that he has received a letter from a potential whistleblower who claims to have evidence that Agency officials are conspiring with the Labour party to undermine the government.
I have been following your blog for the last few months. You make some truthful claims but they are only the tip of the iceberg. I have been working for the Environment Agency as a team leader for six years. Your last post on political hypocrisy is what has prompted this email. I can give you the evidence you need showing senior managers in the South West conspiring with Labour MPs to discredit this government over the past two to three years, which I believe have made the floods far worse than they otherwise would have been. The MPs involved are: xxxxx (edited out for legal reasons – Labour MPs based in South West towns and cities)
There’s always the possibility that it’s not true, but it might be worth laying in supplies of popcorn, just in case.
[end]
The above is from the blog site; Inside the Environmental Agency
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Jo:
was the headline photograph of Stornoway on Lewis due to rain or sea rise due to a passing low pressure storm cell?
There was a warning recently that they might see a 2 metre sea rise there due to the latter.
20
Extreme weather conditions were strongly associated with the Little Ice Age. Portents of things to come as the cooling has begun.
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Phillip and if we get an ice age or some major cooling you can bet that they will come out with “The heat has gone into the ice”?
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There is strong evidence that the tropics cool very little during cold eras whereas the polar regions suffer very large changes in temperatures between the cold eras and the warm eras.
That’s the so called Arctic amplification so beloved of the alarmists who are too bloody dumb to realise that such amplification can and does go both ways as it now appears to be just starting to do.
So in a cooling or cold era with a much stronger temperature contrast between the not much cooler tropics and the much colder Arctic and Antarctic, the heat energy transfers from the tropical regions to the much colder Arctic and Antarctic regions is going to be much more intense and rapid and the weather systems involved in that transfer of energy will consequently be much stronger and much more intense and much sharper in their boundaries which in turn leads to far more intensity of the forces involved at a tight highly temperature contrasted boundary between two adjacent and contrasting air masses.
The oceans are also heavily involved in this heat energy transfer between the tropics and the poles during a cold era so we are again likely to see more intense weather systems; extremes in weather if you wish due to colder global temperatures and directly the opposite of the claims of more extreme weather if there is such an animal , than from the quite benign periods of the warmer global temps.
also during cold eras the ocean origin storm systems will be far stronger and far more intense and faster moving and larger sized storm systems, something which history such as the Spanish Armada episode has most certainly backed up.
Plus a possible shift in ocean surface currents driven in part by the atmospheric storm systems as the global oceans with their colossal heat take up capabilities will take a very long time indeed to make even a slight provable and measurable change to their total heat content.
Having said that it is likely the ENSO, the NAO and AMO plus the IOD will all intensify with consequent greater extremes between the phases of each of those great cyclic ocean and atmospheric phenomena.
Possibly not good news for Australia as cold means less moisture carrying ability for air masses which in turn probably means lower rainfall and globally more droughts which is a known characteristic of past cold periods and eras.
Just to the west of Horsham there are a series of shallow salt lakes some of which have 30 metre high Moon Dunes, the half circle of 30 metre high sand dunes around the eastern half of the shallow lakes in the plan shape of a new Moon, created by intense westerly wind storms during very dry and very long periods of drought possibly running into centuries long periods which were most likely blown and drifted there during past cold eras in the global climate.
Cold is disastrous for life and will be for our civilisation as it has for many past civilizations where drought destroyed the societal structures and the civilisation collapsed as food ran out and social upheaval and violence became the norm.
Cold eras are far more common in Earth’s geological history than warm eras so sometime in the future the cold will come again if history and paleo archeology, and geology are correct.
Warm eras through out history have been periods of plenty and human advancement and population growth and food in abundance for all.
Modern folk with the enormous range, variety and cornucopia of food have no real concept of what it is like to always be on the edge every season as too whether the harvest from the peasants would be good enough to provide enough food for everybody to last until the next harvest could be brought in,
In the Middle Ages each bushel of wheat [ 35.24 liters volume or 27.2 kgs ] sown by the peasant and his family had to produce a minimum of 3 bushels for the survival of the peasant and his family through the year until the next harvest.
The minimum ratio of crop yield to seeds sown are regarded as for each seed sown, three seeds have to be harvested ; ie; one seed is kept for next year’s seeding and the other two seeds were the food supplies for the peasant’s family for the year.
That is regarded as the absolute minimum.
If the yields were higher than this ratio in past historical times the peasant had crop to sell and could better his families situation.
Modern farming practices even here in Australia which is the overall driest farming environment on earth probably has a ratio of for every tonne of seed sown we can expect to harvest an Australian average of around 40 tonnes of grain or an increase over Medieval farming yields of around 13 times more grain for the same amount of seed sown.
Food held a place in past history that can no longer be even understood by today’s citizens.
Just pray for a warmer and wetter climate and you at least will still enjoy a world of plenty in every essential you can name.
And Philip, my reading of history along with the energy exchange physics of the global weather patterns say you are dead right.
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Geez, Phillip, please don’t talk about another Little Ice Age coming. I’m in the Rocky Mountains (Colorado) and I’ve been looking forward to a bit of Global Warming ever since it became a topic of conversation. I’d love to have a longer growing season for my garden. Back when acid rain was talked about (yes, whatever happened to acid rain?) I was looking forward to that too – we have nasty alkaline soil around here.
00
So if you asked the same team 12 months prior to their prediction “do you understand how climate change is effecting the precipitation cycle?” You can bet the answer would have been “yes of course”.
So why didn’t they factor it in? You cant claim to understand in minute detail how the climate works on one hand, then plead ignorance and surprise on the other.
120
The UKMO is busily claiming January 2014’s rain was the highest since 250 years’ ago. Was pCo2 as high then as now? If not, then is wasn’t down to CO2. Dumbkopfs.
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According to the global warming alarmists everything is due to man-made global warming, including the snow storms. They might as well blame man-made global warming for causing the Sun to rise tomorrow. Why do the public even put up with the crap coming out of the likes of the MO? The public ought to demand their resignations as they are certainly not providing anything of value.
100
Turnedoutnice: a fair comment! I’ve looked at the Met Office’s own records, and they give the rainfall for January 2014 as 183.8mm. Look back, and in January 2008 it was 189.6mm with 205.1 in 1928.
I’m going off-topic here, but you’ve triggered something – I’ve often wondered why the Americans use the word ‘dumb’ when referring to a stupid person or idea.
Here in the UK the word generally refers to someone incapable of speech.
The German word for stupid is ‘dumm’, and I wonder if back in the mists of time the German speakers in the USA started the general use of the word? If so, why it is usually spelt as ‘dumb’?
Interestingly, my German dictionary defines a dummkopf as a ‘blockhead’, and my Concise Oxford Dictionary does in spite of my comments above define a stupid person as a ‘dumbhead’ (with the letter b in place).
Are there any linguists out there who might like to shed some light on the subject?
30
I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard channel 9 Melbourne say that it was the hottest summer EVER,for Pete’s sake it rained most of Dec and even snowed here in Vic and Tas.
The BoM is getting desperate and is throwing up all manner of ridiculous statements.(A pox on all their houses)
160
Apparently it has been a bit warm in the centre of Australia, where is only one thermometer.
Makes adjustments easier.
70
Gos,
I have been interested in how weather presenters have described temperatures over the past several years with normal summer temperatures in the low thirties often described as “scorching” or “searing”. Of course, appropriate warnings for children and the elderly are added in for a bit of gravitas.
You do wonder if it is part of a push to reset our expectations in regard to temperature so that we become convinced that even normal summer days are extremely hot and are symptomatic of AGW.
20
Certainly.
In Sweden SMHI our own MetOffice (which is just as incompetent and CAGW-fixated as MO) now issues an official warning when maximum temperature is expected to exceed 25 degrees for three days running (yes, I know you will be laughing at this in Oz, been there five times).
Last month northern Sweden had temperatures around 30-40 below for two weeks running, which can be quite dangerous. This is however considered normal, and not worth issuing any warning for.
20
-11°C is the coldest that I have ever experienced. I could only spend 10 min outside playing in the snow (mid 30s but acting like a kid) before needing to go back inside to warm up.
00
Do you also notice on some TV weather maps, how the max temperature for the day is presented for every few hours, starting off normal-looking in the colours of a vegetation map, then turning bright red over most of the land mass, to linger there for longer, just so we get a subliminal reinforcement of “red” “hot” “widespread” “started normal then peaked” etc?
I’m looking forward to the winter months when I assume, for balance, that they will show blue for cold.
10
Further proof that a lot of people should be hauled into court and charged for committing the biggest fraud in history. In any other area, especially in finance and business, such people would already be behind bars years ago. At least hundreds of billions must have been wasted all over the world, money that would have been far better used in many practical and useful ways. What a scam. I bet Bernard Madoff, who I think is still in jail, must be envious of the leaders of this great big scam.
20
Err… Jo. Headline. “Britain”, not “Britian”
—–
Kevin. Good point. Thanks for the proof reading. – J
20
Sometimes I wonder if you leave the odd typo in to see who’s paying attention 🙂
120
The UK’s Met Office need to be a little careful here, as someone might notice the current rainfall patterns in southern England are more typical of those of NW Scotland.
This suggests the jet stream is further south than normal, which in turn suggests global cooling.
Over in the same latitudes of west coast North America, there is a severe drought.
For alarmists, this must mean something biblical is afoot.
All sensible engineers, when planning a new construction project, are required to allow for a once every 100, or 200, years weather event.
So, we are experiencing, in a couple of relatively small parts of the world, a once in every 100 years weather event, so what?
120
Depends on the structure. Stuff like lighting and power poles; 50 years, unless otehrwise specified. Of course safety factors built into design and manufacturing optimisation result in substantially stronger structures.
50
Pier Corbyn stirs the pot and challanges the Met Office to a public debate.
WANews14No06
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Piers’s WA forecasts have got English councils running so scared of the Met Office predictions from previous winters that they’ve all got plenty of salt this winter.
Perhaps they could use it to build causeways across the worst of the floods.
20
Winter is not yet over.
00
Good point. And it wasn’t over till about June last year, so who knows what may be yet to come.
