Bishop Hill Slingo alone
Feb 17, 2014 Climate: MetOffice Readers will remember last week's joint Met Office/CEH report on the floods, of which I gave a favourable review at the time. In particular, the report noted that "As yet, there is no definitive answer on the possible contribution of climate change to the recent storminess, rainfall amounts and the consequent flooding."
What was not so good was Julia Slingo's "intepretation" of the report's contents. The BBC, among others, reported her as saying "all the evidence suggests there is a link to climate change".
Readers will also recall David Rose's report in the Mail on Sunday yesterday, which described the apparent contradictions between the views of Slingo and Professor Mat Collins of Exeter University, who was quoted as saying "There is no evidence that global warming can cause the jet stream to get stuck in the way it has this winter. If this is due to climate change, it is outside our knowledge".
Last night, Prof Collins tweeted that he and the Met Office would soon issue a joint clarification and all day today we have been waiting expectantly. The promised statement has finally been published at the Met Office blog, and it's fair to say that it's not very impressive.
The report by the Met Office states that “As yet, there is no definitive answer on the possible contribution of climate change to the recent storminess, rainfall amounts and the consequent flooding. This is in part due to the highly variable nature of UK weather and climate.” This agrees with the latest IPCC Report that states: “Substantial uncertainty and thus low confidence remains in projecting changes in Northern Hemisphere storm tracks, especially for the North Atlantic basin.”
This is the basis for Prof Collins’ comment and means that we are not sure, yet, how the features that bring storms across the Atlantic to the UK – the jet-stream and storm track – might be impacted by climate change. As the Met Office report highlights for this year’s extreme conditions, there are many competing factors – from changes in the winds of the upper atmosphere to disturbed weather over Indonesia.
What the Met Office report – and indeed the IPCC – does say is that there is increasing evidence that extreme daily rainfall rates are becoming more intense. It is clear that global warming has led to an increase in moisture in the atmosphere – with about four per cent more moisture over the oceans than in the 1970s – which means that when conditions are favourable to the formation of storms there is a greater risk of intense rainfall. This is where climate change has a role to play in this year’s flooding.
With respect to changes in storminess, the good news is that recent advances in climate science are starting to pay dividends. Improved spatial resolution in models – that means that they can model weather and climate in more spatial detail – is allowing the models to represent some of the key factors that drive regional weather patterns. As the Met Office report states ‘With a credible modelling system in place it should now be possible to perform scientifically robust assessments of changes in storminess, the degree to which they are related to natural variability and the degree to which there is a contribution from human-induced climate change.’
See that? Instead of defending Julia Slingo's statement on the floods they have defended the original report. This is very interesting: it seems that the Met Office is unable to come up with any defence of its chief scientist's public statements.
Yesterday I suggested that Slingo's statement had misled the public. This clarification doesn't seemed to have changed anything at all.
It looks bad. Very bad.
Reader Comments (90)
The clever bit of the MO's report is to say:
This appears to derive from AR4 which showed a graph in TS 3.1.3 of precipitable water over the oceans increasing at a rate of 1.2% per decade (between 1988 and 2004).
Who cares about rain over the sea?
What the MO didn't mention was Fig TS10 - Annual Precipitation Trends which shows an anomaly (for global land) pointing decidedly down after 1998.
The paragraph following the figure, about intense tropical cyclone activity, is an excellent example of how wrong you can be about the weather in a very few years.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/tssts-3-1-3.html
Billy Liar:
What else do you think is causing the sea-level to rise?!Honestly, some of you have no idea, do you... Forget the Somerset flooding – worry instead about the Atlantic flooding. All that rain over the Atlantic, causing it to bursts its banks – then things will get very serious, and all you evil deniers will have to eat crow! (Not sure what that means, really, but it does sound wicked!)
The magic 4% again. Presumably all of it before 1995.
I have posted this in several areas before but it bears repeating as it answers the Met Office statement with unarguable history. The Met Office may want to dance around trying to keep their 'climate change' meme which is a mealy mouthed non-scientific euphemism for "anthropogenic global warming"; but the weather we are seeing especially in the blocked, looping, meridonal jetstreams leading to continual weather of the same type – cold rain and floods in one area, droughts and heat waves in another; are precisely what one sees as the climate changes from a natural warm period to a natural cold period.
