Thursday
May262011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Met Office hurricane forecast
May 26, 2011 Climate: WG2 The Met Office has just issued its hurricane forecast for the 2011 season in the North Atlantic. At 12 storms and an ACE of 151, it's apparently going to be absolutely normal.
Reader Comments (90)
Yer yows is dwining for ye, Hengist mon.
Forgive me for getting back on thread but why is the Met Office issuing long-range forecasts for the North Atlantic when it has stopped issuing them for the UK?
Hebe - because Rockall and Hirta are uninhabited, so it doesn't matter so much when the MO get it wrong?
James P
Thank you for pointing out Wordweb.
The amazing thing is that the psuedo-editor that we use to type these comments with has a half-way decent spelling checker on it. You would think she might figure that there is something wrong with "propoganda".
Hebe, are you sure the Met Office has stopped doing long range forecasts in the UK?
http://autonomousmind.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/met-office-document-shows-it-only-renamed-its-seasonal-forecasts/
Horses mouth
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2010/forecasts-change
In our customer research the public have told us they would like a monthly outlook. We have therefore decided to stop issuing a UK 'seasonal forecast' four times a year. Instead, we will now publish a monthly outlook, updated on a weekly basis.
So its our fault as we didn't want them anymore.
Spin spin spin
Bofa,
"We have therefore decided to stop issuing a UK 'seasonal forecast' four times a year. Instead, we will now publish a monthly outlook, updated on a weekly basis."
At that rate, we will soon be at a stage where they look out the window and tell us what is happening in real time. A bit like going up in an aeroplane to see if there is any ash,
:)
Don Pablo - I'd forgotten about the built-in spell check. No excuse then!
Glad you like WordWeb - I quite like being able to check definitions, and the contextual examples seem better than most.
What I really like is that WordWeb supports a number of variants of English, including US, Aussie, UK, Asian, and even Ireland. I strongly recommend it and that is after only using it for a couple hours. Everyone should be able to use it no matter what variant of English you use.
Oops! No Troll though. Perhaps that is why she doesn't use it. :(
Hengist. Are you seriously suggesting the MWP was not global?
Here's a bit of evidence unearthed just down the road from me:
Wilson, A.T., Hendy, C.H. and Reynolds, C.P. 1979. Short-term climate change and New Zealand temperatures during the last millennium. Nature 279: 315-317.
This is from Lake Tutira, down in the charming wine country of Hawke's Bay. The evidence is a bit patchy but there are clear signals:
Eden, D.N and Page, M.J. 1998. Palaeoclimatic implications of a storm erosion record from late Holocene lake sediments, North Island, New Zealand. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 139: 37-58.
And just recently, more evidence of southern hemisphere warming cropped up in the following. Of course the authors were actually focused on the impact of current NH warming on tropical rainfall in South America, but you'll find the existence of MWP in South America is central to their deliberations (this is just the abstract):
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/05/02/1003719108.abstract
These are just a few examples for brevity's sake. There is plenty of reading available on line.
Hengist, you have to have been living under a McStone if you think 'the consensus' is still trying to stand behind the 'MWP didn't really exist/was confined to Europe' line. The game's moved on. Do keep up.
Bofa and Simpleseeker, perhaps you did not know about this...
So what is the Met Office’s solid basis for the decision to give the impression that the public does not want seasonal forecasts?
16 people.
That’s all. The Met Office conducted two focus group exercises in February 2009 consisting of eight persons each, male and female, between the ages 25-60. These were apparently in free form discussion format. But it does not seem this exercise was taken seriously. The Met Office was unable able to furnish me with the number of response FOR withdrawing seasonal forecasts and the number AGAINST withdrawing them as the information was not gathered during the focus groups.
http://autonomousmind.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/met-office-claim-that-public-did-not-want-seasonal-forecasts-is-a-sham/
I,m all watched out.
Spam alert !!!!!!
Can I put that on my watch list..?
Autonomous
I understand they didn't do a head count of the 16 but after discussions, worked out that there was a 33% probability they wanted longer forecasts, a 33% probability they wanted no change and a 34% probability they wanted shorter.
:)
SSAT - iirc, I don't think their probabilities added up to 100%.
