Bishop Hill The Quarmby audit
Dec 21, 2010 Climate: MetOffice I am grateful to commenter "hmc" for pointing out that David Quarmby has also produced an audit on the country's response to the start of the cold weather a month or so ago. This includes some further interesting information about the Met Office's advice to government:
The Met Office gave ‘early indications of the onset of a cold spell from late November’ at the end of October, but detailed forecasts of snow were not possible until a few days before the first precipitation. The amounts of snow were generally well captured, although in some areas were considerably underestimated by some weather forecast providers.
I find the quotation marks at the start of this excerpt particularly interesting. What this suggests to me is that Dr Quarmby was advised that such an "early indication" was given, but that he didn't see it himself.
I've emailed to check if this surmise is correct.
Reader Comments (80)
ScientistForTruth: My question to Dr. Quarmby was rhetorical, I'm not waiting for him to answer.We already know that the MetOffice put the chances of a severe winter at 20:1 based on, presumably, historical records, probably the 20th century.
I was merely trying to stimulate the good doctor into challenging the thinking of the MetOffice by asking a rhetorical question that may give him pause for thought.
Poor Dr Quarmby - in any normal professional situation, it would be very bad form to challenge the information provided by fellow professionals from a different field than one's own.
It was his job to produce his Audit. It would not be reasonable to expect him, in addition, to blow the whistle on the Met Office and to point out that they have forsaken the role of providing dispassionate forecasts of weather and have, instead, taken on the mantle of being the High Church of the Global Warming Religion.
Dear Dr Quarmby,
You say "Although the long term trends seem established and understood, no one, not even our dear Met Office, can forecast specific weather even probabilistically more than a few weeks ahead."
The problem is that, although the Met Office cannot forecast more than a few weeks ahead - or cannot produce a usefully accurate forecast at a useful lead time, it is quite evident - or at least widely believed, that other forecasters, such as Bastardi and Corbyn, can and do produce useful forecasts months ahead of time.
The conclusion everyone jumps to is that there is something wrong in the Met Office and the methods it uses. (It really would be very well worth auditing forecasts from all three sources against actual turnout to see if this is truly the case). The root cause of the failures in forecasting is widely assumed to be either or all of a) the appointment of an environmental activist to the top role, resulting in a loss of focus on the basic need to generate the best possible weather forecasts; b) forecasting methods being based on the assumption of a steady climatic warming on which weather patterns are overlaid. c) forecasting methods being based on faulty cause-and-effect logic amongst the weather variables.
Again I suggest it would be very well worth auditing Met Office forecast vs actual in previous decades, to see whether the poor forecasting performance has always been the case, or whether it has been caused by some recent change in personnel or methods.
Thank you for engaging here, I hope you can do something to ensure in future we are not so woefully ill-informed and miserably under-prepared next time it snows in winter.
Interesting fact about the Met Office's seasonal prediction system GloSea4.
The hindcast and calibration period for GloSea4 forecasts covers only the period between 1989 - 2002. Which corresponds to a period of relatively warm summers and mild winters across the UK.
It looks like the errors in the Met Office's seasonal summer and winter forecasts were entirely predictable.
Well this has certainly stimulated some interesting posts; I am afraid I don't have the time to explore all these issues or respond to everyone's posts - I have to get back to the rest of my life (in transport). But I have been meaning to ask a statistical friend of mine the question that is addressed above - if it really is 1 in 20, then what is the chance of having three on the trot.
I am also intrigued at the ways in which the Met Office can be (constructively) challenged - but I dont really have the time to explore it.
Dr - yes, how did you know? Professor, no!
David Quarmby
But I have been meaning to ask a statistical friend of mine the question that is addressed above - if it really is 1 in 20, then what is the chance of having three on the trot.
Complex issue David. Assuming that the 1:20 ratio is correct, which I doubt, but let's assume it is:
The chance of having three 1:20 winters in a row is .05^3 or 0.000125 (if I got the math right). But that is forward looking only. Even with having three 1:20 winters in a row, the chances of a fourth 1:20 winter is -- .05 or 5%. It is one thing to say, "I predict that the next three years will be thus" and another to say "Given we had two bad years of 1:20 weather, this year will be ..." The events are now independent having occurred.
I, however, doubt that the 1:20 ratio has any basis in fact, because in my 70 years of experience, I have seen many cycles of bad winters often lasting over two or three years. For example, I remember the blizzard of 1948, the one of 1978, and last year. About a 30 cycle. That suggests that there is nothing statistically random about it, but that it is a natural cycle.
And I still think Michael Gallagher -- the Donegal postman -- is far more accurate because he is cluing in on observations of effects that covary with this cycle.
As for the Met's 30 billion quid computer: "Garbage in, Garbage out."
