Bishop Hill The Climate Model and the Public Purse
Sep 23, 2013 Climate: MetOffice Climate: Models Climate: WG3 In the kerfuffle over the Mail on Sunday's spread on climate change last week, the panel looking at the problem in the Met Office climate predictions got sidelined somewhat. But the implications of the error are potentially very expensive.
This is the conclusion of a new briefing paper I've put together for GWPF, entitled The Climate Model and the Public Purse. It outlines the nature of the problem and then looks at where the UK climate projections are being used. The answer is that they are making an impact across the public and private sectors. To be clear, the new version of the projections, which are affected by the problem identified, are relatively new and thus the impact may be limited. However, the last version of the model, which was unaffected (but just runs too hot) has already led to plenty of malinvestment, not the least of which was the famous French-standard roads fiasco:
...the Highways Agency Climate Adaptation Plan is based on UKCIP02 data and records that:
...the Highways Agency has already adopted French temperature standards for road surfaces (EME-2). This is an example of the Agency putting in place adaptation to ensure that design standards and operating practices can adapt to the changing climate expected over the lifetime and replacement cycle of the Agency’s highways infrastructure.The foolishness of trusting unvalidated computer models for policy decisions was demonstrated by the failure of many road surfaces during the cold winters of 2010/11 and 2011/12.
And then there's this, from the press release:
GWPF chairman Lord Lawson is calling for an independent panel of climate scientists and statisticians to review the UKCP09 predictions.
This is actually quite important, because, as I mention in the paper, there are a whole lot of other problems related to the projections that have yet to be fully explored. Given that they are already influencing spending decisions that would seem to be a bit of an oversight.
Reader Comments (27)
An excellent paper. The wasted money is enormous and the MO should be held to account.
I had a go two or three years ago at the Devon Highways Authority when they brought out a consultation on what they proposed to do about adapting to the warmer/dryer summers and milder/wetter winters based on UKCIP predictions. I told them they should be preparing for colder/snowier winters, since those conditions were what caused huge disruptions and economic damage. Like all consultations, they ignored all negative responses. However, they have taken steps to be prepared for harsh winters, since the severe ones of 2010/11 and 2011/12.
The simple fact is that the climate models are based on incorrect science dating from 41 years ago. That was when the incorrect Arrhenius idea that the Earth radiates real IR energy to the atmosphere at the same rate as a black body of the same temperature to the cold of interstellar Space, simply not true.
Three years later Lacis and Hansen introduced Sagan's aerosol optical physics which claims clouds with smaller droplets 'reflect' more sunlight: just look at any rain cloud - large droplets do that job so polluted clouds heat the Earth.
In 1981, Hansen et al claimed 33 K ghe using the argument that by taking out all ghgs from the atmosphere, the -18 deg C composite emitter in radiative equilibrium with Space would coincide with the Earth's surface. In really, taking out ghgs would result in no clouds or ice, a 43% increase in solar energy reaching the surface so it would be a mean of 4-5 deg. C. That means the real ghe = ~11 K. The ratio 33/11 is the false 'positive feedback'.
From that time the people at the centre of this pseudo-science have controlled the agenda by preventing publication of papers contradicting their mantra even though we're now heading to a new Little Ice Age as the Sun's magnetic field falls. As for the real science, it's emerging around the World. Cold climate road surfaces please.
For the past week, the forecast for the next couple of weeks has been fantastic. High pressure building over Scandinavia, dry and lovely. Perfect for us farmers trying to get going with this Autumn's sowing of seed.
It has all changed overnight. We have got a few nice days and then it will apparently be unsettled and showery.
They haven't got a clue. Not a flippin' clue. They should just put up a pretty picture and some nice music for their 'forecasts'.
The 'old farmers' forecast' - "Tomorrow will be the same as today" - has a sucess rate of 66%, and is a lot cheaper then the Met Office.