This year Europe has had lots of rain. In particular UK has had continual flooding rains with repeated deluges of ‘a month’s rain in a day’. The UK has just one such stormy day today with hurricane force gusts and heavy rain.
Well the same weather patterns happened in the same way at the end of the Medieval Warm Period as the climate moved into the Little Ice Age and the weather sounds just the same as UK has had this year.
From the book “The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization” By Brian M. Fagan: -
“Seven weeks after Easter in A.D. 1315, sheets of rain spread across a sodden Europe, turning freshly plowed fields into lakes and quagmires. The deluge continued through June and July, and then August and September. Hay lay flat in the fields; wheat and barley rotted unharvested. The anonymous author of the Chronicle of Malmesbury wondered if divine vengeance had come upon the land: “Therefore is the anger of the Lord kindled against his people, and he hath stretched out his hand against them, and hath smitten them.” Most close-knit farming communities endured the shortages of 1315 and hoped for a better harvest the following year. But heavy spring rains in 1316 prevented proper sowing. Intense gales battered the English Channel and North Sea; flocks and herds withered, crops failed, prices rose, and people again contemplated the wrath of God. By the time the barrage of rains subsided in 1321, over a million-and-a-half people, villagers and city folk alike, had perished from hunger and famine-related epidemics. Giles de Muisit, abbot of Saint-Martin de Tournai in modern-day Belgium, wrote, “Men and women from among the powerful, the middling, and the lowly, old and young, rich and poor, perished daily in such numbers that the air was fetid with the stench.” People everywhere despaired. Guilds and religious orders moved through the streets, the people naked, carrying the bodies of saints and other sacred relics. After generations of good, they believed that divine retribution had come to punish a Europe divided by war and petty strife.
The great rains of 1315 marked the beginning of what climatologists call the Little Ice Age, a period of six centuries of constant climatic shifts that may or may not be still in progress.”
Nowadays people do not blame God – they lay the blame on industrial output of CO2 and try to get rich by taxing it. But the same – someone must have done something to anger God – meme. I think it is a psychological weakness in some people that is being taken advantage of by the UN and governments wanting more power, people like Al Gore, the ‘Club of Rome’ and a multitude of ‘green’ organizations all enriching themselves based on people with a psychological need for someone to blame for a natural cycle,
"Improved spatial resolution in models...."
"It is clear that global warming has led to an increase in moisture in the atmosphere – with about four per cent more moisture over the oceans than in the 1970s"
So I guess the question is can we see the data and workings that led the Met Office to believe we were going to have a drier than usual winter?
So sad ...
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news/2012ScienceMeeting/docs/presentations/S2-01_Ineson_sorce2012.pdf
This mornings Times (pg 9) shows Slingo's mates closing ranks.
Lord Krebs goes on to contradict the IPCC' opinion as well and he is backed up by Paul Williams (Reading University).
Mat Collins ('Met O chairman in climate change') has also issued a blog post denying that he had contradicted Slingo
and the MO supports her statement.
So, the IPCC is 'off message' now ??
There are now 12 comments up on the met office site, including the one from omnologos, and (due to a shocking case of plagiarism from Erik Acer) my comment.
Thanks greatly to the Bish and others for keeping at this.
jazznick:
I can't wait till Andrew Neil gets his teeth into these people. One has the distinct impression he's read AR5 in some detail.
I Blame Piers Corbyn for predicting these floods.
Had he not predicted them, then they would not have happened.
Ask Coral Bookmakers about that !
So there.
http://www.weatheraction.com/docs/WaNews14No05
Wasn't the 1970s unusually cool?
Does that not mean that 'climate change' in the 70s meant less wet air? So which 'climate change' is 'correct', that of the 1970s or present day?
It's the familiar slight of hand, pick one of the coldest dips in the temperature record, use it as the benchmark of 'normal' and compare current times. Past temperatures not cold enough? Fix that by adjusting them down when you think nobody is looking.
Since there has been no warming and a slight decline in air-temps (vis the oceans ate our heat) for 17 years, why is the air wetter now than 17 years ago and why did we not get loads of rainfall and flooding back then.
