Bishop Hill The weirdest year ever?
Jan 17, 2013 BBC Climate: MetOffice Roger Harrabin takes a look at the recent furore over the Met Office's climate predictions and finds that some within the Met Office are none to happy with the organisation's PR performance.
The damage to Met Office credibility, though, was exacerbated by a couple of blunders in its own communication.
The first was to put the decadal report on its website on Christmas Eve - the traditional date for burying stories that the authorities don't want publicised. I was initially suspicious. But the Met Office since explained that the scientist responsible was due to finish the work by end of year and was about to go on holiday. That sounds plausible.
The second error was in the caption to a graph comparing the new temperature forecast with one from the past. It was badly-worded and led bloggers to conclude that the Met Office were trying to cover up the disparity between forecasts. (They seem to have accepted later that this is not the case).
Interesting stuff. The article also includes the remarkable claim that this has been the UK's "weirdest year of weather".
Reader Comments (128)
'Predictions are easy -- especially about the past.' Prof. Julia Slingo MBE, Met Office Chief Scientist
JF
Solar energy's not free. There's the small matter of the panel manufacture and grid construction.
If we're going to ignore capital costs and look only at fuel, nuclear looks a lot better and doesn't use a lot of fuel either.
Cynic.
The same could be said for thorium reactors,yes?
Dirt cheap energy once the huge cost of infrastructure has been met.
But it`s always set up costs, maintainance, and replacement that kybosh `ultimately free energy`.
Have you by any chance googled the cost per kwh of this `free` energy?
Honestly, i used to think just like you,but when you hang numbers on it...it `aint so simple.
Oh, Great Cynic, the only “free” ways to harness solar energy are by crop growth or heating; one they probably already know about, the other might require some education. If you are suggesting electricity-generating collar cells, I suggest you look at the extraction of the rare earth metals required for it before you laud it as “free”.
Banjo & J4R
I talked about investing in the required research. Obviously solar energy is expensive now. However, Agouts mentioned
"Among [the Enlightenment's] many consequences was a growing embrace of the scientific method ..."
and said correctly that this had contributed to increased prosperity and better living conditions.
So why is it regarded as a backward step to carry out scientific research into harnessing - more efficiently and cheaply - solar energy in places where it is abundant and effectively limitless.
People in Africa are rapidly embracing mobile communications technology, thus bypassing the necessity for expensive infrastructure. I see no practical reason why the same shouldn't happen with energy.
Dang! I meant "solar" of course, not "collar". Stupid Word auto-correct (not my fault, obviously...)
It must have been a lot more fun being at the start of recording weather – every day would have seen a new record! Let’s look at some totally made-up old recordings, and apply some modern logic to them:
Nov 1st, 1789: temperature 5°C.
Dec 1st, 1789: temperature 6°C – the hottest on record!
Jan 1st, 1789: temperature 4°C – the coldest on record! What is happening? Should we be alarmed?
Feb 1st, 1789: temperature 2°C – Another record smashed! Are we heading into another ice-age?
Mar 1st, 1789: temperature 7°C – The hottest on record! Were earlier predictions wrong? How can we prevent the world heating beyond our tolerances?
Apr 1st, 1789: temperature 12°C – It is now confirmed; we are heading towards Armageddon in an overheating world. The government must do something!
May 1st, 1789: Data lost due to French Revolution – see?! We were right! And you told us not to lose our heads over this…
Of course, after a few years, the records started to become a bit less frequent, though would occasionally arrive in clusters, so causing minor panic. However, the less frequently they appear, the more panic can be aroused when they do appear.
If it's not too offf topic may I recommend the Libertarain Aliance youtube video of Prof. David Friedman (son of the famous) discussing the supposed negative externalities of additional humans and additional molecules of CO2.
People have been sounding off about how cack-handed UKMO PR has been... Harrabin signaled a couple of months back about the time Black Dick departed that he was developing the whole weird weather thing - with a bunch of cronies at seminars/meetings...