10
Probably Not the UK Met Office it seems.
00
Remember when the weather bureau was wrong? Often? Before they became infallible?
The real problem is that with the attention and billions in funding and the stories, suddenly the long term weather was the concern of everyone in the world.
We were all going to fry in the fires of hell. (Heard that one before)
All thanks to a little known group called the IPCC, setup in 1988 by the UN to find such a thing. It worked beautifully! The future as discovered by an infallible committee.
Suddenly meteorologists, people previously ranked below fortune tellers, gypsies and astrologers on the social scale were very important people, ‘climate scientists’ no less.
This was a new science in which Climate Scientists were always right, never wrong and to even question their conclusions was to be in denial. Even Nuclear Physicists could not question a Climate Scientist as the mysteries were too deep. All knowing, all powerful and infallible, a new breed.
However we now know that despite the billions, the massive computers, the complex computer models, the fame, the world’s attention, they cannot predict a flood or a polar vortex and certainly not an El Nino or La Nina. Nice names though. In fact they have no idea how it all works and never had. Just random ideas presented as ‘the science’.
No, it is just the old weather bureau. 90% chance of rain means anywhere between 1 and 100%, on average. Read the legal disclaimer about tomorrow’s weather though. And take an umbrella. The precautionary principle.
180
TdeF
GREAT expose – and the majority here would completely agree.
“And take an umbrella.” – love it!!
Cheers,
60
Totally OT.
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/energy/great-energy-challenge/climate-change-science-quiz/
This is a test on AR5 findings. You’ll do great if you follow the narrative and keep reality at bay. There’s a facility to re-take the test until you can prove you’ve been properly brain-washed
40
Kevin,
Yep – just taken it and got 1 out of 10 – seems I need to brush up on my knowledge.
Did give me the ption of retaking the quiz and taking other quizzes as well..
What I did notice was that the initiative was a partnership between National Geographic and Shell?? – see here
They MUST be kidding – SHELL??? – next Jo will be in concert with “big oil” and they’ll be damming her
These people are cheatin charletons!!!!
Cheers
60
Forgot to mention – I was REALLY disappointed I got that first one correct – was trying to fail admirably 🙂 🙂 🙂
Cheers,
20
I couldn’t do more than one question. I just ate.
They used 95% confidence intervals instead of 90% because they were bigger and made it more likely the model results would overlap the real data during the hiatus.
30
Popeye. To do well on this test you need to remember your lessons in comparative religion. All answers are taken from AR5, otherwise known as the Pentayeuch, The answers don’t have to be reality-based, all the information you need for
eternal salvationto pass the test is in the Pentayeuch. Only BELIEVE and you shall be saved. PRAISE GAIA!40
Couldn’t do Q2,3, 4 because the correct answer wasn’t available.. So I stopped 🙂
20
I got 9/10, dont panic someone once said know thy enemy, or something RW will know. Anyway the only question i got wrong was Q3 where it stated
I misread the word “floor” and interpreted it as “flaw”, easy mistake i suppose.
Cheers
80
One of the first things I was told as a freshman undergraduate engineering student was the engineer’s working definition of an ‘expert’, i.e. ‘x’ is an unknown quantity and a ‘spurt’ is a drip under pressure.
It was passed on to us youngsters as a reality check to never get so full of yourself because shit can happen and you should never be so up yourself as to not be fully aware of that possibility.
How extraordinary that this AGW fantasy produces such a conga line of ‘experts’ who tell us that every severe let alone extreme weather event is caused by or is contributed to by ‘climate change’/’global warming’. The most arrogant and disconnected make predictions about drought/flood/ice/snow/heat etc and invariably Gaia just drops them flat on their intellectual backsides.
They really are a complete joke and one really must wonder about the genuine expertise and capacity of their respective organizations.
180
Harsh but fair.
30
An “expert” is a man more than forty miles from home.
If he has a brief case under his arm he’s a consultant
20
no the correct definition is “someone who has made every mistake possible in a very narrow field”
00
From the Advertiser 1906
Now if only the UKMet thought of it.
50
There was time, not so long ago, that Julia was predicting drier winters for the UK.
h/t Paul Homewood
60
–
I pity any poor unfortunate girl who, in the foreseeable future, would seek a future in politics and who has the given name “Julia”!
10
–
“Dame Julia Slingo, the Met Office’s chief scientist, said while there was not yet “definitive” proof, “all the evidence” supported the theory that climate change had played a role.”
–
It’s a nice trade-off: being wrong about the weather proves they’re right about climate change. Oh for the good old days of accurate weather forecasting, before climate started to change! (sarc)
80
Mid-left of image looks like a sea wall or jetty to me, and there’s nothing flowing over it.
So at least this sporadic, localised and seemingly shallow flooding isn’t due to rising sea level. (Gnash teeth!)
40
Let me reiterate what I said on another thread: Climate Change is a myth. It has been created because Global Warming isn’t happening – okay, it has warmed a bit since the Little Ice Age, but that’s about it. The much
hoped-forthreatened soaring temperatures have not happened. Now, to keep us scared, we are fed the lie about climate change: a scare that is so amorphous that it can be moulded to fit any event – probably even England losing the Ashes! (I’m surprised no-one else has thought of that – or have they…?) The climate of the UK is one where it is usually warmer in summer than winter; where storms and heavy rain are more likely to occur in winter; where heat waves are more likely in summer. However, history has shown that none of these are hard and fast – one of the more recent hot summers (1976) was preceded by snow in June. As every Pom knows, you in the more southern counties of England have a climate that is forever hot and sunny (you might be able to add refinements to that), with bush fires every so often. Neither situation is that much different now than they were 100 years ago, allowing for the vagaries of weather within each and every system.As Counting Cats has said: “…trying to say that weather you have predicted is climate change, but weather you haven’t is just weather…well, that’s just like picking winners when the race is over.”
Perhaps the BBC gave us one of the reasons for the problems on the Breakfast show, this morning (12th); I paraphrase, so the English might be better than the BBC can give us: “The flood level is nearly as high as in 2007, and might even reach that of 1947. However, flood defences are set a little bit lower, so these could be overwhelmed…”
Now, I am not a scientist, and certainly not a flood expert, but it seems obvious that any flood defences should be built higher than history has shown levels can reach. A good rule of thumb could be, say, at least 10% higher?
80
(Counting Cats is a link, but hasn’t painted as such. Typo on my part, it turns out.)
00
That is because they have ten people working as forecasters in the UK Met Office, and they were asked the question, “Which of you think that the first quarter of next year, will be extremely wet?”
Only one person put their hand up, and one person said that they weren’t sure.
So there you are. It is easy to see how the Met Office can make these predictions, when you understand exactly how the models work.
60
NOT QUITE;
There are 11 steps leading up to the Forecast Office. Once a day they throw a paper dart out the door so it lands on one of the steps. These indicate decreasing 10% steps in the likely hood of rain (starting at 95-100% for the top step).
If the dart lands on the bottom step they all go to the pub.
70
Wait, I thought the MET staff were spending their daytime hours online, checking out their commercial competitors.
All that time spying on the competition and they still can’t even copy an accurate forecast.
Good enough for government.
10
Someone put this link up
http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2014/02/12/3942502.htm
I grew up in Victoria (in SA its pronounced Victoooooooooooooooooooooooria) and i remember this guy Rob Gell, he was the weather man on one of the tv stations, there was a female news reader by the name of Yana Vent and these two had a thing going for a while so the joke around the school yard was “Whats up Yana’s Vent?………….Robs Gell boom tish.
50
I am reminded of the Great Famine of 1315–1317 that marked the end of the Medieval Warm period when it was reported that torrential rain and violent storms affected the whole of the NH for two years causing crop failures from the Nordic countries down to Italy. It is estimated that the European population fell by 50% (between 40% and 70% in local areas) and only returned to the previous levels in the 19th century. Of course, that population had seen a huge expansion during the balmy days of the MWP.
The cause is not known, of course and as usual speculation surrounds volcanism (there is evidence of a big eruption in New Zealand at the rightish time)
40
That’s right. Blame the New Zealanders …
10
Why not?
10
To get some historical context on the present day UK floods I would suggest that if you have a spare week or so and if you are if into history and historical weather events you peruse the following totally fascinating site which details the recorded historical weather events of the UK over the last two thousand years.
The site is called Metindex or Meteorology @ West Moors
Some of the events recorded make the current situation in the UK, disastrous as it is, look like quite small beer when compared with those past weather disasters.
I would love to give some examples of the extreme weather and climate disasters as recorded by the monks and scribes of the times but the major disaster events are far too many down over the more than 20 centuries of weather and climate this site covers to pick out any that are typical so I leave it up to you to see for yourself what is the real historical record when it comes to the warmit claims of the supposed extreme weather of today.
In short , the alarmists warmists in their outright ignorance and narrow mindlessness haven’t got a bloody clue about the utter severity of frequent past historical weather events and the disasters and loss of life that occurred with those disasters and this site proves it.
The major difference of course is as always our developed world with it’s ready access to energy and technology of every type has the capabilities of rapidly moving with our technological skills and equipment into the disaster areas to help mitigate and reduce the impact of weather disasters on the local population in any one location within hours of a disaster event occurring.
The long past societies never had that luxury of a great road system extending across all corners of the country or fossil fueled rapidly moving transport systems or energy at the touch of a switch or a button, all of which are a direct outcome of the extraordinary developments and advancement of the British Industrial Revolution starting some 300 years ago that have allowed the saving of an immense number of lives and reduced suffering and material loss to a small and relatively low percentage of the losses that occurred to past societies when they were struck by major storms or natural disasters.
110
So they are compaining of rain in Britain – what’s new? Next they’ll be blaming it all an infinitesimal amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Also I remember about 5 years ago a report from the British Forestry commision (or somesuch)running around planting drought tolerant trees cause some idiots in the Met Office said that droughts were to be more common. Apparently the trees only cost the British tax-payers a few million to research and then plant. – Good luck with that then you fools!
50
I seem to remember prediction that Global Warming was going to give Britain a Mediterranean Climate, and that a large chunk of the population of Britain wondered why this was something to be dreaded.