I will put forward my own probabilities:
Met Office output determined predominantly by meteorologists - 5%
Met Office output determined predominantly by pro-AGW Marketing and Spin merchants - 95%
I recall the MO saying a few years ago that long-range forecasting wasn't possible. Now they seem to be less decisive, but perhaps they just not so sure.
I notice that Piers Corbyn is enjoying their discomfiture over the royal wedding, for which they had confidently predicted rain (right up until the day before) while PC had predicted a fine day weeks earlier!
Link
You'd think by now they might at least look at his forecasts, but the NIH (not invented here) syndrome is all pervasive.
Hengist, I posted a quite lengthy contribution re the MWP in the Southern Hemisphere. I did not post links to source material as I suspected you were not terribly interested in scientific material that has been published (and peer reviewed) but merely being your usual contrarian self. Like BBD, I become quite irritated by your denial that anyone attempted to answer the points you raised here. You obviously have no interest in any topic you raise and have no intention of learning anything that does not suit your obvious bias, all you appear to be intersted in is being an irritant, which, like the grit in an oyster, makes us go off and find pearls by researching topics which you exhibit such wonderful ignorance of.
I suspect that I am not the first to discover that casting pearls before swine is a profitless exercise. .
@ Alexander:
ZDB's MO is the same. Such people do not come here in a spirit of honest openness to debate. The majority of ZDB's posts here consist of sanctimonious rants about what we should be posting. How dare people post what they want to post! The Central Blog Posting Soviet has decreed what should be posted and if you don't, you're a thought criminal!
Goldstein!
If there was ever a time when ZDB made any comment of any substance at all, I missed it.
Hengist is the same: he knows what he thinks, his best argument is that other people agree with him, and hence he must run away when twitted.
Even if the Met Office gets it wrong (either way) - I'm sure they'll be able to blame it on; 'the wrong kind of wind'!
"the wrong kind of wind"
Is that the sort that stops wind turbines working, either by blowing too gently, or by blowing so hard they have to be switched off? I've never really understood why the blades can't have their pitch altered (partially feathered) to carry on working, but perhaps strong winds are just too scary for environmentalists.
hengist
I suppose that it is a waste opf time to ask you to consider opening your mind, but did you follow up this link that I posted on an earlier blog about tropical storms?
http://judithcurry.com/2010/09/13/hurricanes-and-global-warming-5-years-post-katrina/
Judith Curry's conclusion, looking at 3 studies that show very different results -
"Conclusions?
Here is what I think we can state with some sort of confidence:
Hurricane frequency and intensity in the North Atlantic has likely [>66%] increased since 1970. The transition from the cold to warm phase of the AMO is a plausible explanation for this increase. Attribution of a portion of the increase in hurricane intensity to AGW would require (at minimum) resolution of the problems with the intensities during the period of 1945-1970 (encompassing the previous warm period of the AMO).
It is more likely than not [>50%] that the % of category 4 and 5 hurricanes has increased globally since 1980. Increased confidence requires continued efforts to reprocess the data. Attribution of any portion of this increase to anthropogenic global warming would require careful examination of the data and modes of natural variability in each of the regions where hurricanes occur.
It is more likely than not [>50%] that the maximum intensity of the strongest hurricanes would increase in a warmer climate. While there is an absence of evidence against this hypothesis, there are also substantial uncertainties in the observations and theory (i.e. a preponderance of green with no red, but a substantial white region).
I do not currently place any confidence in climate model projections of future hurricane activity. At the same time, I recognize the substantial advances made on this in recent years particularly by the GFDL group and ongoing efforts by several other groups as well."
I would conclude that the science is very uncertain in this area so I would hesitate to rule out BBD's hypothesis with the confidence that you do.
@diogenes
Im not ruling anything out with any level of confidence. I'm noting that NOAA suggests a scenario which is the opposite of Montford and BBD's hypothesis. Whatever you think of NOAA I suggest that should be taken on board and not ruled out. Of course Montford and BBD could be right but so could NOAA be right. We have imperfect information and imperfect understanding and a lot of commenters here are suggesting that they have perfect understanding which is just not true. I'd be interested if there is anything in the scientific literature to support the temperature gradient hypothesis mentioned above, but please people don't pretend that NOAA is wrong. NOAA may be wrong, there is a difference.