Professor Kevin Anderson has some vested interest in making these unfounded assertions.
http://www.manchester.ac.uk/research/Kevin.anderson/
Notice the last paragraph:
" As the Met Office report states ‘With a credible modelling system in place it should now be possible to perform scientifically robust assessments of changes in storminess, the degree to which they are related to natural variability and the degree to which there is a contribution from human-induced climate change.’
- They admit they do not have a credible modeling system.
-Yet they assume there are changes in 'storminess'.
- And that they will find a 'signal' of 'human induced climate change'.
So this report is basically a plea for more money to pursue the snark of climate change.
Rent seeking and moral hazard abounds.
According to the Meteorological Office accounts for 2011/12,
Slingo was paid a salary of £135000 – £140000,
with an additional bonus of £25000 – £30000.
Firstly, isn't it rather odd that official accounts show only
an estimate of Dame Slingo's salary though? Still at the
minimum, she is afforded £160,000 per annum, and at
the maximum, it would be £170,000 remuneration p.a.
In comparison the Prime Minister, David Cameron has
an annual salary from the Parliament of just £145,000
and though he "entitled" to claim around £198,000 he
has never done so.
There are of course travel and expense budgets
which afford the Prime Minister additional sums,
but naturally Dame Slingo has access to such
funds as well. There seems no justification to
pay such large sums to Dame Slingo, when you
consider that she appears to be no more than an
apologist for extreme views of the Alarmist camp.
So the Metoffice justification for Slingo's ‘all the evidence suggests that climate change has a role to play’ global warming 'link' all rests on the putative increase in atmospheric humidity over the oceans-
'It is clear that global warming has led to an increase in moisture in the atmosphere – with about four per cent more moisture over the oceans than in the 1970s – which means that when conditions are favourable to the formation of storms there is a greater risk of intense rainfall. This is where climate change has a role to play in this year’s flooding.'
Yet when the first commenter queries this with
David Johnson (17:12:27) : Why compare current moisture % increase over the oceans with the 1970s? How does it compare with other decades?
The Metoffice replies
Met Office Press Office (09:06:10) : Hello David Atmospheric humidity is difficult to observe and so the assessments are restricted to post 1970s. The best estimates of recent changes come from satellite measurements but they are restricted to the late 1990s onwards. Atmospheric humidity is difficult to observe and so the assessments are restricted to post 1970s. The best estimates of recent changes come from satellite measurements but they are <restricted to the late 1990s onwards>*.
(The late 1990's onwards corresponds to 'the pause')
Thus Slingo's 'all the evidence' boils down in reality to 'difficult to observe'. In other words- highly contentious speculation. It is nothing more than shameless and opportunistic propaganda.
Jeremy
"no more than an apologist for extreme views of the Alarmist camp."
So might I be, for that kind of money! :-)
'Likelihood' is everything at the Met Office for predicting both weather and climate change - see their rain forecast for Dec-Feb 3 monthly forecast here: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/m/8/A3_plots-precip-DJF-2.pdf
For too long now, the UK Met Office has been a producer and purveyor of climate change propaganda and has become confused about its role. The only way it can regain credibility is to abandon its 'climate change' fantasy quest, and just stick to what it should be doing... forecasting the weather for the rest of the day, tomorrow and the day after. Nobody is interested in an insignificant non-meteorological parameter called carbon dioxide.
The UK Met Office must understand this... that pilots landing aircraft are interested in accurate wind speed, humidity, temperature and atmospheric pressure. Farmers ploughing fields are interested in knowing if it is going to rain tomorrow. Ship captain's are interested in knowing if gail force winds are expected. Councils need to know if they have to salt the roads because of coming snowfalls. They are not interested in knowing if global average temperature in 2064 'might be' a minute fraction of a degree warmer or colder than today, or whether the Arctic 'might be' ice free in 2045.
The UK Met Office needs to get back to basics and stop making statements that are an insult to genuine scientists who know just how childishly unscientific Slingo's simplistic statement was.
Slingo's comments at the press briefing were in line with the Met Office report. The only comment she made that could be interpreted differently is pretty vague, so it's a matter of perspective. Her comments touched on sea levels, storm surges, storm tracks and precipitation, but when she spoke specifically on what factors are consistent with global warming, all she mentioned was increased precipitation. Same as the Met Office report, same as Collins.
