Bishop Hill Mysterious announcement from the Met Office
Sep 23, 2008 Climate There's a news article just published at the Guardian reporting the announcement from the Met Office that "climate sceptics have their heads stuck in the sand".
Climate sceptics such as Nigel Lawson who argue that global warming has stopped have their "heads in the sand", according to the UK's Met Office. A recent dip in global temperatures is down to natural changes in weather systems, a new analysis shows, and does not alter the long-term warming trend. The office says average temperatures have continued their rising trend over the last decade, and that humans are to blame.In a statement published on its website, it says: "Anyone who thinks global warming has stopped has their head in the sand. "The evidence is clear, the long-term trend in global temperatures is rising, and humans are largely responsible for this rise. Global warming does not mean that each year will be warmer than the last."
This is all illustrated with a rather nice graph which looks like this:
Two things jump out at me here. The first is the caption, "Brohan et al 2006". It's remarkable that a paper published in 2006 can analyse temperatures up to 2007, don't you think? Perhaps this is something to do with the Met Office's much-vaunted forecasting abilities?
A little research shows that Brohan et al 2006 was, in fact, the paper where the HADCRUT3 temperature series was announced to the world. This seems to suggest then that this "new analysis" is not actually a peer-reviewed study, but is just somebody bashing some numbers out.
Actually, I don't have a problem with somebody just bashing some numbers out. If the analysis is good, the analysis is good, and whether it's peer-reviewed or not is irrelevant. It would have been more honest of the Met Office and the Guardian to make this fact plain though. But another question then arises: if they've just taken the data and calculated some trends, why have they only used data up to 2007?
Ah, yes, the 2008 figures have dropped precipitously, haven't they?
So, this looks to me as if the Met Office is indulging in a little propagandising. Plus ca change and all that...
One last mystery though. When I look up the Met Office's media pages, there's no sign of the press release at all. Do you think they pulled it?
Bishop Hill
Rich in the comments has found the "press release" which isn't really a press release at all, but a new glossy brochure. The unscientific tone is a sight to behold.
The reference on the graph is slightly more revealing - it reads HADCRUT3 Brohan et al 2006, so there is not even the pretence that this is a new study. It's just a new leaflet. Well worth an article in the Guardian I would have thought.
Reader Comments (15)
It is a branch of the MoD, and now has a commercial brief. It sells global warming products to companies wishing to project a green image:
"Through understanding your business, climate models and data are tailored to answer your key operational and strategic questions. Our world-leading science capability is dedicated to reducing your risks and your exposure to climate change. We enable you to make the best informed business-critical decisions."
3 September 2008: "2007/8 has been another successful year for the Met Office, achieving all its Key Performance Targets and making £4.4m business profit which will be invested in further improvements to weather and climate services."
In 2007 the Met Office Board aquired a new Chairman, the CEO of WWF-UK.
With commercial targets to meet they have to keep the pot boiling as it were. In 2005 the Met Office were so worried about the credibility of global warming theory in the face of contrary experience with current weather patterns, and at that time the coldest winter for many years, that they felt it necessary to draw the attention of the public to the question.
“Our latest predictions indicate a colder-than-average winter for much of Europe. If this holds true, parts of the UK - especially southern regions - are expected to have temperatures below normal. The last eight winters have been relatively mild and perhaps have given the impression that these are 'normal'. The balance of probability is for a winter colder than those experienced since 1995/6.”
A subsequent web page made the point: “why are we predicting a colder than average winter when we are at the same time talking about climate change”. They even produced an FAQ on the subject, including this pertinent “belief-related” question and answer:
Q) "So, does it mean that global warming is on hold?"
A) "No. The forecast of a colder-than-average winter is based on the prediction of atmospheric circulation patterns that change from year to year. Increased frequencies of easterly and northerly winds are expected this year. Basically, it is the direction of the wind that brings the lower-than-average temperatures."
They had to return to it again in April this year: "Is global warming all over?"
29 April 2008
"The recent fall in global temperatures has led to increasing speculation that global warming is a thing of the past. Despite this fall, a look at global average temperatures reveals a different picture. It shows large variability in our climate year-on-year – warmer some years, cooler in others - but what is very clear is an underlying rise over the longer term, almost certainly caused by man-made emissions of greenhouse gases."
This is transformed into certainty in the latest piece quoted above.
The Met office figures are always presented as charts of “anomalies” compared to the thirty year period 1961-1990, following a convention laid down by the WMO. It is supposed to be updated every ten years but so far there is limited presentation against 1971-2000 data. Of course 2005 had been claimed to be the hottest ever, not least by AGW guru, James Hansen.
However, if a period like 1961-90 is used, with a lot of cold winters and indifferent summers, then it stands to reason that when the weather returned to a more acceptable pattern it would always be “above average” when related to the earlier period.