Dr Quarmby
Thank you very much for joining in the discussion here.
If you want to know more about how these probabilities work, you could do worse than to engage my friend David Spiegelhalter who is the Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk (yes, really) at Cambridge. The crucial question, as several commenters have pointed out, is whether these events are independent or correlated, that is, are they randomly distributed in time or do they come in clusters. Given that they are physical events with physical causes of some kind (opinions vary widely as to what those causes might be) it is hard to see that they would be truly randomly distributed; I think that a random distribution tends to be used as a default setting when there is insufficient knowledge of causal mechanisms. What people are doing here is using the idea that these events are randomly distributed with a 5% probability as a null hypothesis, that is, a hypothesis that is considered discredited if its consequences are sufficiently improbable. We are already at the stage where in IPCC terms, it is in the "unlikely" range; another very cold winter would surely destroy the hypothesis completely. The Met Office cannot be so inept that they do not realise this, so they must know they are now on very shaky ground.
So if we set aside that hypothesis, then either the probability is greater than 1 in 20, or there is a strong correlation, that is, they come in clusters, or quite likely both. If you have an hour or so spare at any time, do have a look at the wonderful CET record, the longest continuous weather record anywhere in the world. You can see all sorts of patterns in the data, real or imagined; I like Vukcevik's presentations more than the Met Office's, but you can see from the Met Office's site that the after a plateau since the warming in the 1990's, temperatures have dropped sharply over the last 3 years to a level below the long term average, while Vukcevik's seasonal analysis gives a sense of the frequency and bunching of the cold winters.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-D.htm
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/graphs/HadCET_graph_ylybars_uptodate.gif
'"What can be said with very little doubt is that, once this cluster of cold winters has finished, we will have another lengthy run of mild and rainy ones ..."
That statement is almost self-evidentally true.'
Yup. The prediction is so lacking in content, it is hard to see how it could inconvenience any theory. Scientific theories are supposed to rule out specific phenomena, not to be consistent with almost any conceivable observations.
I fully accept that the relationship between AGW and this year's winter is a statistical one, so no SINGLE cold winter can refute the theory but there must be a possible climate future which is inconsistent with AGW, or else the theory is devoid of explanatory content. I am waiting now to hear what that possible future is.
Thank you Dr Quarmby, hopefully this has been beneficial for you as well as us.
From my understanding of stats (very hazy, its been 25 years plus since) if there is a 1:20 probability of a winter being severe then the probability of the next 3 years being severe are 0.05 to the power 3. But if you are in the summer of the 3rd year after 2 severe winters the probability of the 3rd winter being severe are 0.05, as the first 2 years are over and done with.
A cold winter or two does not prove that AGW is over or never happened, anymore than the so-called 'Climategate' emails prove that the CRU is a nest of spies working night and day impose a communist world government which will take away our 'freedumb.'
The reason it's so cold at the moment is that ocean warming, probably associated with the melting Arctic, has disrupted pressure systems that usually keep the cold away from Europe.
Another factor is that warm air holds more moisture and when it's squeezed out but the cold it comes down hard on whoever's in its way.
In Europe in winter this falls as snow or forms as ice; in Australia at the moment its falling as rain and many places are experiencing flooding, some of it the worst ever.
Global Heating theory predicts all this.
Finally seven of the last ten European winters have been warmer than average and unless some permanent change to pressure systems has occurred they will continue to be.
MacSporan,
You're quite delusional.
The current weather around the globe has happened before. The climate hasn't changed at all. Nor is it likely to due to human activity.
Your claim that "warm air holds more moisture" is reasonable - but actual measurements have found almost no change.
You claim that "Global Heating theory" predicted European winter snowfalls and Australian flooding.
In reality the UK Met Office claimed that snow would soon be a thing of the past and Australia is about to mothball their desalination plants which they build at great expense instead of dams which would have mitigated the flooding.
"Global Heating theory" predicted the diametric opposite of what's going on around the world right now.
The idea that loss of Arctic ice is causing the terrible weather at the moment was made up out of whole cloth after last year's Northern Hemisphere freeze. Which they completely failed to predict.
Sorry that this is a difficult time for you and your deeply-held but risible beliefs.
"anymore than the so-called 'Climategate' emails prove that the CRU is a nest of spies working night and day impose a communist world government which will take away our 'freedumb.'".
A strawman argument. The CRU emails showed the CRU to be intellectually dishonest, even fraudulent, and having been drawn into taking up cudgels for activism rather than science, had increasingly placed themselves out on a limb and were forced to employ ever more desperate measures to maintain their position.