The disagreement is non-existent, invented by the Daily Mail referring specifically to the jet stream patterns, which Slingo never mentioned, let alone tied to global warming. The Met Office report says there is no evidence yet that jet streams are affected by global warming. The contradiction is a fabrication of the Daily Mail, and continues to be blown out of proportion over how some might 'interpret' Slingo's comments. She makes it clear that it is not possible to determine a link between the recent weather patterns and global warming. The rest is speculation and, from some quarters, undeserved triumphalism.
Barry - your words are meaningless. There's no way to honestly discuss (dis)agreement between statements without using any verbatim quote whatsoever.
Judging from the discussion here I assumed people were conversant with the quotes. Statements about message and meaning have been decidedly confident.
There are 6 comments from the various news media articles that are pertinent.
Slingo in The Independent:
Mat Collins in the Daily Mail:
Met Office response:
The only component of the recent storms that all 3 sources state is consistent with global warming is increased precipitation. Nothing else. Daily Mail pretends Collins' comments on the jet stream are contradicted by Slingo. False. Slingo never mentioned the jet stream, and certianly didn't attribute its behaviour to global warming. Slingo, twice, stated that there is no "definitive answer" for global warming causing the "weather patterns," then says that addressing all the evidence, it "has a role to play." I think she answered what role that was re her comments on precipitation. She certainly didn't point to anything else.
If she did have other evidence in mind, she could have mentioned that every IPCC report since 1990 has posited global warming should increase water vapour in the atmosphere, or that every IPCC report since 1995 has projected increased precipitation in the Northern latitudes, or that TAR and AR4 specifies Europe as a region that will receive more winter rainfall. She may have been thinking, as she mentioned a "broader base of evidence," GHG theory, rising temps, increased water vapour, and how these variables have trended over Europe/UK. Or she could have overstepped the bounds of scientific neutrality with handwavy activist comments unbecoming someone in her position.
But that's speculation. We're not mind-readers. We've only her words to go on, and she only specifically mentioned increased precipitation as being consistent with global warming. Same as Collins, same as the Met Office report she presented, same as the Met Office response to the Daily Mail concoction.
People seem to be hanging their hats on interpretations of unspecific comments. I think the ambiguity in the phrase "according to all the evidence" is the lynchpin. Some seem to be interpreting it as "every bit of evidence points to," instead of "having reviewed all the evidence, some of it indicates." Her first quote clarifies.
This is the quote that critics do NOT cite. Because it isn't quite as mutable to interpretation. The elided quote they do cite omits her caveat. You can see that in the article at the head of this thread, replicating the Daily Mail. Speaking of honestly reported verbatim quotes....
Bear in mind that Collins and Slingo were responding to questions, so none of us has the full context of the answers. Energy is probably better directed at media journalism's propensity to editorialise and sensationalise at the expense of... well, pretty much anything.
Did I miss any quotes that are relevant?
Barry - I was expecting somebody to try to go down that route. But it's important to note that the Met Office itself didn't, and that is extremely relevant in a post titled "Slingo alone".
One cannot also fail to understand that according to Collins and to the Met Office report, the 'stuck pattern' wasn't just responsible for heavy rain because it conveyor-belted the storms to Britain - it also had a role in the cyclogenesis. Hadn't it been where it was, the 'stuck pattern' would not have seen the formation of the storms we have experienced.
There we have then TWO reasons for the deluge, both of them regarding the jet stream. And as we know from Collins, neither of those can be linked to climate change / global warming.
Now, can anybody say "all the evidence suggests that climate change has a role to play in it"? Obviously, as just explained, that's not valid in the details of this particular season: heavy rains would have hit Britain whatever the amount of moisture in the atmosphere. The "climate change contribution" is invisible, undetectable and for all intents and purposes, non-existent.
Perhaps then it's a generalistic comment on the part of Slingo. That's then either a pleonasm or a sottise. Since climate change is assumed to have a role in any weather pattern, we do not need a Chief Scientist to say that any evidence suggest it have such a role.
I wonder if the Dame has reminded people that all the evidence suggests that climate change had a role to play in the absence of Atlantic hurricanes in 2013.