30
A Mediterranean Climate – true, some photos I have seen remind me of Venice.
50
Well at least some of them can now claim they have got a epipelagic environment possibly due to climate change
10
William
February 13, 2014 at 12:20 pm · Reply
“………., some photos I have seen remind me of Venice”
–
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Yes, or James Hansen’s predictions for New York!
10
Jo,
This is what you get for your “Climate Science” buck that ONLY follows temperature data.
The fools had forgotten about evaporation and precipitation SHOULD be watched.
Now anyone who has built in low laying areas are finding out that it was NOT a good idea to have built there. So, now they are trying to change the structure of the land to accommodate for their lack of fore-sight.
30
Joe Lalonde February 12, 2014 at 10:32 pm · No, most of those properties have been there for Decads and some for hundreds of years. Yes they have had flooding in the past.
But there are real reasons for this flooding that have nothing to do with Flood Plains or Massive amounts of rain.
First the Met Office as usual are being economic with the truth, overall the amount of rain during the last 3 months is not Unprecedented, but in the past most of it and the harsh storms have hit further north.
See http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/ for an analysis of previous bad weather.
But the real Culprit in all this, like worse fires in Australia, are the GREENS. Due to EU dictats adopted by our Environmental Agency who stopped the dredging in Somerset and other areas that have kept them much safer since the were originally drained by Dutch Engineers 250 years ago.
The reasoning behind this is to provide “Improved Habitat for Wildlife”.
In other words some of the flooding was INTENTIONAL, but quickly got out of hand due to the ferocity and frequency of the Atlantic storms being produced by the Polar Vortex over the USA, which is battering them with Snow and Ice Storms.
For more details and discussion on this see
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/
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My cartoon about this topic:
http://www.itsnotclimatescience.com/0025.5.html
I have linked to this article in the Links page. Great article!
——-
And a good cartoon too. Thanks! Posted at the top this minute. Perfect 🙂 – Jo
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Funny how there is never any “definitive” proof. Yet the science is settled.
A money grubbing alarmist can be expected not to see the contradiction there. A journalist is just an incompetent moron not to see it.
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‘A money grubbing alarmist can be expected not to see the contradiction there. A journalist is just an incompetent moron not to see it.’
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The one thing that the Watergate Scandal, of the early 1970s, taught newspaper publishers world-wide, was to rigidly select journalistic ‘talent’ on the basis of subservience to editorial policy.
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If there seems to be a surfeit of ‘copy-and-paste’ establishment shills among the journalistic fraternity, it’s probably by design, and should come as no surprise.
50
Just before Christmas 2012, a government minister (we’ve got dozens of ’em here in the UK, all on £100000 a year) stated that unless we got serious rainfall over that winter, we could be heading for drought conditions..
Just once, as a pleasant change, when any politician, Met Office spokesperson or ‘climate expert’ gets a microphone thrust in their face and asked whether all this weather is due to climate change, couldn’t they just say:
‘Frankly, mate, I haven’t a clue…’
Because it would, after all, be the truth…
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Around 1990, the Met was taken over by the warmist: Sir John Houghton (coincidentally, founder of the IPCC.) Around this time (coincidentally,) they became promoters of the AGW “consensus” with the help of those infamous computer models that (coincidentally) did not predict the current storms.
Coincidentally, on September 10th, 1995, The Sunday Telegraph ran an interview with Sir John, where he is quoted: “If we want a good environmental policy in the future, we’ll have to have a disaster.”
http://motls.blogspot.com.au/2010/02/sir-john-houghton-is-liar.html
80
A bit O/T, but may help to put into context the 4th Estate’s preoccupation with the horrors of chi-chi milkshake deprivation; Penguin-chick eco-scares; “headless chicken” sightings; Antarctic, PR-stunt fiasco-science; and similar “environmental” topics to the exclusion of those tacky, low-rent issues most likely to be of interest to right-wing nutter, Republican brain, “denier”, flat-earther types, consumed, as they are, with their insufferable, tin-foil-hat, conspiracy-theory “ideations”, and everything.
Remember how the U. N. Climate Chief, Cristiana Figueres, recently bad-mouthed American democratic institutions as the class-enemy of greenshirts on the march, everywhere, while holding up Communist “doing it right” China as the model for humanity in the fight against the “Global Warming” bogey-man (I’m not kidding!!!–Google: “bloomberg Biggest Emitter China Best on Climate, Figueres Says 2014-01-14”). Remember that one?
Well, after the hub-bub over Christiana’s above “zinger”-booger died down a bit, she kinda, sorta seemed to drop out of sight, press-coverage wise (might the hive-press have judged her to be a bit too much of a “loose cannon” and a just bit too candid for the good of “the cause” and “the team” and so judged she needed a reportorial rest?). But it turns out that Christiana has been a busy little bee even as she sojourns beneath the radar.
In a recent article (Google: “UN Climate Chief Figueres Hails Potential of Ban Ki-Moon Envoy Bloomberg RTCC 6 February 2014”), we learn from Christiana that the “Hail Bloomberg” faction of the CAGW cult has secured for a certain control-freak, obnoxious-prick, weirdo gent, named Bloomberg (Yes! THAT BLOOMBERG!), a UN trough (not that the money-bags needs it) with the title “UN Special Envoy on Cities and Climate Change” (look, I know how this sounds, but, honestly, I’m not kidding!!!!). But don’t look for “hizzoner” emeritus to be resting on his laurels:
-Figueres: “When I have some stakeholder on the phone who hasn’t quite understood the urgency [we’re talkin’ the Kyoto-successor treaty here], I think I’ll put Mike Bloomberg on the phone.”
-Samantha Powers (Yes! THAT SAMANTHA POWERS!): “Mayor Mike Bloomberg knows how to get things done. We need more leaders like him here at the U. N.”
Yep! All hail, Bloomberg! all right.
Of almost co-equal interest is this bit of further news from Christiana: “Leaders of international financial institutions indicate they are no longer willing to ignore the potential future impacts of climate change…” Hmmmm…..
-So Christiana, like, totally groks Commmies, “leaders of international financial institutions”, and that complete asshole, Bloomberg, while letting everyone, except those actively equipped with the highest-quality ear-plugs, with their hands clasped tightly over their ears, and intoning “Lah! Lah! Lah! I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you!”, know that she thinks the functioning of the American Republic, like, really, really sucks. Could the company Christiana keeps provide the vaguest possible insight into what the CAGW flim-flam is really all about?–any veteran hive-watchers have an opinion here?
-“Leaders of international financial institutions”? You mean, Christiana, those same carbon-piggie, enviro-hypocrite, blackguard, slithering, pit-spawn, tools-of-Beelzebub “leaders of international financial institutions”, who presided over the recent (ongoing?), wholesale, knock-out-game rape of the Western economies have now concluded “they are no longer willing to ignore the potential future impacts of climate change?” You don’t say, Christiana? You know, Christiana, I sometimes wish I didn’t have all these conspiracy-theory “ideations” ricocheting about inside my head–I really do.
O.K., guys, primal scream therapy time: Hey! Hive-bozos! Stuff-it!, Stick-a-fork-in-it!, “Bite Me!”, and “YO MOMMA!”
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When these people say “think of the grandchildren” they really mean “think of our grandchildren”.
20
Okay, out with it. Be honest. Which one of you clowns hacked the BoM’s Perth weather radar?
Strange ‘S’-shaped radar phenomenon appears off WA coast
I’ve heard of “global weirding” but this is ridiculous.
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Andrew
I cannot tell a lie. It was Rareke. Crakar made him do it.
Cheers,
Speedy
40
Crakar promised that he wouldn’t tell anybody …
10
“Strange ‘S’ shaped radar phenomenon appears off WA coast”
Finally, conclusive proof that that there is a ‘climate change monster’. I always believed there was something that influenced and controlled Global Warming. Now we have conclusive proof!
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It’s the location of Syndrome, and his off shore volcano.
It looks like he might have a disgruntled employee.
00
Damm! The B didn’t come out.
20
Notice that it is mirror image of an ‘S’..
Therefore must have been done by someone under the surface of the water.
Unfortunately, we won’t know for sure even if the ‘O’ does get written.
10
Nah! Its just the wake from one of their 25 metre White Pointers limbering up for those fast swimming west aussies
00
For those who like closure on such issues, the mystery of the giant S in the ocean has been officially explained : Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.
That’s the way we kick it, know what I mean?
00
It’s laughable really. The UK MO Global warming model predicts ever greater global warming but can’t predict the weather they believe comes with global warming. As I keep saying , they are court jesters.
110
Another Met Office classic and technically perfectly correct. But that’s not what they’re really talking about is it? The ‘scientists’ at the Met Office embrace the modeled climate zeitgeist, where ‘climate change’ is code for CAGW et al.
Julia Slingo — well paid ‘policy analyst’ and model spokesman.
20
Does that make Julia a perfect example of a spokesperson or a spokesperson for models ?
20
I was just waiting for someone to take this up. I see JV, you selected a svelt like, pulchritudinous spokeswomen as you model. Is this Julia Slingo I ask? No, I found out. This is Dr Slingo, and she doesn’t have a bicycle, although the synoptic is in evidence as indeed is the all important WWF icon.
So, given the penchant for females to adopt male descriptions of occupation eg. ‘actor’ I thought we could try a muscular adonis like model spokeman. A quick search on the net yields the link provided, which could be encouraging for some.
Not sure whether male spokesmen predict or sound any better than their female counterparts though. For my money though, I’d prefer to happily accept any predictions from your designated spokeswoman.
Thank you for brightening my afternoon.
00
I prefer this picture, because the only way that the caption on the slide behind her can be true, is to totally deny all of the modern accomplishments in rest of science.
Ergo, Julia Slingo is a self confessed Science Denier.
10
That’s a classic RW.
And I envy you the time spent trawling the net inspecting a wide variety of model spokespeople before coming up with your postergirl gem.
00
My question for everyone in the UK: “Has anyone checked whether the Met Office has any skill or
research to backup their claim to be able to predict a seasons worth of weather?”