Breath of Fresh Air: it would only be 0.05^3 if the events are independent, but the weather is not like rolling a dice or tossing a coin, so I don't think you can just multiply the probabilities together. I think the probability goes up each time you have a bad winter, for two reasons:
1) it becomes more likely that the original guess of 0.05 was too low
2) if they are not independent, then the mere fact of having had a cold winter one year increases the likelihood of having one the next.
These are just general principles of probability, rather than anything specific to weather. On top of that you have the debate over what these winters are telling us about underlying climatic conditions. In the face of all this, if the Met Office insists on such a simplistic approach they are well on the way to being proven wrong.
macsporan "The reason it's so cold at the moment is that ocean warming, probably associated with the melting Arctic, has disrupted pressure systems that usually keep the cold away from Europe...Global Heating theory predicts all this"
Cheap rot. Care to tell us which ocean? What's all this 'probably' - just making it up, eh? As for keeping the cold away from Europe, perhaps you are unaware that most of Russia and all of the USA are not in Europe. This is not just a European phenomenon.
Although Global Warming dogma is being hastily re-written with the benefit of hindsight to try to save the narrative/meme, you mentioned PREDICTION. Kindly show us your sources for these predictions (say more than 5 years ago) that most of the northern hemisphere north of 40 degrees latitude would suffer severely cold winters due to Global Warming. Note: I'm not asking about precipitation, but temperature, i.e. "the reason it's so cold at the moment" as you put it.
Macsporan your global heating theory has the classical cult feature of being endlessly malleable and able to explain everything. Ever thought of joining forces with the Church of Scientology? Or perhaps the Rapture is more your flavour. After all, with catastrophic global warming causing record low temperatures, these are the strangest of days, and it must all end soon.
Please do not respond to these points by macsporan and send things spiraling.
David S "I think the probability goes up each time you have a bad winter, for two reasons:
1) it becomes more likely that the original guess of 0.05 was too low
2) if they are not independent, then the mere fact of having had a cold winter one year increases the likelihood of having one the next."
1. Of course, if you are guessing then your guessing can be improved/educated by more events occuring, but who is talking about guessing? The Met Office don't believe they are guessing. They go to great pains to inform us that the general public don't understand probability and risk, so that by ascribing a probability they are not 'guessing' but being totally scientific.
2. Dependency doesn't necessarily increase likelihood. All one can say is that if cold winters are truly independent random events the mere fact of having had a cold winter one year doesn't affect the likelihood of having one the next. We can't make any deduction or inference about likelihood (whether it increases, or decreases) in the case of dependency unless we know something about the dependency itself. All we can say is that if cold winters are not truly independent random events the mere fact of having had a cold winter one year may affect the likelihood of having one the next. Which way it affects the likelihood, if at all, is indeterminate simply based on a definition that "cold winters are not truly independent random events".
Randomness and independency can be vitiated by introducing feedbacks, and depending on whether the feedback is positive or negative, likelihoods can increase or decrease. If a cold winter affects the following winter by forcing it warmer then the likelihood of a run of cold winters decreases. If a cold winter affects the following winter by forcing it colder then the likelihood of a run of cold winters increases.
I come back to the question of what probability the Met Office, in the summer of 2008 when they cocksure produced their regional climate projections more than 50 years out (UKCP08), would have put on there being a run of three severe winters starting in 6 month's time. We know the answer thay THEY would have given: 1-in-8000 probability (0.000125). As I pointed out above, by the Met Office definition, a snowy but mild, or a windy but mild winter would have satisfied their definition of 'severe'. So, if we now ask the question, what in 2008 would have been their probability of severe in the form of BOTH snowy AND cold for three years in a row? A lot smaller probability than 1-in-8000, perhaps 1-in-50,000. That we had such a once-in-50,000 years event six months after asking the question can be considered (a) bad luck for the Met Office, or (b) a complete expose of their folly. You decide.
BBC forecaster Paul Hudson (first-class degree in Geophysics and Planetary Physics from the University of Newcastle) stated on his 20 Dec BBC blog
'This is the third winter running when we have had very cold and snowy conditions hitting the UK. It comes at a time of continued, unusually weak, solar activity. In my blog 'could the sun cast a shadow on global temperatures' I wrote about how Australian scientist David Archibald was convinced that prolonged weak solar activity could mean much colder winters in future. He wrote his paper in February 2009.
Perhaps we all need to get used to colder winters across the UK in the next few years.'
(The referred blog is linked as below, and well worth reading)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/2009/12/could-the-sun-cast-a-shadow-on.shtml
Dr Quarmby
"no one, not even our dear Met Office, can forecast specific weather even probabilistically more than a few weeks ahead"
Piers Corbyn can, and does - often 6 months ahead. The Met Office may not have mentioned him, though...
macsporan
The reason it's so cold at the moment is that ocean warming, probably associated with the melting Arctic, has disrupted pressure systems that usually keep the cold away from Europe.