Barry, you seem to be unable to comprehend the actual words you quoted:
"all the evidence suggests that climate change has a role to play in it….”
See? She didn't claim that there is some evidence, or a bit of evidence, or a little evidence, or even a lot of evidence. She said all the evidence. And that's simply and clearly not true.
You try and pick some specific evidence, such as jet streams, that she didn't even mention, but that isn't relevant. She said all the evidence so that includes the jet streams.
You say "Slingo never mentioned the jet stream, and certianly (sic) didn't attribute its behaviour to global warming" but you are wrong. I'll say it again: she said "all the evidence" so that of course includes jet streams.
We disagree, steveta_uk. As explained by Barry, "all the evidence" taken literally can offer an escape route with the excuse of a sloppiness of wording on the part of Dame Julia.
But the point made by Collins via Rose, or Rose via Collins, is that there is simply NO evidence of the heavy rains having seen any more contribution by climate change than, say, the relatively dry November, or today's bad London weather. Nobody knows, really.
It's worth repeating Alex Cull's comment on a previous thread (Feb 16, 2014 at 2:20 pm) that shows how Dame Julia's comment has been interpreted (in this case by Natalie Bennett (Green Party leader) on the Andrew Marr show.
The video is here - the comments are between 6 and 7 min http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26215574
When playing "pass the parcel" with a hand granade, there are two successful strategies:
1. Run away.
2. Stay in the circle and pass the thing as quick as you can to some idiot who thinks the parcel is worthwhile holding onto.
Slingo appears to be the stooge who the others at the Met Office have set up as the sacrificial goat for when this whole thing blows up.
I would not be surprised, if she had found a sudden reluctance amongst her colleagues to communicate with her in any way other than written text - each of which carefully records their own disquiet at her actions making it clear that this is her decision and that she has decided and that she is responsible.
And no doubt, she thinks she should be very pleased that she is being promoted to take sole responsibility for this policy.
So global warming increases the atmospheric moisture content which increases storms and rain clouds. But wait a minute - doesn't that also mean that more cloud cover increases albedo thereby offsetting global warming? The Met Office has found clear evidence that negative feedback from clouds is working !
So there is no problem - since temperatures can't rise much above 1C. Perhaps we can we all go home now.
Mervyn: "For too long now, the UK Met Office has been a producer and purveyor of climate change propaganda and has become confused about its role. The only way it can regain credibility is to abandon its 'climate change' fantasy quest, and just stick to what it should be doing... forecasting the weather for the rest of the day, tomorrow and the day after.
I disagree, not only with you but with the Met Office as you have both missed the way this must progress.
I agree the Met Office must just give up on the non-science of forecasting the climate based on fraudulent claims of certainty of feedbacks, long after we are all dead.
But that misses a whole area of research which is weekly, monthly and yearly forecasting.
A farmer needs to know (or would dearly love to know) if the year is going to be dry or wet. They would even like to know whether they should harvest their wheat one week early or wait a few weeks until "after" the wet weather.
In Bangladesh, the 8 day forecast of rain has proven useful to save lives. There is indications that seasonal forecasts can predict where the rain will be most intense in Africa and help decide where to allocate malarial treatment.
Yes - the met office must stop its idiotic obsession with century-scale forecasts, but no the Met Office shouldn't myopically stick to the daily forecasts we know so well.
The new frontier - I might even say "to boldy go" - is into the longer term, regional forecast.
And when they can confidently forecast the weather/climate in one month, we will then ask them work on the yearly forecast. And when they can confidently forecast the weather/climate in year, we can ask them to work on a decadal forecast ... and when ... when they can do that, at the rate of current progress and given the number of iterations on the learning curve I will be about 10,000 years old.