Personally I think their forecasts of warmer than usual, or wetter than normal. Will give about 4
characteristics that they include in their forecasts: Temp, Precip (including snow/ice etc…), Wind, and Storm
outlook. And based on the fact that they all seem to use only above, at, or below normal judging their
predictive skill should be empirically easy.
I would love to see how they have fared. But I also would love to asked them
‘What scientific basis gives you the right to pontificate on the future weather and then publish it like knowledge?’
30
That question doesn’t make any sense.
—-
I’ll help: a “scientific basis” would be some empirical evidence that their assumptions were correct. – Jo
05
As people have said, the Met. Office has gotten it spectacularly wrong pretty much every year recently, to the point where they no longer publicize predictions like this one (first I have heard of this one, so thanks, Jo!). If they cannot predict the weather months, even days ahead with any degree of accuracy, how can they say what the climate will be like in a 100 years.
And just to cover my other pet hobby horse (so combining AGW and the EU for a real ‘mare!), here’s an interesting article by Christopher Booker about the EU’s involvement in the lack of dredging in Somerset.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/10625663/Flooding-Somerset-Levels-disaster-is-being-driven-by-EU-policy.html
30
The very high levels of precipitation in England are concentrated in the south. I live in the North West of England just 100 metres from a major river. The river has gotten nowhere near flood levels this winter. But the winter has still been wetter than average.
The Met Office has a track record in forecasting the opposite of what happened. The winter of 2011/12 was one of the driest on record. Reservoir levels were at a record low (partly because capacity has not kept pace with population growth). In April the Met Office forecast that the drought could last to the end of the year. Two weeks later it started raining. Despite the dry first quarter, in England it was one of the wettest years on record.
In general, the Met Office would have done better over the last few years if they had forecasted the average of the previous 20-30 years.
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I see the top link to “SUMMARY – PRECIPITATION” is 404!
I took a copy of the pdf for historical reference. 🙂
10
Thanks Richard, I try to use the original links, and copied what I thought was the original PDF from google. However it did not work. I dislike that google want their fingers and trackers on everything.
After searching with a different search engine I now have the correct link: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/d/7/A3_plots-precip-JFM-2.pdf
Cheers
Jo
10
Yep! That’s the one! I thought MO had disappeared it.
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Use Bing – they do not (yet) put in their trackers on their links.
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DuckDuckGo.com searches anonymously. Startpage.com does also.
00
Adn every time they do this they lose more credibility.
Having said that, they have pulled this stunt so many times now, one must ask the question
Does the UK MetOffice have any remaining credibility to lose?
Maybe the UK taxpayers would be advised to have the MetOffice liquidated and a replacement organisation taking the helm – you know, one who looks at the data and the evidence rather than the political agenda?
Just Sayin.
50
Should I drive with my brakes on, to dry them out, after driving through a flood ?
Or would that just up the fuel consumption and add to the Global Warming that caused the flooding in the first place ?
{[I was always trained to tap the brakes to make sure the are gripping. It’s the water planing you have to be more careful of. But drop your speed for safety and you should be OK. – MOD]
40
–
“Should I drive with my brakes on, to dry them out, after driving through a flood ?
Or would that just up the fuel consumption and add to the Global Warming that caused the flooding in the first place ?”
–
Find a parking spot and wait. With Climate Change the next extreme drought will be along shortly!
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Ah yes . The extremes. We can count on more extremes. Thanks for your advice bullocky and MOD. How long before someone comes up with a Climate volatility index I wonder ? The stock markets have had them for years.
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Yes, indeed,Matty.
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The fear factor inherent in the concept of Climate Sensitvity has been compromised by lower estimates in recent research papers.
.
A new alarm driver is required, and I think your suggestion of a ‘Climate Volatility Index’, captured and nurtured by the Universities of NSW and East Anglia, has compelling scare potential.
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Sorry…your comment about fear triggered a funny memory – I fear it may yet apply to this fast becoming-farcical situation about the Met OFfice :
“No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!
Our chief weapon is surprise, fear and surprise;
two chief weapons, fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency!
Er, among our chief weapons are: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and near fanatical devotion to the Pope!
Um, I’ll come in again…”
30
The MOD Driving School at Leconfield also has its own weather station.
That’ll be handy for planning driver skid pan training, but could have just used a hose.
30
You will need to press further on your brakes before they grip, both on disk and drum brakes but it will be a more serious issue if you get water in drum brakes. As the MOD days, give them a tap now and again so that you don’t panic and slam down rather than it makes them work better.
10
I see Jo Nova’s getting the climate mixed up with the weather again – rooky mistake.
—————-
These models have different names, but they’re built from the same principles, and indeed those “rookies” at the UK Met Office refer to them as the “same family” of models Quote: “The latest seasonal forecasting system, GloSea4, uses a member of the HadGEM3 family of models”. And to put a fine point on this “HadCM3 was one of the major models used in the IPCC Third and Fourth Assessments.” Sentence updated in the post, editing note added for accuracy. Thanks for helping me improve the post. – Jo
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Yes Will.. yours was a rooky mistake.
Keep learning. 🙂
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As I said, you’re mixing up the climate and the weather. You seem to think that it is easier to make medium to long term weather predictions than it is to predict climate trends. The evidence suggest very strongly that it’s the other way around.
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What evidence? The models are all poor at predictions – regional, local, continental, global, seasonal, decadal… – Jo
08
It is easier to make weather predictions as you can predict purely on empirical reasoning eg. today, Darwin will reach 32°C with afternoon showers. Next Friday, Darwin will reach 32°C with late showers.
00
All the models are[yes,the same] useless as they are not science based,they are politically driven only[my good fool].
10
Hmm.. The link to the original Met Office prediction (on the top of the column) is not working? Have they removed it? Too embarrassing? or just a bad link?
30
The Met office Web site seems to be having trouble.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/
10
The Met office Web site seems to be having trouble.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/
10
I see the UKMO site is back, but you’re right, that MO prediction is giving a 404 – Not Found.
Has it been disappeared or did it ever really exist . Hmm…?
20
A 50 year flood event can be expected once every 50 years. That how we rate storm events and flood events.
There are two factors in a flood event. Storm duration and Average Reoccurrence Interval, ARI for short. You can have a heavy 30 minute storm event that occurs on average once every year. This is a 30 minute 1 year ARI. A rare event would be something like a 30 minute 50 year ARI. The rainfall in the 50 year ARI is a lot heavier than the 1 year ARI, but the storm duration is the same.
When you design a storm water system you design it for smaller rainfall events. A 30 minute storm event will have heavier rain than a 60 minute storm event, or a 6 hour storm event.
I’ll give an example of a small creek catchment of 40 hectares. I’ll say this fictitious catchment has a peak time of 4 hours. This means a smaller storm event won’t cause flooding because there is insufficient volume of water to break the banks. A longer storm event won’t cause flooding because the rainfall will be lighter and the water will get away as quickly as it falls. The 4 hour rainfall event is the one event that will cause flooding at this location.
So, claiming that a 50 year event is caused by Climate Change is ridiculous. The very core of the designing for storm events is a predictive model of occurrence. Bridges on highways are generally designed for a 1,000 year event. Dams are designed for the 1,000 year event with modelling for the Maximum Possible Flood, MPF. Which varies depending on the size of the dam. The one dam I did study was a 2,000 year event.
20
Thanks for that. 😉
The thing is that these statistical probabilities can only be determined by looking at past data. Now when a ‘rare’ storm does occur, the statistics for different ARI’s should probably be updated.. (Awkward tokeep changing things like ARR just because of one event).
That is actually what happened because of the Dapto floods in the mid 1980’s (near Woolongong). This rainfall event cuased a lot of constination, because if it had occured in the Warragamba catchment ( not that far away) it could have seriously threatened the dam safety.
Since then, a massive new spilway has been built next to the dam, with earth fuse plugs that can be removed in an emergency. (can be viewed on Google Earth)
10
It’s a probabilistic estimation. And for some reason rainfall follows a strongly logarithmic pattern. It’s quite easy to extrapolate for larger storm events.
It has me worried what they’d be putting in print if ever we got a 500 year event, or a 1,000 year event. These are predictable in that you would expect to see one every X years. But woe to the news articles that would be printed.
10
Yep, log-pearson distributions. Fun 😉
I have heard the new ARR will have something to do with splitting probabilities while applying PDO, IOD etc, effectively making the big storms like the 2010 Brisbane storm more common. Trouble at the moment is, those storms are ARI 100 type statistical storms, that happen every 40 or so years like clockwork (of a rather inaccurate clock).
Be interesting to see what they come up with.
10
And 1,000 year rain storms/floods do occur. We had one just last August/September in Colorado; it too was described as Biblical. Many people are having their properties bought out by the local governments so that they cannot rebuild in the same flood-prone sites.
00
I’m curious. Wouldn’t “Biblical” mean God did it, not CO2 induced warming?
20
“What evidence showed that climate change was to blame? Evidence from the same climate models that didn’t predict the rain”
Jo your argument is a fallacy because the models are not the same….ie seasonal forecasting models are not the same as climate models (but then you probably already knew that…but don’t let the truth spoil your argument).
———————-
Tom, it’s not a fallacy, the UK Met office calls these the “same family” of models — they’re based on the same principles and built from the same “unified model” used in the IPCC reports. but I’ve made that sentence more informative. Thanks, see the post update and #48 for quotes and links. – Jo
25
The Bolter sums up exactly why the warmists have fouled their own nest. These dummies couldn’t be more stupid, even if we had wished for it.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/confusion-should-give-alarmists-pause-for-thought/story-fni0ffxg-1226825036298
11
Of course the floods from 50-odd years ago weren’t caused by “climate change” because, you know; the climate wasn’t changing back then and didn’t cause that kind of thing.
When alarmists don’t even listen to themselves, you know it’s not worth listening to them.
121
Jo Nova: “Tell me Mr UKMO, what’s the chance of me rolling a 1 on this dice.”
Mr UKMO: “Only 1 in 6”
The dice is rolled….it’s a 1!
JoNova: “Mr UKMO doesn’t know how a dice works. How stupid is Mr UKMO! They predicted a 5 in 6 chance that a 1 wouldn’t come up and yet it did! It’s clear Mr UKMO is wrong.”