It's strange that the research arm of the Met Office, the Hadley Centre, had serious gaps in their knowledge just over three years ago and yet produce the sophisticated, (meaning complex and unauditable) climate models which help to form the basis of the claims on global warming.
"Stabilising climate to avoid dangerous climate change — a summary of relevant research at the Hadley Centre", January 2005
· "What constitutes ‘dangerous’ climate change, in the context of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, remains open to debate.
· Once we decide what degree of (for example) temperature rise the world can tolerate, we then have to estimate what greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere should be limited to, and how quickly they should be allowed to change.
· These are very uncertain because we do not know exactly how the climate system responds to greenhouse gases.
· The next stage is to calculate what emissions of greenhouse gases would be allowable, in order to keep below the limit of greenhouse gas concentrations. This is even more uncertain, thanks to our imperfect understanding of the carbon cycle (and chemical cycles) and how this feeds back into the climate system."
This was just before the Exeter Conference on Dangerous Climate Change in February 2005, requested by Tony Blair to promote emissions policies. The conference produced dire warnings of imminent disaster but surprisingly there was no mention of the Hadley Centre's knowledge gaps.
Current policy on global warming, (aka climate change when it's cold instead of warm), follows the advice of the government's favourite think tank, The Institute for Public Policy Research. David Miliband was a researcher there in the early 90's.
"Treating climate change as beyond argument" - Warm Words, IPPR, August 2006.
"..it is our recommendation that, at least for popular communications, interested agencies now need to treat the argument as having been won.
This means simply behaving as if climate change exists and is real, and that individual actions are effective.
The ‘facts’ need to be treated as being so taken-for-granted that they need not be spoken.
The certainty of the Government’s new climate-change slogan – ‘Together this generation will tackle climate change’ (Defra 2006) – gives an example of this approach. It constructs, rather than claims, its own factuality."
Millions of pounds of our money are spent on social engineering to get us to accept "green taxes" to “save the planet”. Unfortunately the opposition are fully signed up as well.
I know who really have their heads in the sand and they should watch out for frost bite...
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/news/warming_goes_on.html
Rich
First of all, exactly!
Second of all, "a new analysis"? Whenever you hear the terms "latest research" and "new analysis," you can be pretty sure that the "researcher" is involved in some rather robust eye-balling.
Leaving out 2007 and 2008 is a convenient tactic. Just show what you want to prove. Any objections can be passed of as noise from the environment overpowering the strong signal of global warming. 2008, in their minds, is just an bad bit of data, ignore it and it will probably go away.
It comes down to lies, damned lies, and statistics.
In January 2007 their 'experts' predicted with 60% confidence that 2007 would be the warmest year yet. It turned out to be not the warmest, nor the second warmest ... but 8th.
On May 30th 2007 they predicted
"The latest seasonal forecast from the Met Office, updated today, still indicates that this summer is likely to be warmer than average. Current rainfall indications suggest that over the summer as a whole southern parts of the UK are more likely to experience average or below-average rainfall ..."
- just two weeks before the start of the most disastrous floods in living memory.
Then on 2 January 2008 they issued the following astonishing lie:
"The Met Office played a vital and significant role during the summer, providing excellent forecasts and warnings ahead of the heavy rains."
They have just issued their forecast for the winter, and the tea leaves are telling them that it's going to be a mild one. Better switch the heating up!
"...Recent studies by the Hadley Climate Research Center (UK), the Japan Meteorological Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the University of East Anglia (UK) and the University of Alabama Huntsville show clearly that the rising trend of global average temperature stopped in 2000-2001..."
I wonder if the Met Office will ask him to get his head out of the sand...?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/09/27/former-director-of-international-arctic-research-center-says-global-warming-has-paused/
Dodgy Geezer posts a clip "..global average temperature stopped in 2000-2001..." and yet the clip comes from an article entitled "global-warming-has-paused". Slightly contradictory, isn't it? The good doctor was merely stating what an good climate scientist already knows - cyclic weather patterns can accelerate/decelerate the trend in global warming. Not really sinister at all.
PaulM posts "Then on 2 January 2008 they issued the following astonishing lie:
"The Met Office played a vital and significant role during the summer, providing excellent forecasts and warnings ahead of the heavy rains."
The statement is true - please see the Pitt Report This was written by someone who is not a Met Office employee. He actually praises the Met Office and Environment Agency for helping to effectively prevent a crisis becoming a disaster.
Many of the other comments are just rants at the Government or the Met Office, so I will leave that debate for another day. Goodnight.
I don't see and contradiction between "stopped" and "paused". The latter merely suggests that the writer thinks it's going to start again, whereas the former could be either.
Your point about forecasts before the floods depend on the length of time before the rains that the forecasts were issued. I don't know one way or the other.
You are not convincing me here.
Thanks You admin.
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