Then we get all the contrived evidence pumped out by Auntie regionally, nationally and internationally - and now this?
I await "Horrible History of Weird Wevver" on CBBC with baited breath.
Ideologically correct adjusted retrospective predictions with an emotional music soundtrack and eye candy visuals .... what's not to like?
Cynic.
I don`t think research into solar is a backward step.
So far it seems to be ineffecient and expensive compared to other technologies.
You have a good heart and a lot of empathy,but wanting something bad enough just won`t make it so.
I put to you, almost any energy source that makes burning dung and wood history would be good thing,and who knows maybe in the future solar for countries with lots of sunshine will be a winner.
Wouldn`t it be great if they could do something that works now.
However the problems are political far more so than technological.
Banjo
I don't think anything is stopping poor countries building fossil fuel power plants right now. Just as there wasn't anything stopping them doing it 40 years ago.
Except lack of money and economic inequality
Sure there are political problems. Look at what is happening in Algeria right now. At a fossil fuel production plant, as it happens.
I haven't heard anything that convinces me that the political and economic cost of installing sufficient fossil-fuel based infrastructure exceeds that of fast tracking the appropriate renewables
Cynic:
As Tim Worstall has pointed out, the major, indeed glaring difference, between coal-fired power sources in the 19th century and their immediate predecessors, chiefly wind, was not just that they were more reliable but that they were cheaper. This translated into an economic revolution that transformed lives, almost always for the better.
Today, the prime difference between solar power/wind power (ie renewables) and conventional power sources, whether oil, gas or coal, is not just that the former are so obviously unreliable but that that they are vastly more expensive.
This is the key difference. And it is what, inevitably, will impoverish us all.
I don't think it is hard to understand.
The banks are pushed to separate ordinary everyday banking from their more speculative activities. The Met Office should be pushed to do the same. In fact, a completely distinct entity to indulge in climate speculations is called for (if we must have such a beast at all at public expense, and I am not convinced we should), with clear blue water between it and the providers of weather forecasts.
Agouts: Back upthread you said this:
"Among [the Enlightenment's] many consequences was a growing embrace of the scientific method ..."
and said correctly that this had contributed to increased prosperity and better living conditions.
Are you now saying that Enlightenment science can't deal with the challenges presented by the efficient conversion of solar energy into a more useful form without "impoverishing us all"?
Cynic, you say
Except lack of money and economic inequality.
Agreed, perhaps the developed worlds reluctance to allow or assist in building fossil fuel(or nuclear)sources would at least, in part be be the misguided influence of the environmental lobbies.
The the lack of money and economic inequalities would also apply to expensive and inefficient solar wouldn`t it?
Banjo:
Perhaps, but it probably has more to do with the fact that there's no point in investing where the people are too poor and the governments are too unstable for a profit to be made
At the moment, yes. That's why we need to invest in research into the more efficient and cheaper harnessing of solar energy.
See Desertec for example
Mr Butler:
Yes.
Because what you call the 'efficient conversion of solar energy into a more useful form' [of energy, I presume] is effectively the grotesque pretense that there is such a thing as the 'efficient conversion of solar energy' when this is no more than a hopeless pipe-dream to be paid for by other peoples' money.
Given the choice between a windmill and a steam engine, I think I know which I would choose.
Same goes for solar panels.
Hello Paul
Research and development, of course, who would be against that? There`s some fascinating work being done on infrared nano antennas which,if it has enough investment may blow current solar out of the water,but who knows? Fusion in yet another 25 years? Thorium in 20? Research doesn`t always mean results does it?
I`d make the point that nukes or fossil would make them richer and healthier now,the tech is available and cagw is no longer and never should have been an issue.
As to poverty and inequality, cheap available electricity would mean they were less poor,even if there were still massive inequality.
Regarding bad governance, it`s beyond the reach of any technology i can think of....except maybe drone strikes and so far that`s proved a bust.