Jo Nova thinks she can bring down climate science, yet she shows beyond all doubt that she doesn’t understand the concept of probability.
Hilarious.
424
So the UKMO is only ever probably wrong.
70
–
Chester:………..”Hilarious.”
–
It’s the way you tell it!
30
I was wondering which troll would be allocated this post to pollute. The fact that it is Chester seems to indicate that one of the frontline trolls have called in sick.
120
This isn’t a troll is it?
Seems too stupid to be a troll.
30
now thats funny
10
Do you need someone to tell you that it would be 1 in 6? If I was at a crap table and someone was giving me such advise I would give them a stern suggestion to get out of my face. God only knows what would happen if regardless of what number came up they said “Told you. Its global warming.”
40
Mod- I’m missing an “up”. Could you kindly fix it, please? Cheers.
[I am in a friendly mood today, so I did it for you -Fly]
10
Hi Chester, your example is poor because if you roll dice you will never roll a one however the correlation is accurate, climate models will never predict an actual outcome either.
70
Yes!
Mr UKMO should have replied, “Why, 0 out of 12, of course”. Poor Chester. He does try hard though. At least, I find him trying.
50
For those who haven’t yet caught on.
The pleural of die, is dice.
So if you throw dice, you can not roll a 1.
PS: Sorry to spoil your fun James 🙂
20
I just assumed he was illiterate as well.
10
Jo’s typing monkeys can’t even get their diversions correct:
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/dice
10
Chester does not even get his definitive references correct. The “oxforddictionaries.com” website has no connection whatsoever with the Oxford University Press English Dictionary.
The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, which is the definitive authority on the English Language, defines:
die n. Pl. dice 1. A small cube whose six faces are marked with from one to six spots, used in games of chance by being thrown from a box, the hand, etc., the score being decided by the uppermost face; a cube with different markings, or a solid with a different number of faces used in the same way. Chance, luck. 2. A small cubical segment, esp. of meat, etc. for cooking. 3. A cubical block. 4. An engraving stamp for impressing a design on some softer material as in coining, striking a medal, embossing paper, etc. …
dice n. 1. Pl. of die 2. A game or games played with dice 3. vt. A game or games played with dice 4. v Cut into small cubes 5. v Mark with squares.
So, according to the authority on the English language, there is no mention of dice being both the singular and the plural.
That makes sense, because it avoids the problem of asking, “How many dice do you need, to play dice, in a casino?”
10
Ah, the irony.
Have your diversion then, Whaka.
So far that and personal attacks are the only responses to the obvious point made. Jo doesn’t understand probability, or at least chooses to ignore what high school students do know about it.
01
Chester,
Yr: “Jo doesn’t understand probability.”
Jo understands the hive and hive’s hustles. And Jo, once again, cut through all the good-comrade, flim-flam crapola and called you lefty-creeps out, Chester, ol’ sport, and that’s why we all “adore and fawn over” our beloved Jo!
The Met office offered a laundry list of every possible weather outcome for this winter with heavy rains accorded the lowest “probability”. Epic rains ensued and so the hive rolls out some gofer-grade, prissy, nit-picking, Mr. Smarty-Pants-[snip] Chester!–to “‘splain everything!” with a party-line compliant, good-little-toady, pestiferous, tiresome, annoying lecture-booger on the fine points of probability.
But we get your flim-flam razzle-dazzle, Chester. No matter what the winter-weather, the Met’s ass is covered, by “probability” And we also get that your little wrecker-bot mission on this blog is transparent, green-shirt agit-prop that apparently earns you much, hive-hero street-cred and high-fives from your geek-ball hive-mates.[snip]
And, of course, any public-policy “decision-maker”, who relied on the Met’s “probabilities” would have spent last autumn citing the Met’s “scientific” expertise and ordering up even more wind-turbines, destined to provide even more rentier-income to the make-a-greenwashed-buck, money-bag feudalists in on the rip-off deal! Like I say, Chester, we all get it!
10
When words are in quotes, they are supposed to be exact quotes. Your dishonesty and libel are duly noted. Since you have no morals, then your arguments can be viewed the same way. As pure hyperbolic sophistry with nary an ounce of truth or integrity.
10
“nary”?
I’d call that hyberbolic [snip] and evidence you wouldn’t know truth or integrity if it bit you on the backside. The truth in what was written is recognisable to a high school student of probability – and something that Jo has revealed is beyond her grasp.
[Because you choose not to use “nary” does not stop it being a valid word with a unique meaning. If you are not familiar with it, look it up. While you are at it, also look up the meaning of “hyberbolic”. I think it implies the lack of an ability to cut and paste -Fly]
02
Chester, I do believe the problem starts with your reading comprehension. The probability I’m talking about is the one where the climate scientist who were 5/6 wrong in their prediction claim at the same time to be 95% sure they know what they are doing.
10
What a complete obfuscation and irrelevance on Jo’s part. Are they meant to be 95% sure about what they say they are only 15% sure of predicting, Jo?
Unbelievably silly. And you know it.
02
You still haven’t made your point on what use is the prediction if everything that can possible happen shows that the model works.
We can test with many throws of a die to see if the prediction that there is 1/6th probability of each number coming up is true. With only the one throw, the prediction can’t be shown to be either true or false, but is clearly useless.
The weather predictions only put forward the one possibility (only the probability of a one being thrown). That is what its usefulness will be tested on.
10
Are we meant to pay billions based on the mere “best percentage guess” of a group of people with unverified models known to be broken?
You bet we are.
I’ll give you a 8.5 for bluster.
They’re not meant to be 95% sure of anything unless they can actually understand and predict the climate.
10
It’s you that is blustering, Jo. To suggest scientists shouldn’t use probability and uncertainty shows how completely and utterly unqualified you are on this subject and on science in general. My analogy sums Up what you are trying to hand wave about precisely. I’m actually embarrassed for you. But, I love that you’re making a nice digital record of your ineptitude. May make a contribution to science one day too – when scientists make a study of the modern equivalent of the Flat Earthers.
02
Ironic considering that number two on the American Historical Associations 100 most persistent myths was that people actually thought that the world was flat in pre-Columbus times.
00
Plus, the president of the Flat Earthers believes in climate change.
00
I didn’t suggest scientists “shouldn’t use probability and uncertainty”.
Read the post and all my comments again. Quote me.
Given your ability, I’ll take your embarrassment-on-my-behalf as a badge of honor. Please warn me if I say something you approve of.
20
“We have records going back to 1766”
so is there a pattern here? This date sits in the range if the little ice age. Is history repeating itself and we are, as predicted by some scientists, heading for a global cooling period for the next few decades at least?
40
Just checking my e-mail… Amazon Local is advertising attractions in the Thames Valley. Nice timing, Amazon!
30
Thames Valley residents forced to move. Where was the forecast ? Off with their heads
20
there is debate over this as ever. The greatest volume river is probably the Severn but it also runs through Wales. The Thames is indeed the longest named river but then there are other rivers that are longer from headwaters to mouths but change their names along their course. I’d vote for the Trent to Humber system as longest.
Now please back to the topic of long term weather predictions as a proxy dog whistle measure of competency for data collection, storage and retrieval.
03
While the area of the Thames is expanding like Antarctic sea ice I don’t think there’s any debate.
41
just at the moment it must be carrying the largest volume, but not in the usual manner.
23
As always GA i have no idea what your position is, please just for the record why do you think the longest named river is in record flood?
PS i thought the longest named river was the Mississippi (sorry thats just my poor attempt at humour)
Cheers
30
the amount of rain versus the outflow of the catchment
12
Damn it i left a small loop hole, forget it GA, i have tried and tried to engage you in conversation over the years but still you put up these walls, you could have simply answered the question but instead you resort to semantics.
41
Perhaps he is in de Nile?
40
perhaps de mentia
10
Same reason it was in record flood last century and the one before and the one before that, but skipped the previous one because it was frozen and then twice more continuing down to the Magna Carter where Prince John lost the crown jewels in that flood escaping the churlish earls, dukes and right-wing peasantry.
50
these floods are pretty regular in the UK, and where they occur has a lot to do with luck. Almost always there is a large amount of water held in the soil ie in slow flowing lowlands and in winter when a large percentage of previous rainfall or even snow has the system near capacity even without exceptional rains. Then some big rains or series of rains come. They don’t need to be particularly exceptional and might at other times not cause any flooding (ie the storms themselves are not the 1 in a something year event) – it is the combination of factors. So to answer Craker’s actual question, the Thames flooding is big but not surprisingly so, and I see no reason to attribute it to purported affects of AGW. I also don’t that the Met’s predictions indicate any inaccuracy on their part, I just don’t think that the data’s ability to predict weather warrants them making such predictions.
Somehow I’ve managed to time all my visits to the UK with a major flood in some region. Fortunately I have only been in the affected region once; the Ouse about 13 years ago which also coincided with lots of snow. York was still a great place to visit and looked quite good with water sloshing onto the walkways (many of which were the roads once used by horses pulling barges). But as always I digress.
52
You’ll never find the crown jewels there. John lost them in The Wash off Norfolk.
According to contemporary reports, John travelled from Spalding in Lincolnshire to Bishop’s Lynn (now King’s Lynn), in Norfolk, was taken ill and decided to return. While he took the longer route by way of Wisbech, he sent his baggage train, including his crown jewels, along the causeway and ford across the mouth of the Wellstream. This route was usable only at low tide. The horse-drawn wagons moved too slowly for the incoming tide, and many were lost.
The location of the accident is usually supposed to be somewhere near Sutton Bridge, on the River Nene.
30
“Somehow I’ve managed to time all my visits to the UK with a major flood in some region” I never realised the Gore Effect was communicable .
10
“PS i thought the longest named river was the Mississippi ”
The major river with the longest name (that I can find) is the Thamarabarani (13) in India, followed by the Murrumbidgee (12) in NSW.
There were a few compound names and a few that used the local term for ‘river’ as part of the name.
I stand to be corrected, though.
