Bishop Hill BBC FOIs Met
Dec 23, 2010 BBC Climate: MetOffice Martin Rosenbaum of the excellent Open Secrets blog at the BBC has been looking at some information extracted from the Met Office under FoI.
The documents we requested show that scientists within the Met Office were uneasy about the language of [the barbeque summer] prediction. One internal report states:
"The strapline 'odds on for a barbeque summer' was created by the operations and communications teams to reflect the probability of a good summer. Concern over the use of the strapline and its relationship to the scientific information available was expressed by the scientific community, who were not consulted prior to the media release."
The Met Office then resolved to use "more conservative terminology" in future. But its seasonal prediction for last winter was also awry, failing to signal sufficiently the long and severe cold spell.
Reader Comments (34)
I posted a few comments over there.
"predicting the British weather is a tricky task - especially when your audience is members of the general British public, who don't like probabilities and who may not be the most "intelligent customers" or able to cope with understanding the uncertainty of the longer-range predictions. Thus the problem for the Met Office is not only the variability of the British weather, it's also coping with the intellectual capacity of the British public. That, anyway, seems to be the view within its staff according to these FOI disclosures."
Oh I see, it's not that they got it wrong, it's just that we're too thick to understand how right they were!
Breathtaking arrogance.
Yes Frosty - I have just put a very similar comment on Paul Hudson's Blog.
Forget the long range forecast, here near Stratford in East London, I'm constantly amazed at the error in the forecast. I've had multiple frosts in late Autumn/early Winter (noted because my car had frost in a car park returning at ~2300) when the forecast was 2degrees C.
In the snow, the forecast seems to be oscillating. For instance, yesterday, London was predicted for snow in four timeslots today: 0900, 1200, 1500 and 1800. Now all those snowfalls have gone. This has been the pattern for most of the last two weeks. The snow prediction seems to be on a 24hour sine wave cycle.
I've also noticed that there doesn't seem to be a weather station closer than Heathrow or Northolt (which is 20 miles away on the other side of London.) To the East, there is nothing between here and the coast (at Shoeburyness, 38 miles away.)
What I want to know is whether there is an internal test of weather forecasts within the Met. Do they know that they have 50-mile wide holes in their forecasting net? Do they know that their night temperature are as much as 3 degrees out on the nights I encountered frost?
Sorry, Frosty, I'm agin you on this one.
The phraseology may be unfortunate but I'm afraid the sentiment is accurate. As someone who has spent many years dealing with the Great British Public in one form or another I'm afraid "thick" is about it. Not unintelligent necessarily -- in some cases far from it -- but taking a perverse pride in ignorance ("I can't be bothered with the details"; "I'm hopeless when it comes to ...") appears to be a characteristic British trait, I'm afraid which combined with an all-too-human tendency to see what they want to see means that trying to communicate nuances, especially in a subject as uncertain as weather is going to lead to problems.
When the forecasters compound their felony by blatantly treating the public like idiots (which is something even an idiot tends to resent) then disaster looms!
I'll go along with "arrogant" but they do actually have a point.
Of course if they in their turn simply stuck to forecasting the weather for the next few day and stopped pretending to be cleverer than they really are ...
Dead Dog Bounce
The forecast temperature you referred to was probably air temperature. The temperature of the ground and surfaces like your car will often be several degrees lower. This is why forecasters on the TV will sometimes talk of icy patches in the morning, when their air temperature forecasts (measured at 4feet 2ins above the ground) might be a degree or two above freezing.
The difference between the two temps on an extreme night can easily be 6 to 8 degrees C.
Hope that helps
But, Sam, if the probability was high that we would have a barbecue summer and a warm ensuing winter, then one has to start questioning their weighing of probabilities, thick or otherwise.
It appears that the various branches of Met Office are themselves confused over the differences between categorical forecasts and probability forecasts and how it applies to its 2 day, 5 day, monthly and seasonal forecasts.
This looks a mess for the Met Office.
Sam the Skeptic
The only thing that negates your comment is the fact that they say Americans can understand it!
Do you go the States much? I was asked there a few months ago what language we speak in England.
Mind you - I suppose that isn't that daft really.
Feetinthesnow,
Thanks. I had no idea, but I'll check. I'm surprised, however, since I'm talking about the roof of my car, which is 4' 6" at the point of the roof where I noticed the ice.
However, despite my scepticism, I'll have a google myself. You wouldn't have a link to a sensible discussion of this point?
Sounds like they got Bob Ward supplying them with ideas of how to deal with the public , 'insult and lie to'
But its usual endless dance , we can’t usefully predict weather over along range , but ‘climate’ is different and we predict that to two decimal places. I never understood how that is supposed to work, given its the same people with same models and same knowledge base for both.
""One of the weaknesses of the presentation of seasonal forecasts is that they were issued with much media involvement and then remain, unchanged, on our website for extended lengths of time - making us a hostage to fortune if the public perception is that the forecast is wrong for a long time before it is updated."