So to make ice in my refrigerator I should turn up the oven?
Are your bonkers? You are stark raving mad, my good sir. It is cold in California as well. That is due to solar cooling of the Pacific Ocean, and you happy bastards in Europe are getting the weather I see in California 10 days after I do. On two different occasions I posted warnings to you chaps, the most recent just a week ago. Next warning, it will be wet, very wet in 10 days. We had one of the worst rain systems in 10 years for the last week and soon, very soon it will be snow in the Europe.
Enjoy the "Global Warming".
James P
Piers Corbyn can, and does - often 6 months ahead. The Met Office may not have mentioned him, though...
I don't think they can stand the competent competition. However, we also have Micheal Gallagher who makes his money delivering mail in Donegal, and has been spot on for years.
@macsporan
'Global heating theory predicts all this'
Where did it so predict? When? Show me the quote.
The thing about 'predictions' is that they are usually made *before* the event in question has occurred. Not afterwards. Only in the bizarre alternative reality of Climatology are post-hoc predictions seen as signs of anything other than self-delusion.
Re predictions.
Does anyone know if Paul the Psychic Octopus left any progeny?
In the likely event that the Met Office will soon be looking for a new Chief Executive, perhaps a German import will be able to lend a hand - or eight?
Or maybe not...they probably have enough AGW suckers there already :-)
@ Latimer, 3:11 am
Not fair, there's tea all over my keyboard now :)
David Quarmby said:
Google is your friend!
Unfortunately the Met Office will possibly be right next year and they will be crowing about it. From memory the snowy, cold winters seem to run for approx 3 years, then milder ones for a while with a flurry of short snow.
We have certainly had snow in 2007 2009 2010 and I believe 2008. Whilst snow does not mean it was cold it does mean we had a "normal" winter. Whatever "normal" in the UK means, we've long been known internationally for our holiday weather, that's why we're not a great destination for people who want a suntan.
Of course it is likely that we will have a milder Winter .. at some point, and probably next Winter.
Mr Quarmby, I might ask how old your grandchildren are? I am sure I have some photos of my children, born since 1995, in the snow making snowmen (1998ish comes to mind, I recall helping a neighbours child to make a snowman). I live in Luton, not the most likely to receive snow, compared to Kent or North Yorkshire.
All I have seen in my 46 years is normal variation, the odd hot summer (mostly a bit miserable compared to "our holidays in Spain etc") and coldish Winters with the odd good drop of snow for a couple of years.
I am sure that many will inform me that this is local weather and not climate change but why does this climate change specifically NOT affect UK?
Add to that is the anecdotal information from blogs around the world (a wonderful invention the global internet experience where the worlds people can communicate so easily) that indicate a similar view to my own and I have to come to the conclusion that someone is telling untruths.
Even if I accept CO2 is a cause for concern as a greenhouse gas, it doesn't appear to be creating any addiitonal variability and indeed appears to be causing forecasts (long term) to be proven incorrect.
More from the doommongers,UK infrastruction will not cope with floods and warm summers, but no mention of a bloody freeze as they are banned in a King Canute sort of way.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/23/uk-infrastructure-climate-change
@Stephen Lewis
There is the probability that the MET are going to be wrong again next year as we could be entering a cold period not seen before in modern times.
With the current state of the Sun lining up to provide similar cycles to solar cycles 5 and 6 we could expect to see similar weather patterns to the 1800-1850 period in history where cold and starvation caused many deaths.
Obviously this is an entirely different society to then with much more energy available to the average householder as well as central heating, double glazing, intensive farming and modern healthcare.
An indication of what might be is to take the last 4 weeks and extend them into 4 months and that is what we will need to adapt to over the next generations. Your grandchildren will be asking you about long summers and long Autumnal holidays in the countryside for their history homework.
That is if the solar patterns line up, we shall know in the next couple of years.
The prohibition of teaching about Canute allows the expectation that the government will now control the climate by controlling human behaviour. Since the officially decreed expectation is for only warmer and drier, it has been necessary to edit the script from "Global Warming" through "Climate Change" to the currently prescribed "Climate Disruption". As the last three years diverge from the official expectation, they can now be claimed as extremely unusual and therefore proof of "Climate Disruption"! QED
Rumours of BAA refusing help for critical tasks at Heathrow due to "health and safety regulations" makes me wonder also about the role of union work rules and jurisdiction as well. The caterer's strike revealed work rules requiring the simultaneous manning of dishwashers by four employees who could not crowd close enough to work with both hands at once. Rigidity rules?
Clearly there should be retroactive prosecution of those involved in the Dunkirk evacuation as I am sure many authorized procedures were not followed there.