10
Mangakopikopiko (15). I am sure these are way shorter than the real winner whatever that is (yes I should just google it). By the way would you count “Dead mans creek” as 8 letters?
11
Nice find. but what does the ‘pikopiko’ stand for… it may be cheating 😉
Yes, 8 letters in Dead mans creek
00
possible cheating. There are rivers whose name is effectively River River or something river river. One runs right through Melbourne, the Yarra River.
01
Maybe these?
1. Longest Named River
Puerto Princesa Subterranean River Philippines.
2. Shortest Named River
D River Oregon 1320 meters long
00
I found that the LA River was first named Nuestra Señora de los Angeles de la Porciúncula. The first European settlement on the river was called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciúncula or The Town of Our Lady the Queen of Angels of the Little Portion, which we simply call LA today.
Back on topic- a town in Wales changed its name for a week in 2004 to LLANHYFRYDDAWELLLEHYNAFOLYBARCUDPRINDANFYGYTHIADTRIENUSYRHAFNAUOLE meaning “a quiet beautiful village, an historic place with rare kite under threat from wretched blades.”
10
What has four eyes and can’t see? Mississippi.
10
The biggest river in Britain, by a country mile, is the Tay. It’s much shorter than the Severn, but the quantity of water that goes out through the Firth of Tay, south of Dundee, exceeds the outflow of the next four biggest rivers, put together. And yet… I haven’t heard anything about flooding on the Tay. The Tay certainly does flood. There is a bridge in Perth which shows the high-water marks from previous floods, like a Nilometer, but it hasn’t been flooding now. Don’t try telling me that the Scots Nats have somehow cured the problem of flooding. The Scottish secret is that the Environment Agency doesn’t operate in Scotland.
40
true but it is not in England.
02
Righto mate, it is in Frenchie Canada. Another place the Queen couldn’t own.
01
Sorry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_River_%28Ontario%29
01
Tasmania has a Nile and a Styx.
I’m glad this sub thread is way down the list so I don’t get accused of hijacking the debate.
12
Might have the river but does it flow through Hades? If not it is just a fake.
So is the Scottish (un-united kingdom) Tay the first? Evidence please….
12
Styx? Isnt that the river you put coins on your eyes to pay the ferry man?
00
I haven’t a clue what you’re trying to say, so feel free to get your mum to translate it into English for you.
00
England is quite a bit closer to Scotland, last time I looked, than northern Queensland is to southern Queensland. If we’re getting “global” activity in England, it should be affecting Scotland, too, as well as the rest of the globe.
00
“true but it is not in England.”
I think I did make that point fairly prominently [references to “Dundee”, “Perth”, “Scots”, “Scottish” and “Scotland.]
10
The Tay is in Scotland,huge,voracious and deadly.
00
You’ve met Alex Salmond then?
10
Why are people so desperate to repeat that the Tay is in Scotland, when that is part of the point I made in the first place? Let me spell it out again: the Tay is notorious for flooding and there is a flood-marker to prove it in Perth (that’s the Scottish one, not the one where our favourite blogger lives), but it’s NOT flooding now. Anyone who knows Scotland knows that it can rain a bit and then it can rain a few bits more. The fact that the Tay isn’t flooding now, when the Ouse, the Thames, the Avon all are, is down to management, not to the weather (oops! climate…. or should that be oops! weather… I can never remember…).
00
Weather is delivered to these parts by the jetstream. the jetstream has been further south in recent years (remember it was over the Mediteranean last Northern Spring, keeping the N.European winter going till about June.
Well it has been delivering storm tracks to southern England ever since October.
Meanwhile Scotland ‘basks’ in relatively drier, cooler Arctic air.
Tayside has experienced weather features previously that England is seeing now, with intense localised torrential downpours, mini tornados and bridges & rails swept away.
It’s no big deal, except that England is so much more populated than the River Tay’s catchment, and recent building on flood plains.
Now that Scotland has managed to export some of the worst of its weather though, it is making another bid for independence.
00
I can’t wait for Steve McIntyre to have a “captain Cook” at this latest HS team effort.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/12/new-hockey-team-paper-models-tuned-to-tree-rings-and-other-palaeo-climate-reconstructions/#more-103082
20
good to see AP adding a little context to the Sochi snow story:
12 Feb: Australian: AP: Winter Olympics become the warm games, as sun melts Sochi snow
Dmitry Chernyshenko, head of the local organising committee, told The Associated Press that it hasn’t been warm enough to warrant tapping into reservoirs of snow stored near the mountain venues. Dismissing hand-wringing over the weather, he said: “It’s not a big surprise for us. We’re a subtropical city.”
Outdoor sports, of course, often find themselves at the mercy of Mother Nature. The last pre-Olympic World Cup weekend for Alpine skiing demonstrated that.
Too much snow scrapped training in St. Moritz, Switzerland, and fog forced cancellation of the last men’s downhill before Sochi — a race already moved from Germany because of a lack of snow. Women’s races shifted from one resort in Slovenia to another because there wasn’t enough snow — only to have rain and fog wipe out a giant slalom at the new spot…
Four years ago, too-warm, too-wet weather in Whistler, British Columbia, delayed the start of racing. At Turin in 2006, the women’s super-G was postponed 24 hours, and the combined event was split over two days. Skiing at the Nagano in 1998 waited for two days, and officials shoehorned nine races into 10 days, even staging more than one on a single day. At Sarajevo in 1984, both downhills were postponed…
A racer who comes from a technical background, such as Miller, gets more help on the ice than the slush, Rearick said.
Asked whether he was surprised about the temperatures so far, Rearick chuckled.
“I’ve spent a lot of time here. This is still mild,” Rearick said. “It gets warmer.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/sochi-winter-games/winter-olympics-become-the-warm-games-as-sun-melts-sochi-snow/story-fnl6xsc2-1226824726754
00
Hey, way off topic I know, but pat here mentions Bode Miller, the American competitor in the Downhill at Sochi:
It’s an astonishing event really, the Men’s Downhill, even now that the sliders have taken over, perpetually seeking out an icy course.
Go back to a time when those guys went out to, and sometimes beyond the ragged edge.
Perhaps the single best Downhill run at a Winter Olympics was in 1976 at Innsbruck when Franz Klammer, the home town hero won the Gold Medal.
Probably the only time he was in 100% control was standing there behind the starting gate.
The 106 second run was quite literally out of control. The time he had to beat was half a second better than the next best. Franz was behind at all the Intermediates, and at the bottom, when he crossed the line he won by three tenths of a second.
That one run is probably the best in Olympic history.
I made a Post on that run, one I distinctly remember all these years later from watching it on the first Winter Olympic telecast that came into Australia. Watch and enjoy as The Kaiser makes the sliders look mundane.
Franz Klammer
Tony.
30
all in the name of CAGW:
***the answer is no, Krancer.
2 pages: 12 Feb: Forbes: Michael Krancer: Obama Energy Official: Nuclear Plants Essential To Our Carbon Reduction Goals
***Did President Obama just finally come out as pro-nuke?…
Lyons said that the DOE studied a scenario where 30 percent of the county’s 100 reactors would be shut down. He said the DOE regards many of the nuclear plant closures currently on the calendar as premature. If those closures were to go ahead as per that scenario, there would be no way to meet our goal of cutting emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020…
Lyons says a major problem is that the market presently has no mechanism to sensibly recognize the value of carbon-free power generation, particularly nuclear power. “When well-run, clean [nuclear] energy sources are forced out of the marketplace due to a combination of reduced demand, low natural gas prices and market structure,” Lyons was quoted as saying by the Greenwire energy-news service, “our markets are providing the wrong signals.”
Others have been ringing this alarm for a while. Last November, four of the world’s top climate scientists expressed their alarm in an open letter to environmental organizations. Their message: Stop opposing nuclear power if you are serious about arresting climate change. Last October, a coalition of global investors called on the largest carbon emitters to assess risks under climate action and “business as usual” scenarios. And recent surveys show that citizens of all political stripes are demanding action. But Lyons’ speech was the clearest endorsement yet of nuclear energy from the Obama Administration…
(Michael L. Krancer is Partner & Energy, Petrochemical and Natural Resources Practice Group Leader at Blank Rome LLP and former Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. His blog, Energy Trends Watch, follows developments in energy, petrochemical and natural resources.)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelkrancer/2014/02/12/obama-energy-official-nuclear-plants-essential-to-our-carbon-reduction-goals/
Krancer wants me to believe he didn’t notice any of the following as it unfolded from at least as far back as Obama’s run for the Presidency! of course, the MSM didn’t let his devoted followers know too much about it until NYT wrote:
Ties to Obama Aided in Access for Exelon Corporation – NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/…/ 22 Aug 2012
and even then NYT substituted “Big Utility” for “Exelon” in the headline!
22 Aug 2012: Eric Lipton: Ties to Obama Aided in Access for Big Utility
Early in the Obama administration, a lobbyist for the Illinois-based energy producer Exelon Corporation proudly called it “the president’s utility.” And it was not just because it delivers power to Barack Obama’s Hyde Park neighborhood in Chicago…
Exelon’s top executives were early and frequent supporters of Mr. Obama as he rose from the Illinois State Senate to the White House. John W. Rogers Jr., a friend of the president’s and one of his top fund-raisers, is an Exelon board member. David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s longtime political strategist, once worked as an Exelon consultant, and Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago mayor and Mr. Obama’s former chief of staff, helped create the company through a corporate merger in 2000 while working as an investment banker…
White House records show that Exelon executives were able to secure an unusually large number of meetings with top administration officials at key moments in the consideration of environmental regulations that have been drafted in a way that hurt Exelon’s competitors, but curb the high cost of compliance for Exelon and its industry allies.
In addition, Exelon, which provides power to more than 6.6 million customers in at least 16 states and the District of Columbia, was chosen as one of only six electric utilities nationwide for the maximum $200 million stimulus grant from the Energy Department. And when the Treasury Department granted loans for renewable energy projects, Exelon landed a commitment for up to $646 million allowing it, on extremely generous financial terms, to finance one of the world’s largest photovoltaic solar projects.
Exelon’s seemingly easy access to top administration officials has hardly gone unnoticed among competitors…
Still, the relationship between Mr. Obama and Exelon has been mutually beneficial.