Translation: We can't pretend we didn't say it.
I couldn't believe this bit:
They are seriously suggesting that the medium range forecast are more accurate because they update them as the target date approaches
Dead Dog Bounce
I'm afraid that any surface (at any height) will radiate heat and cool the air that is in contact with it. The air temperature measured and forecast is for "free air". As you will find if you Google, a Stephenson Screen is used to house thermometers - these days they are usually electronic, but mercury ones are still used as a standard. Increasingly now thermometers are housed in other ways that duplicate Mr Stephenson's 19th century screen.
The ground cools by radiation and then cools the air in contact with it at night and on all but windy, cloudy, rainy nights the air temp (4ft 2in) will be higher than the ground and surfaces like your car. Some nights it may be little, others (still, cloudless, dry air) it will be large, as I said before 6 to 8 degrees are easily possible, depending on the surface (grass, concrete, ashfelt etc.).
Sam, I find people are less easy to categorise. The public has no inclination to research a particular subject, apathy is more pertinent, they tend to lock onto the first reasonable argument that aligns with their own personal world view (bias), and only bother to research in defence of that view - some change others don't, most don't even research. After 10yrs as a pub landlord I am expert in these matters :^)
It seems to me the "balme" rather than being on the pupils intelligence should be on the teachers lack of teaching skills. Who has the task of educating the public on the intricacies regarding weather forecasting?
If the public is undereducated in weather forecasting terminology and accuracy expectations, it seems fair that the MET Office, who have been beaming forecasts into our homes for over 50 years, should shoulder some of the blame. Maybe the Americans have better communication skills.
Last year when that Antarctic blast crossed the equator, IIRC is was around June, indicating a pretty severe SH winter, following two colder NH winters in a row, then the La NIna, the AO and NAO going -ive, sleeping Sun etc. it became pretty long odds for a "mild winter".
If you followed Piers Corbyn, Joe Bastardi, & WUWT for the last 12 months you would have had a much better idea what to expect, than you would by listening to the complete "public" output from the MET Office in the last 50 yrs.
If the Met office predicted seasons by the AO index they'd be more accurate IMO. Which brings us back to that Circa 30yr cycle very nicely. YMMV.
correction last year = last summer (NH)
It appears that the Met Office are saying that the seasonal winter forecast posted up in October was a probability forecast for researchers, indicating a mild winter, and that seasonal winter forecast given to organisations in private and also in October was a categorical forecast, indicating a cold winter.
That to me makes things worse, not better, for the Met Office for it seems that in order to play safe they have abandoned their models.
I am getting perplexed with our glorious Met Office, from what I can gather the inference in Quarmby Audit is that certain people/establishments were given “‘early indications of the onset of a cold spell from late November’ at the end of October.”
This was not made available to the general public. Why, does the Met Office not have any responsibility to the people who provide funding? It would appear that it only treats those that pay for private forecasts as clients?
Unlike Piers Corbyn who has been making his forecasts (and generally accurate ones) available for free during the recent spell of severe weather.
The Met Office appears to be biting the hand that feeds it.
DDB
I believe there is a weather station at Gravesend,but I could be wrong
Crikey - this'll hurt, in view of what has been happening all over Great Britain in the last week or so, in regard to the misery on our roads, railways, airports:
"As another document put it, "'Intelligent' customers (such as the Cabinet Office) find probabilistic forecasts helpful in planning their resource deployment."
See - that's why we had to suffer, and are still suffering: the 'intelligent' politicians and civil servants who believe in AGW found the Met Office forecasts totally acceptable - therefore we pay through our collective noses for windmills, but not for snowploughs.
It all makes sense now ....
There seems some confusion here between "writing" and "writing to be understood." Speaking for the colonies, I'm quite certain our population can match yours for obtuseness.
I do think that if someone in US government employ whose charge included "informing" the public made a statement similar to that in the post above he/she would be reassigned.
"meanest understanding" is such a useful measure.
Just reading the comments over there, and came across this cracker:
3. At 10:01am on 23 Dec 2010, Richard Tol wrote:
The British public perfectly understands probabilities at the bookies.
True, dat!
Sorry, Richard Tol - I soo had to steal this and spread it around a bit ...
:-)
Thought there was a pertinent comment on the Met Office story over at WUWT
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/22/red-faces-at-the-met-office/
Ed Fix comments
"I notice their map only has a scale for probability of HIGHER than average temperatures. No provision for the merest inkling of consideration of the remotest possibility that temperatures might even consider trying to decrease.
As the appliance repairman might say upon discovering the refrigerator unplugged, “Waaaal, here’s yer problem.” "
@ steveta
As every sailor knows from experience or is told by her instructor; the accuracy of a forecast is inversely proportional to its reach.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/marine/shipping_forecast.html#All~All
Their extended forecast reaches 4 days and is a rolling forecast. Spending money on a teraflop computer, IMHO, is the equivalent of crossing a palm with silver.
"The Met Office then resolved to use "more conservative terminology" in future". Oh yeah?