...the Highways Agency has already adopted French temperature standards for road surfaces (EME-2). This is an example of the Agency putting in place adaptation to ensure that design standards and operating practices can adapt to the changing climate expected over the lifetime and replacement cycle of the Agency’s highways infrastructure.
The foolishness of trusting unvalidated computer models for policy decisions was demonstrated by the failure of many road surfaces during the cold winters of 2010/11 and 2011/12.
Don't the French get cold weather in the winter?
It's not just the public purse either, I remember when friends of mine discounted the "barbeque summer" forecast I asked them what they would have bought in for the summer if they were buyers for B&Q pointing out that retailers rely on accurate weather forecasts to stock their stores accordingly. The leadership at the Met Office are a just a bunch of activists pushing global warming fears on behalf of the environmentalists, they got 12 out of 13 long-term forecasts wrong so, instead of taking on board the reason that maybe their models were assuming global warming and fixing them, they abandoned the long term forecasts. Still got their bonuses though.
I've found a rather serious error in the report that unfortunately undermines the whole argument.
It appears in the "Conclusions" section, where it says this:
(my bold).
The error is in emboldened section, as the assumption is that the government will behave logically. In reality, the government will completely ignore the problem and continue on as before.
Bloke down the pub
Two things
Yes where I am in France (near St Junien Haute Vienne) is as cold if not colder than where I was in the UK, Derby. Many of the retired ex-pats are not impressed that the winter fuel allowance is being withdrawn because it is warmer in winter here. I think we made it down to -10'C here last winter. We're quite a bit warmer (air temperaturewise) in summer though
Second Robert Burns said it best:-
But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!
This video describes a convincing analysis of one of the main reasons why the MET Office model goes wrong: cloud formation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QtnueIJGjc
Phillip Bratby said:
I agree. Road surfaces that can survive a harsh winter, drains that can cope with heavy rainfall, roadsigns that can stay upright in gales, etc. Weather is the problem that needs engineering against not climate.
Bish / Phillip - agree about the nonsense of adopting French road specs, but the extreme severe cold winter (when it got into the minus 20s here) was 2009-10 and not 2010-11, which was colder than average but nothing out of the ordinary? </pedant>
Not that it makes much difference, 5 of the last 6 UK winters have been colder than average, and contrary to what the MO models suggested.
From the concluding paragraphs of 'The Climate Model and the Public Purse'.
May this launch a thousand penetrating studies into waste and delusion associated with the climate wing of the Met Office. I won't wait up for them, but it is excellent that at least we have this short report, this X that marks the spot.
Chapeau encore une fois!
see Hansard 13/9/2013
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm130910/halltext/130910h0001.htm#13091045000001
3.50 pm
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker): I am glad to be able to respond to the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) has performed a useful parliamentary service in allowing the issue to be aired. Although profound climate scepticism may be only a minority interest, such sceptics voice a view shared by a number of my constituents and people in the newspapers. It is a view heard on the Clapham omnibus and it is right that we hear such views and debate them in the open. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) that a cloying consensus in Parliament does no service to legislation or national debate. However much I profoundly disagree with some of the arguments, it is right that we have the chance to air them in Parliament.
Steve Baker: We have agreed here that science proceeds by conjecture and refutation, so in an attempt not to have a cloying consensus, will the Minister fund some climate scientists who wish to refute the current thesis?
Gregory Barker: I am afraid that I do not have a budget for that sort of research.
In spite of the enormous costs and appalling waste it is clear that the powers that be do not want to hear the good news.
It is now estimated that Climate Change policies in Europe alone will cost ~ £174,000,000,000 annually by 2020 or about 1.5% of European GDP.
But this figure does not include the attendant losses to Europe of industries already leaving the EU for regions with more rational energy policies.
I've long wondered whether, because of Met Office projections etc etc, some inferior grade of asphalt is being used on our roads. It seems to me a possible explanation of the noticeable deterioration in road surfaces in the last few years. How nice if someone at Highways Agency could confirm/deny this.