The ties go back at least to Mr. Obama’s tenure in the Illinois State Senate, when he befriended an Exelon lobbyist named Frank M. Clark. Exelon’s employees, including Mr. Clark, were among the biggest financial supporters of Mr. Obama’s United States Senate campaign, with donations also from Mr. Rowe, then the company’s chief executive, and others in the executive suite, campaign finance records show.
Exelon’s employees have contributed at least $395,000 to Mr. Obama’s federal campaigns. By far the strongest link is with Mr. Rogers, the Exelon board member and family friend. A college classmate of Michelle Obama’s brother, he was co-chairman of Mr. Obama’s inauguration committee and still occasionally plays basketball with Mr. Obama.
He is one of Mr. Obama’s biggest campaign donation bundlers, having raised more than $500,000, and has co-hosted several fund-raisers, including one in March that featured a performance by the Grammy-winning musician John Legend…
Separately, the Treasury Department has approved a $646 million loan, guaranteed by the Energy Department, to help Exelon build a 230-megawatt solar project now under construction in Los Angeles County. The project, which it recently bought just as construction was beginning, is so heavily subsidized by federal and local governments that Exelon expects it will be reimbursed for all its upfront money by 2015.
An Exelon spokesman said most of the work in securing the loan was handled by First Solar, the project’s original developer, although Energy Department officials said they were aware before approving the loan guarantee that Exelon would be the ultimate beneficiary…
When Japan’s Fukushima accident prompted a review of safety at United States nuclear power plants, Exelon had an obvious stake in the outcome. Mr. Rowe was the only utility industry executive serving on a commission appointed by Mr. Obama in 2010 that made recommendations based on the accident and concluded in January that nuclear waste stored in pools of water — as they were in Japan — present “no unmanageable safety or security risks.”
Since the accident, Exelon has managed to minimize how much it must spend to address safety concerns at its plants, including its eight General Electric boiling water reactors — the same models as those at Fukushima…
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/us/politics/ties-to-obama-aided-in-access-for-exelon-corporation.html?pagewanted=all
10
Fox news ,I just watched christine milne in front of the camera talking about farmers and a climate that will never be the same again.The farmers are doomed if they don’t grow suitable crops,presumably those that require no water.No hint on what type of crop,the amusing part was at the end,she said thanks,walked off and the camera panned back to show an enormous media crowd of ONE.What a waste of space this[woman?]is.
61
Yeah I saw the brain dead old moll saying the same thing on the ABC while I was having lunch at work today. She wouldn’t have a clue about the Aussie climate with its historic propensity for long droughts.
She was probably trying to get even with Barnaby Joyce who at the end of answering a Dorothy Dixer question on the cost of the Carbon Tax for meat processing plants, looked at Bull Sh.ten and said ,in effect, “and you clowns think you can change the climate.”
Instead of throwing something at the Telly I contented my self with “p.ss off you brain dead old female dog.”
30
no doubt everyone has heard about this by now:
13 Feb: NYT: Toyota Recalls Newest Priuses Over Software
Toyota Motor is recalling all of the 1.9 million newest-generation Prius vehicles it has sold worldwide because of a programming error that could cause their gas-electric hybrid systems to shut down, the automaker said Wednesday…
The recall also underscores the growing complexity of today’s vehicles, which are increasingly laden with technology and electronic systems that can leave them more susceptible to problems, analysts said…
Roughly half of the recalled Priuses are in Japan, while 713,000 are in North America and 130,000 are in Europe, according to Brian Lyons, a Toyota spokesman in Tokyo…
***The Prius is made only in Japan…
The recall could damage the Prius’s reputation as the global leader in proven hybrid technology, analysts said…
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/13/business/international/toyota-issues-another-recall-for-hybrids-this-time-over-software-glitch.html?_r=0
was listening to the cricket on abc local last nite &, following brief news headlines, which included the above recall, a South African cricket commentator said the problem with the Prius in South Africa was the parts were made in a number of countries (and therefore had to be imported into Japan) – so much for them being green, he said, adding a bit about regular cars’ “CARBON MONOXIDE EMISSIONS”. he was mocking the Prius, of course, but no-one corrected him for saying “monoxide”.
the use of “CARBON” for CO2 by all CAGW facilitators – pollies, MSM, etc – is more deceptive than simply giving anyone who googles “carbon” online a Wikipedia entry showing pictures of black graphite; for many people, they really believe CAGW is all about carbon monoxide emissions.
google “carbon monoxide” any day & click “news” & it’s amazing how much scary MSM coverage there is in recent times. sometimes i’m suspicious as to why it’s constantly in the news. there have been loads of new stories since the following, but it is a good example of why i’m suspicious:
6 Feb: Quad City Times (Illinois): Ed Tibbetts: Arsenal buildings evacuated
after carbon monoxide incident
Fifteen people were sickened Thursday after elevated levels of carbon
monoxide were drawn into a trio of buildings on Arsenal Island, apparently
from a delivery truck idling near an air intake. More than 400 people were
evacuated as a result…
Arsenal officials did not identify whom the truck belonged to, only that it
belonged to a contractor who was there to unload furniture.
They did not know how long the truck had been there, but it was gone by the
time the building was evacuated…
Emergency crews ventilating the buildings found varying levels of carbon
monoxide, McMaster said. At one point, it was as high as 90 parts per
million parts of air, he said.
The federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration considers the
permissible exposure limits of carbon monoxide at no more than 50 parts per
million…
“The vehicle happened to be placed in the right place at the right time when
the vents came open. This is not something we should worry about happening
on a routine, regular basis,” he said…
http://qctimes.com/news/local/arsenal-buildings-evacuated-after-carbon-monoxide-incident/article_f80b78bb-7e34-5c1b-995b-508b2d149674.html
6 Feb: KAAL TV: Doctors Suspect CO Poisoning at Springfield School After 30
Hospitalized
According to a health official at Mayo, the symptoms were very consistent
with carbon monoxide poisoning. Fingers probes on students showed higher CO
levels…
http://www.kaaltv.com/article/stories/S3314765.shtml?cat=10151
6 Feb: NU Journal, Minnesota: Update: No carbon monoxide found in
Springfield school
Springfield Ambulance transported them to the Mayo Clinic Health System,
Springfield…
When the decision was made to evacuate the school, carbon monoxide was
suspected; however, a check of the school found no carbon monoxide by late
afternoon on Thursday…
A thorough check of the school building found no carbon monoxide as of 3:30p.m., according the Springfield Fire Chief Charlie Baumann…
http://www.nujournal.com/page/content.detail/id/548452/Update–No-carbon-monoxide-found-in-Springfield-school.html?nav=5009
apart from the NU Journal, i can’t recall seeing any MSM headlining the correction, yet the MSM had reported in such fine detail!
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In 2007, I was working as a motoring journalist and attended Toyota’s 70th anniversary celebrations.
Already convinced that the idea of danger from CO2 warming was nonsense, I couldn’t resist asking a senior executive why Toyota for example had simply accepted the CO2 tale, and not hired unbiased scientists to look at the issues and challenge the supposed evidence.
I couldn’t understand why the giants of the motor industry had never done this.
His reply astonished me.
“Well,” he said with a shrug of the shoulders,”we just have to do what governments tell us.”
It would seem that Toyota are unfortunately paying the price for their unquestioning and supine attitude over the years.
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at Point Carbon, u just get the opening para. not surprising to find out who comprises the “group”:
12 Feb: Reuters: Valerie Volcovici: Investor group demands fossil fuel companies disclose carbon asset risk
A group of investors with combined assets of over $200 billion filed shareholder resolutions on Wednesday with ten energy companies, including Exxon Mobil and Southern Co, demanding they disclose their strategies for competing in a lower-carbon future.
Led by the New York State Comptroller’s office, which alone handles $160 billion in assets, the investors focused on the companies’ “carbon asset risk,” or the potential for their carbon-intensive assets to lose value as market forces and potential regulation threaten demand for fossil fuels and related infrastructure.
The move is part of an ongoing effort by some major institutional investors, coordinated by the sustainability advocacy group Ceres and the Investor Network on Climate Risk, that is focused on holding companies accountable for these so-called “stranded assets.”…
The bank HSBC said in a 2013 report that the equity valuation of some oil producers could drop by 40 to 60 percent under a low-carbon scenario, in which countries take measures to reach a long-term United Nations target for lower pollution…
https://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.4094441?&ref=searchlist
playing God!
Germany, five others cleared to issue 2013 EU CO2 permits
LONDON, Feb 12 (Reuters) – Six more countries including Germany were given a green light on Wednesday to hand free carbon permits to industry to cover their 2013 emissions, the European Commission said, bringing the total number of states with clearance to 20…
https://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.4095467
good news – stay out of it, Brazil:
Brazil’s Sao Paulo state delays plan on local carbon market
SAO PAULO, Feb 12 (Reuters) – Brazil’s richest and most populous state, Sao Paulo, has indefinitely put on hold plans to implement a local carbon market, after failing to find ways to cap emissions, particularly in the energy sector, the official in charge of the program said on Wednesday.
https://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.4099173
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… Dombey and Son By Charles Dickens (1848).
50
a little tale:
last nite in cricket ad break, turned on sky business channel’s Perrett Report for a minute. Janine Perrett talking to regular Brisbane reporter, who was telling Janine how Graincorp were leaving Qld & moving to Melbourne (not mentioning how they will expand in Vic. or that Graincorp has said they will try to help the 130 Qld workers who lose jobs find other employment). Brisbane reporter then mentions Qld job losses in the mining services sector. he and Janine are laughing away, & Janine says “the little twerp” as Clive Palmer calls him, won’t be happy (referring to Campbell Newman). i thought how strange they are laughing & making nasty political comments.
today,on ABC:
13 Feb: ABC AM: Forge mining services company broke, 1300 workers retrenched
AM understands Forge was facing significant downgrades in profit on some of its larger contracts due to cost blowouts, some going from healthy margins to losses in a relatively short time. AM understands Forge’s total debt is around $500 million.