According to their press release on November 2 they hope soon to be able to forecast a severe winter literally decades ahead - so by 2016 they should be able to tell us whether it will be a severe winter in 2036. Don't believe me? See here for what these delusional idiots have stated:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2010/pr20101102.html
"The Met Office science strategy, published on the web, will focus on meeting the increasing demands for seamless prediction systems across all timescales from hours to decades, and for the atmosphere, oceans and land surface.
The new five-year strategy takes this agenda of seamless science and prediction and focuses our research around four major challenges:
* Forecasting hazardous weather on time scales from hours to decades;..."
Note: this is about PREDICTION and FORECASTING of hazardous WEATHER, not climate projections.
While this doesn't affect the underlying point that the MET is just not good at predictions, my understanding of the term 'barbecue summer' was that it meant a very, very hot summer. The possibility of it meaning 'good weather for a bbq' did not even cross my mind. Perhaps being -
Australian colored my interpretation here?
@ Bh,
BBQ weather in the UK would suggest bare legs & no rain. Perhaps that helps you understand why the term miserable was applied to both actuality & the abilities of Met forecasters.
Thanks @simpleseekeraftertruth.
I had been equating "BBQ weather" as the English equivalent of what we'd call a "stinker" here in Oz. Weather definitely most too hot for a BBQ
Met gets weather forecast wrong. Shock, horror!
When has this ever happened before?
As AGW continues to monkey around with the climate it is going to get more unstable and more unpredictable.
Reliable weather forecasts are going to become one of life's little luxuries we're all going to have to do without.
As proof of The Conspiracy this make a pretty poor showing even by the deplorable standards of climate deniers.
Perhaps we could go back to burning witches.
Met gets weather forecast wrong. Shock, horror! Agreed never use the MET as they are so bad
When has this ever happened before? Too often considering the money they get and the supercomputer expenses
As AGW continues to monkey around with the climate it is going to get more unstable and more unpredictable. Thats have your cake and eat it logic, just what type of weather patterns would disprove AGW using this logic.
Reliable weather forecasts are going to become one of life's little luxuries we're all going to have to do without. Not according to the MET office, they are continually improving their forecasting (not difficult as they start from a low base, but thats not the climates problem but that they are sold on AGW)
As proof of The Conspiracy this make a pretty poor showing even by the deplorable standards of climate deniers. Can't follow your logic at all.
Perhaps we could go back to burning witches. And what is the point of this comment.
@ macsporan
"Perhaps we could go back to burning witches."
Are you considering changing your religion or is that now being considered for inclusion in your current one?
Climate models are not the ony models that don't work, shock horror !!!!!
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/14456c78-0e9f-11e0-b9f1-00144feabdc0.html#axzz191UDTyCg
'This snow blindness manifested itself in the Met Office's predictions for the past three years. In 2008, it predicted a milder-than-normal winter. That winter was the coldest in a decade. In 2009, Met Office scientists once again suggested that cold winters were a thing of the past. One said, "The famously cold winter of 1962/63 is now expected to occur about once every 1,000 years or more, compared with approximately every 100 to 200 years before 1850." The winter of 2009 was the coldest in 30 years. This year, the Met Office published a map on its website that showed a 60 percent to 80 percent chance of a warmer-than-average winter. This December is the coldest since seasonal records began.
There have been suggestions that the reason for the Met Office's chronic failure has been that its brand-new $50 million supercomputer is relying on assumptions fed in from global-warming models, leading to a garbage-in, garbage-out "warm bias." These suggestions have been confirmed to a degree, but the scientists (many connected with the University of East Anglia) claim the bias is small.
Perhaps, then, Britain's winters are demonstrating a phenomenon that is quite common in science: regression to the mean. It often occurs that scientists document what appears to be a real, significant and observable effect, which passes all scientific tests, that over a few decades simply "wears off." Indeed, as Jonah Lehrer described in a recent New Yorker article, this is becoming such a problem throughout science that many are coming to the conclusion that an awful lot of scientific consensus is built on foundations that are simply noise. It could be that the latest British winters are just the beginning of people realizing that global warming was a passing phase.
In which case, God help the people of the United Kingdom. Its coalition government - conservatives and liberals alike - is building an energy policy around the science of global warming that could cripple the nation. The policy is likely to raise electricity bills per household by about $800 per year by 2020 while reducing the capacity of the country to build reliable power plants. The carbon tax could reach as high as almost $110 per metric ton of carbon dioxide. As the winter closes in on many Britons, they should reflect on the irony that their government is planning to make their world colder and darker in order to save them from getting too warm.'
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/dec/22/global-warming-goes-gaga/
Christopher Booker's commentary in today's Telegraph, 26 December 2010, is quite a powerful summary of points raised in this thread and elsewhere. He refers to Mr Quarmby rather than Dr Quarmby, but otherwise it is good to see arguments expressed here published in the mainstream media:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8223165/The-green-hijack-of-the-Met-Office-is-crippling-Britain.html