SandyS, here in the Correze for the last couple of years, we've been down to minus 15 - the winters are cold and harsh, and seem to be getting longer.
I received my first (and last!) winter fuel payment this last winter. Apparently, expats here in France no longer qualify because we are not subject to cold enough temperatures. The public have the erroneous impression that everywhere here is sunny and warm throughout the year, and that's why we came with our megabuck pensions.
That's not the reason I came - my pension is peanuts - I came to escape the Former UK, but having paid in all my working life, I expect something back, wherever I choose to live.
It's a darn site colder here, than it is in Bournemouth...
@edmh
...Steve Baker: We have agreed here that science proceeds by conjecture and refutation, so in an attempt not to have a cloying consensus, will the Minister fund some climate scientists who wish to refute the current thesis?
Gregory Barker: I am afraid that I do not have a budget for that sort of research.,,,
Then the Minister does NOT have a Science budget. If persons attempting refutation are to have no budget, what he has is a PROPAGANDA budget.....
@ bill Sep 23, 2013 at 11:33 AM
"I've long wondered whether ..... some inferior grade of asphalt is being used on our roads."
Rather, I suspect that office-based, budget-constrained buyers, are saving a ha'penny per pothole by reducing the specified depth of repair. Buyers tend to know the cost of everything, and the value of nothing.
The reason why the DWP refuses winter fuel allowance for expats in France is because the DWP included temperature data for all the French Departments Outre Mer, in the Caribbean and the South Pacific. This ruse applies to the 50 odd expats in those territories.
I would not have expected a Conservative administration to go for such a blatantly deceptive ruse. Makes one think of UKIP
see www.votes-for-expat-brits.com
Joe public, you may well be right. One department effects a piddling saving, leading to a greater expense elsewhere as local authorities have to find twice the money they used to, to fill up the many more holes in roads (and take twice as long as they used to to do it). Political elite hahaha, Rolls Royce civil service, hahaha. Clowns to the left of me, clowns to the right of me.
I'm told that in Devon, which has the more miles of minor roads (single track lanes) than any county in the country, it is now the policy to concentrate repairs on major roads. The lanes will soon revert to what they once were - cart tracks. We'll then all have to use 4x4s.
Why does the Met office look at global temp data sets rather than using CET for the purposes of its own modelling? After all, the UK Government should be primarily interested in what the UK is experiencing and what it is likely to experience should temperatures rise.
There is no such thing as global warming (save other than the move out of glacification into an inter glacial period), since climate is regional. it has always been regional and hence the well known climatic zones. The UK experiences and will experience a different change to say that experienced by the Arctic, or the steps of Asia, or the Saharia/sub Saharia desert regions etc. The UK's temperature response is attenuated by the oceans surrounding it, the gulf stream and the nearby continental mass if winds come from over the continent 9some times siberian, some times mid to southern Europe)..
CET has been showing a downward temperature trend since 2000. Since then temps have dropped by about 0.5degC with winter temps falling by about 1.5degC.
The Met Office's predictions/projections should be viewed against CET and how the UK has experienced climate change these past 20 or 30 years. the Met Office's models are obviously wrong from a global persective 9they have a warming bias probably due to the assumptions with respect to climate sensitivy being too high) but are even wider off the mark when one considers the impact of climate change on the UK.
"...the Highways Agency Climate Adaptation Plan is based on UKCIP02 data and records that:
...the Highways Agency has already adopted French temperature standards for road surfaces (EME-2). This is an example of the Agency putting in place adaptation to ensure that design standards and operating practices can adapt to the changing climate expected over the lifetime and replacement cycle of the Agency’s highways infrastructure.
The foolishness of trusting unvalidated computer models for policy decisions..."
/////////////////////////////////////////////
The foolishness was not having regard to CET which even by 2005/6 was telling us that winter temperatures in the UK were on a downward trend. By that time, it should have been patently obvious that until CET showed a return to a warming trend for winters, the agency should have assumed that winters were going to be harsh and may be getting harsher. There can be no excuse for the failings of the Highway Agency post 2006. They have clearly been negligent and i would suggest that anyone who sustained loss (car accident loss of business etc) would have a strong cliam against the Agency if this claim is linked to a failure to keep roads open, or safe for driving upon.