Equity analyst with Morningstar Ross MacMillan says after the mining boom, the mining services sector needs to go through a period of rationalisation.
ROSS MACMILLAN: Many companies have done very well over that period but now we’re entering a significant downturn and I think we’ll see financial distress, I think we’ll see many mining service companies and contractors suffer from financial problems…
The large mining companies, the BHPs, the Rios, the Fortescues, are cutting their capital expenditure, they’re cutting their operating expenditure. And that really means that the companies that have been contracting to them will received less work, there’ll be a lot of pressure by their customers for them to reduce the bids that they’re putting in on tenders for new work. And basically we’re going to see their earnings fall pretty substantially over the next two to three years…
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2013/s3943620.htm
however, read this carefully, to discover all the context not given by Perret & friend, or ABC…and this report has CFMEU input:
Dec 2013: Mining Australia: 78,000 mining construction jobs to go, 40,000 added to oil and gas
A new report says 78,000 jobs will be lost by 2018 as the nation’s resource sector makes it move from construction to production.
From a peak of 85,819 positions this year, the construction arm of the resources sector is expected to drop to just 7700 jobs in 2018.
According to the 2013 resources skills study by the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency, professional and specialist jobs will continue to rise with trade and labouring positions set to shrink…
However the drop in construction jobs will be offset by a rise of nearly 40,000 resources operations jobs led by the oil and gas sector where employment is expected to increase by 57 per cent from 38,943 this year to 61,212 in 2018.
While mining operations jobs should grow from 236,690 this year to 254,260.
Chair of AWPA Philip Bullock said the resource sector was facing a skills shortage for high-level specialist operators with wide experience…
The report stated that it will be difficult to source the right people for these roles domestically, saying this could affect productivity and safety in the sector.
To combat this the agency recommends the introduction of pilot transitional training and apprenticeship programs, industry support for career advice and industry input for the development of science and math skills in the workforce…
“Workforce planning needs to proceed quickly to ensure domestic workers are available to fill time-critical shortages in the second half of this decade.”
Chair of AWPA’s reference group Keith Spence said that while overseas workers would be required to fill experience gaps in the short-term, “there is going to be a commitment to training Australians to fill these positions for the longer term”…
The AWPA’s reference group included representatives from the Minerals Council of Australia, the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association and the CFMEU.
http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/news/78-000-mining-construction-jobs-to-go-40-000-added
now read this:
13 Feb: ABC: The WA Treasurer Troy Buswell denies the collapse of Forge Group is a sign the economy is in disarray
Mr Buswell says while the nature of economic growth in WA has changed, the sector is still robust.
“This collapse is unfortunate, but I have a very strong view that it doesn’t mark a significant change in direction of the State Economy,” he said.
“We’ve been saying for some time, that in 2012/13 investment in the mining sector peaked…
“New jobs are being created all the time in WA and we have to put this into perspective.
“Sure it is very unfortunate for the employees of that particular company and the investors, but we are moving into a different phase of the investment cycle.”
Mick Buchan from the CFMEU says he will be lobbying for the workers who lost their jobs to be re-employed on the same projects, but it may take some time.
“It’s devastating; you can imagine workers with young families and not knowing where your next pay cheque is going to come from,” he said…
Forge has construction and engineering contracts with big miners and energy companies including Rio Tinto, Fortescue Metals, BHP Billiton and Chevron in Australia and overseas…
The Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has described the loss of jobs as “devastating”.
In a statement, Mr Shorten says it is heart-breaking for families and comes on the heels of job losses at Toyota.
He says it has been an awful week for job losses around the nation and he is worried there is still more bad news to come.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-13/union-reacts-to-forge-job-loss/5256958
what a disgrace. Buswell should have handed the ABC the miningaustralia piece for context. abc’s time would be better spent informing the public about the jobs of the future in the resources sector, which would be USEFUL INFORMATION, instead of politicising every damn thing they report to suit their own political bias. ditto for the idiots on sky business channel.
20
today’s other “shocking” tale:
ABC AM: Jobless rate in shock rise to 6 per cent
That’s the highest official result in more than a decade and it coincides with the winding down of the investment phase of the mining boom and the recent job losses in Australia’s manufacturing sector…
We now have the number of unemployed people in Australia standing at almost 723,000. Looking around the country, look at Tasmania for example, the jobless rate is up to 7.6 per cent.
Now the participation rate which we always look at is steady at 64.5 per cent. There’s also been revised to that figure for December and that’s more evidence that some people may well be giving up the job hunt…
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2013/s3943847.htm
i actually believe the rate has been and is much higher than 6%, just based on the thousands & thousands of unemployed construction workers i know about, who have been living on their spouse’s wage & savings for several years.
how dramatic is Bloomberg’s headline:
Bloomberg: Australian jobless rate soars
abc still hasn’t provided a transcript for the Hockey interview at time of posting this, & i’m not bothered to listen to it. everything else has had transcripts for at least a couple of hours:
13 Feb: ABC World Today: Treasurer speaks on unemployment rate
Transcript available shortly.
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2013/s3944056.htm
13 Feb: Australian: Colin Brinsden, AAP: Labor Predicted 6% jobless rate: PM
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten asked the prime minister when the government was going to offer a real plan for employment – when one job had been lost every three minutes since the federal election.
“I very much regret the fact that unemployment is edging up,” Tony Abbott told parliament.
However, he noted that the last economic statement of the former Labor government predicted unemployment would reach 6.25 per cent in the first half of this year.
“So what’s happened is that unemployment has done what members opposite said it would do under members’ opposite own policies,” he said.
Treasurer Joe Hockey agreed the figures were not unexpected and were the unfortunate reality of six years of Labor government…
But Labor employment spokesman Brendan O’Connor said the data showed the participation rate of those people in work or actively seeking employment was lower than at any time since April 2006.
“Eligible people have stopped looking for work because they have no confidence that the government is helping create the environment to produce jobs,” Mr O’Connor said…
In its medium term forecasts for Australia, the International Monetary Fund expects the jobless rate to peak at 6.1 per cent in 2014 before easing to 5.8 per cent in 2016…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/labor-predicted-6-jobless-rate-pm/story-fn3dxiwe-1226826310489
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Is this real? THE S CURVE THEORY?
BOM reveal facts about radar S curve.
Navy boats show up on BOM radar, well this will really peeve off the military stealth machine. Navy do an exercise off WA and gets broadcast on local BOM radar????
Lucky our Navy is small and conditions were ideal, the Yanks etc would have trouble entering BOM radar space. How can a few bloody ships show up as cloud cover on BOM radar?
Am I missing something here. The whole world would be covered in cloud. XMAS Island over the last few years would have had a perpetual cyclone over it.
10
Darn.. I always thought it was called an ‘S’ bend.
10
meanwhile back in reality
http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2014/02/12/brutal-winter-may-see-lake-superior-freeze-over-for-first-time-in-decades/
10
Clearly all the heat from Lake Superior has found its way into the deep deep oceans.
20
Maybe Europe is returning to the climate change of the 14th century?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1315%E2%80%931317
10
The Met’s excuse making is a deceptive excuse. The Met has been obsessed with ‘climate change’ for over a decade. Look at the reality: Met predicted no snow. Snow continues. Met predicted less rain. Rain continues. More heat? cool summers. Etc. All based on their claims and beliefs regarding AGW.
Perhaps it is time to admit that it is the take on AGW that they have wrong.
10
Just want to document this here. The BOM forecast between 4-10 mm of rain for Adelaide yesterday (Feb 13th) with 80% probability that it would rain, later changed to 100% when it was raining. So far 65 mm has fallen, and still counting until 9am.
10
Reported now as being our wettest day in 45 years
Where’s Tim Flannery on the sandbags when you really need some constructive input?
20
Maybe it will fill your dams.
Oh… Whoops…
10
Even with its supercomputers, the Met cannot find its rear end using both hands. Their predicting capability would vastly increase if they used a dart board.
Meanwhile Piers Corbyn at WeatherAction.com with only his laptop runs rings around the Met with an 85% forecast accuracy.
20
Yes, applying darts to their rear ends every time they’re wrong may well improve their accuracy.
10
A more sensible view was expressed a couple of days ago from Anthony Reuben, Statistics analyst, BBC News
Not much evidence of things getting worse.
Paul Hudson, in “UK flooding put in context” said similar things on 10th.
The number of homes flooded has since risen significantly, but nationally is still smaller than one area in 2007.
The consequences of extreme weather are not beyond human control. Christopher Booker in the Spectator has been unearthing the real story. Much of the flooding this time round can be attributed to Green Ideology.
00
A good article about the USELESS UK MET OFFICE……
It has a gigantic supercomputer, 1,500 staff and a £170m-a-year budget. So why does the Met Office get it so wrong?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1240082/It-gigantic-supercomputer-1-500-staff-170m-year-budget-So-does-Met-Office-wrong.html
They are obviously more interested in political propaganda about the FRAUD of global warming than actually predicting the weather !!
00
In the US, the Weather Channel forecasts are generally 2 to 4 degrees higher than all others. I check several sources each day. It seems they want us to remember the forecast and believe in warming, more than they want to provide actual useful forecasts. (Actually, if you check various sources, most differ, sometimes significantly, which would indicate different forecast models. Weather science is still developing, it seems.)
00
Jo, if you have the time, or if someone you trust to do the job properly does, how about keeping watch on Piers Corbyn’s predictions at weatheraction.com, or on his videos on the Weather Action channel on YouTube, and put up short summaries of the most significant parts of them, then later put up brief comparisons with the reality?
Corbyn is a rational outspoken critic of the global warming hoax. He refers to “the church of CO2 delusion”.
He makes his money by selling long range weather and climate forecasts to people who willingly pay for them with their own money, including farmers whose livelihoods depend on factors including their skill in timing of planting and harvesting.
He should be widely known, yet is familiar to only a small proportion of the population, unlike the loudest of the hoaxers who are all famous. Search for “piers corbyn” on newspaper websites is telling.
YouTube had a short video of him in a BBC debate with a Met Office stooge. The bias of the female BBC presenter was shameful. That video was taken off several months ago.
A campaign to popularise Corbyn would be well worth the investment in time.
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