Agouts and Banjo
Well this is where we have to agree to differ.
Clearly this site carries an underlying bias in favour of one form of energy and against another, so I suppose this argument is inevitable and won't be solved here!
But the issue cannot be depoliticized. Fossil fuels may be "cheap", but only if their price ignores the externalities (including but not limited to agw). And it is impossible to ignore the enormous wealth and influence in the hands of the companies that produce and supply fossil fuels (profits made by oil companies are unprecedented in the history of profits, especially when prices are high). There isn't a level playing field, and there hasn't been a level playing field for many decades - otherwise some of the advances mentioned by banjo might already have been achieved.
It's a great pity, but that's where we are
Paul.
In favour of one form of energy over another?
You don`t visit very often.
Personally i would like to see every penny wasted on `renewables` pumped into thorium research,others who comment here would think that ridiculous.
I think shale gas is big enough to look after itself and needs only legislation to get going, not subsidies.
I also believe that `big oil` or `big gas`will become `big energy` no matter what the source,and i believe that`s a bad thing.
Scepticism is a broad church.
However i think that solar panels as cure for poverty, poor health, social inequality and poor governance is pie in the sky.
Especially as the poor, the sick,the unequal and even the badly governed could have some their burdens lifted now..no research required.
Paul Butler has far has I know this site has no stance on power sources its true that its owner may prefer one that is actual able to supply power when needed at a cost that is good for the people , but that is a position held by most sane people .
And its a renewable 'industry ' which people are in to MAKE MONEY , partly thanks to fat subsides.
While people in fossil fuel industry are in it to make money to , but they also provided BILLIONS IN TAX
Who says the age of miracles is past ?
The year of grace 2012, saw the dedication of the first, and the instauration of the second hundred-megawatt Bishop Hill Wind farm to adorn the American plains.
From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
Oh Richard, please. So OK you don't care to offer an insider's suggestions. That's OK, the Bishop permitting, I'm free to ask and you are free to refuse. And I sympathize: over the years I doubt I would have found it entertaining to use my leisure hours to contemplate alternative forms of achieving the objectives of the organizations that have wasted their money on me.
But I do not deserve your ad hominem. By itself, wisdom is worthless. It comes free with age, which in my view, should be criminalized. That's my situation. If I am indeed wise, please be informed that I have never been able to deploy it for the benefit of myself, humanity or creation, so I am confident I am right.
And Bravo to Stephen Richards and John Shade for positive suggestions.
But I do wonder in what sort of bureaucracies Salopian earned his crust, or if he is now allowing a charitable disposition to cause him to equate actual achievement with objectives. Good chaps, the sort that get things done and are of most value to most sorts of organization, tend to do that, I note. In the words of the song: accentuate the positive; eliminate the negative. So, forgive me, I harbour the suspicion that S's post tells me more about him than it does about the bureaucracies he's worked in.
"The banks are pushed to separate ordinary everyday banking from their more speculative activities. The Met Office should be pushed to do the same." What an excellent idea John!
Then, the Met Office weather forecasting function could remain under the MOD and the climate modelling stuff could transfer to DECC. Then, DECC could be split into a Dept. of Energy and a whole new Dept. of Climate Modelling could be founded. Then we could just get rid of it when they proved themselves to be icapable of forecasting their way out of a paper bag..
"
So why is it regarded as a backward step to carry out scientific research into harnessing - more efficiently and cheaply - sole energy..."
Because you cannot beat/exceed the advantages of hydrocarbon fuels.
Yup, that would be a good trajectory Roger!
Jan 18, 2013 at 6:41 PM | The Great Cynic
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The Great Cynic clearly has no first hand experience of Africa other than what she/he has been taught a school. I'll pit my decades in Africa against your nothing and call you out.
BTW, solar like wind power is unrelaible and hideously expensive.
Jan 18, 2013 at 6:43 PM | Radical Rodent
Brilliant!
The BBC has gone strangely quiet on the whole 'lack of global warming' story.