Sep 23, 2013 at 12:14 PM | edmh
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Further to the point made by edmh, one should not overlook that the winter fuel allowance was a scam in that it was created because pensions were increased one year by less than 50p per week. For far too long UK pensions have not kept up with price increases and do not reflect the cost of living in the real world. The winter fuel allowance should have been scrapped and added into the basic pension.
The UK pension needs to be raised dramatically to put it in line with the European average, say at least £12,000 pa. if that means cutting back on other welfare payments so be it. Today's pensioners for the main part have paid into the system their entire working life unlike many who today live off benefits who have never contributed a dime. If there is to be a painful choice between paying pensioners who have worked and contributed to the system and those who have not worked and not contributed, I now where I consider the choice to be made.
Personally, I am of the view that the problem is the unfunded public sector pensions. This needs to be drastically curtailed. If the state pension were to be raised from say £7,000 to £12,000, all public sector pensions could immediately be cut by £5,000 pa and the public sector employees would be no worse off since he would receive the benefit of a realistic state pension.
Personally, I consider that all public sector pensions should be scrapped completely. The state pension should be raised to a reasonable level. the state employee should be given back what ever contributions they have actually made to their public sector pension together with the notional payment by the state but adjusted as if it hasd been invested in a private pension scheme (with their notional high management charges and MVA's etc which usually means that private pensions are worth less than that paid in especially over short periods) and the public sector employee should then have that one off payment paid into a private pension plan and left thereafter to make their own provisions for the future.
When you consider how much of your tax, and council tax goes to funding public sector pensions, it is outrageous. most in the private sector cannot afford to make adequate provision for their own retirement because they are funding too much towards public sector pensions. The government does not appreciate that most in the private sector don't have pensions, or extremely poor private pensions. Those employed by multi national companies are the exception. most employed in the private sector work for small businesses who do not provide any pensions let alone contribute towards them and private pensions provided by assurance companies were castrated when Gordon Brown imposed the tax on dividends 9it was only dividend payment which were adding any growth to these pensions). Gordon Brown really shafted those in the private sector with this tax heist together with vastly increasing those employed in the public sector (leading to a vastly increased public sector pension liability) . i am of the firm view that there will be ugly riots when those who have created the wealth for the country finally appreciate the pension apartheid beween them and those who have worked in the public sector. It will be gauling that those who have created the wealth and who have funded the lifestyle of the public sector workers including their pension life styles, will be living in abject poverty in old age. It cannot be right that those who have worked hard to provide the lifestyle of those employed in the public sector have been left with so little that they have been unable to make reasonable provision for their old age.
"...the Highways Agency has already adopted French temperature standards for road surfaces (EME-2)"
Are not the mountains in France higher than in the U.K? Mont Blanc 4,810 m versus Ben Nevis 1,344 m. Surely the adoption of French temperature standards for road surfaces has more to do with the E.U. (or heaven forbid, a non-duplication of effort) than climate change forecasts/predictions/scenarios/ideations?
A very sensible paper and to be commended.
If I may, could I suggest that economists are involved in the appraisal? They are probably better at digging into hidden costs (with respect to your Grace).
At last, climate modelling is beginning to face an ugly truth:
If you sew Dragons' teeth .................................
Charlie Flindt,
As a gardener, perhaps I could suggest you avoid the problems of relying on the MO's forecasts for your sowing by following our methods. Sow your seed in trays in the glasshouse. Then plant out in the spring. Be sure to use a sturdy trowel.
Hope that helps.
SandyS,
"The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men
Gang aft agley,"
For an analysis of this, please see here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVNCZTFx65A
Sorry everyone, I'm in a frivolous mood.
Are the media ignoring your report, Bishop?