Hengist
Also, it's important to distinguish (as I did not) between Tropical cyclones and extra-Tropical cyclones. It is the latter which are hypothesised to fall in ACE and frequency (which will be different between basins) as the Arctic warms and the temperature gradient between it and the Equator is reduced.
While it is interesting to discuss the limits of our understanding of what a warming climate might bring in terms of changes in the frequency and energy of cyclones, can we perhaps get back to your misrepresentation earlier in the thread.
Specifically, why do you claim that nobody substantiated the criticism of Oreskes' statement that the MWP was an NH phenomenon, when this is untrue?
Why are you lying on this thread about this?
I've lost count of others here asking the same. You have responded to no one, which looks very bad.
@BBD
I addressed your point May 26, 2011 at 5:18 PM . Oreskes holds the opinion that the MWP was limited in geographical scope. There is debate about this in scientific circles, as the email you showed me from Dr Cook indicates. She is perfectly entitled to hold that opinion, and it is neither true nor untrue it's an opinion. Unless you are telling me the science is settled.
@BBD
I don't recall asking for substantiation of the criticism of Oreskes' statement that the MWP was an NH phenomenon. My point throughout has been that criticism of her honesty for voicing her opinion is unwarranted . It is an opinion that is honestly held. Even the MWP wikipedia page is unsure about the extent.
I think you will find that I asked May 24, 2011 at 8:47 PM on the appropriate thread for commenters to substantiate the accusations they have levelled againt Dr Oreskes. To date no one has done so.
Hengist
Keep wriggling. It's amusing.
Hengist
"it is neither true nor untrue it's an opinion"
So we can say what we like about you, then.. :-)
@ James P Yes I'm used to it. An ad hom on me is hardly going to persuade me that climate skepticism I encounter on this blog is correct or warranted. But it reinforces the perception that climate skepticism is a form of groupthink.
"climate skepticism is a form of groupthink"
And AGW isn't? I think you'll find a wide variety of opinions here, but very few doubters among the faithful.
Hengist
Many people have pointed the way to references that show that the MWP was pervasive. You dismiss them as "links to skeptic blogs" - btw, why can no one spell sceptic correctly? I believe that you are lying when you characterise the sources as sceptic blogs. Any comment?
@diogenes Idso's sites are sceptic blogs yes.
I dont know whether the MWP was global or regional. I don't pretend to know. You do. You can point to all the evidence you like but that needs to be examined in the context of opposing evidence, which you ridicule me and Oreskes for considering.
Frankly I think you are all missing the point. There is scientific uncertainty in this corner. Are you all telling me the science is settled on this question ????? I'll bookmark this thread as clear evidence that scientific uncertainty cannot be evaluated on the blogosphere.
Hengist
Still pettifogging away I see.
If you are going to 'bookmark this thread as clear evidence evidence that scientific uncertainty cannot be evaluated on the blogosphere', let's revisit this (again):
Edward Cook (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory) to Thomas Crowley (Texas A&M)
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=228&filename=.txt
This is getting tedious.
@BBD Very tedious. What is that email from Cook supposed to prove ? Tell me, in your opinion, is the question of the geographical extent of the MWP settled science or not ?
Hengist
Very specifically, the claim that the MWP was restricted to the NH is not supported by the evidence, which strongly suggests a global event. Contra Oreskes and your good self.
And Hengist, enough of the painfully obvious 'traps'. You are insulting my intelligence.
Hengist
the "skeptic" (should be skeptik to be consistent) blogs are consistent and apparently peer-reviewed: so they should meet your standard. The evidence is abundant...are nyou waiting for m"Skepical Science" to get the attack dogs in place? Are you sceptical or just a believer that we need to knit our own jumpers and eat turnip[s to surive?
BBD
So are you telling me that 'strongly suggests' is much the same as settled then ?
Hengist, I don't know how many angels you see dancing on your argument's pinhead, but the inconvenient truth (TM) is that you cannot claim a hypothesis to be true once it has been falsified. There is clear evidence of MWP around the globe. Not opinion: evidence. For the hypothesis that MWP was confined to NH, or even just to Europe, to remain 'in play' there would need to be an absence of evidence to the contrary. That is not the case, ergo that hypothesis is falsified. QED.
You know what, Hengist? I'm not telling you anything. I leave that to the evidence. This conversation is now closed.