I just posted this on the Newsnight thread, but think it is relevant here to Slingo's nonsense, so will repost:
=================================================================================
The recent rainfall and flooding in the south-west of England is not unprecedented, and in historical terms is probably not even exceptional. If it was Kings Charles the whatever would not have paid Dutch engineers to drain the levels, and local bodies would not have been busy pumping, dredging the rivers and sluicing the tidal flows for the last 250 years. I find the whole debate over what the rainfall has been in the last 3 months, and the idea that this is due to "extra moisture" in the atmosphere, facile. To be frank, it is bollocks. There has been no extra rainfall, all that has happened is that it has fallen further south than usual, and we in the north have had less than usual. The fact is that England is a largely flat country with slow rivers which are prone to flooding when you get what is average precipitation for most of Scotland. e.g. in the "wettest summer for 100 years" in 2012, the total rainfall figure for E&W was less than the long term average for Scotland. Indeed, summer 2012 we had a drought north and west of the Great Glen, which was quite serious - they had to stop making whisky in Tobermory and on Skye crofters had to water their tatties for the first time in living memory.
All that is happening is that the storm tracks have moved south, and more rain is falling in the south, but not more overall. (it would be interesting to see the total rainfall figures for a 500 mile wide grid which extended from Portugal in the south to the Faroes or Iceland in the north - that would be an effective measure of the total rainfall coming off the Atlantic).
For me, the key question is why the jet stream and storm tracks have apparently moved south. Is it just natural variability, or a sign that there is more cold air to the north of us and the NH is cooling again after the mild winters of the 1990s? Given the recent recovery of Arctic sea-ice, the increased NH snow cover and surface station data which suggests Alaska has been cooling for the last 10 years, I tend to go for the latter.
Feb 19, 2014 at 9:51 AM | Registered Commenter lapogus
=================================================
After Mervyn's comment: "For too long now, the UK Met Office has been a producer and purveyor of climate change propaganda [it should] abandon its 'climate change' fantasy quest, and just stick to what it should be doing... forecasting the weather for the rest of the day, tomorrow and the day after.
I've decided that a full response would require me to post an exert from my paper which I've called:
2235AD till yearly forecast betters current monthly forecast
Omnologos, while you see "all the evidence" as an escape route as it is obviously sloppy, the posting from Ruth Dixon at 9:01 shows that others will take it not as sloppy, but will read it quite literally:
omnologos,
I take it that is not commendation for the verbatim quotes honestly and fulsomely provided. :-)
The Met Office is no more required to have spelled it out in the manner I did (how unnecessarily tedious), than Slingo is responsible for how David Rose or Natalie Bennett interpret her comments. She's not responsible for Rose editing out half her sentence and fabricating a controversy on the elision. She is not responsible for criticism that continues to ignore her strong, pertinent caveats that there were "no definitive answers" on the linkage of global warming to the storms (witness above). And she is not responsible for Bennett's translation of 'scientist-speak'.
I draw your attention again to Collins via Rose:
This is consonant with Slingo's comments, and also with the Met Office both in its report and its response to the Daily Mail concoction. None of these sources specify any other linkage with global warming and the weather patterns.
Slingo said something unspecific and interpretable. In a perfect world that would be an error. But she also said there was - "no definitive answer." In the same perfect world, this would not have been ignored by her critics. The skeptics of that universe would have googled for all her comments, read them and, incredibly, have understood them.
But we're not geniuses. So blame The Independent and the BBC for overinterpreting her comments, and especially David Rose for mendaciously cutting them.
Barry - the verbatim quotes were needed to provide content to your interpretation of the events. You should thank me for strongly encouraging you to do that. ;)
1. The Met Office is responsible for not making any mention of the Slingo statement that was the topic of the Rose article
2. The Met Office is responsible for mentioning its report as answer to the Rose article where the report was not the topic, and wasn't even mentioned
3. The Met Office is responsible for not mentioning the Slingo statement to the newsmedia in any shape or form anywhere on a site dedicated to the "Met Office in the news"
4. The Met Office is responsible for not correcting inaccurate reporting of what it or its Chief Scientist have said. There have been little qualms in the past to do that, especially when the DM is involved.
5. Collins' "could lead to higher rainfall totals" concerns the future. Slingo's "climate change has a role to play in it" concerns the present. They are not consonants.
You seem to have chosen the "sloppy wording" excuse. If that's the case, the Met Office should recognise it as such, and the Dame apologise for it.
ps Slingo's "unspecific and interpretable" words were launched to much fanfare in time for all Sunday papers to print them. If they are a case of sloppy wording, Dame Julia shouldn't be allowed near a journalist anymore for a long time.
Barry:
"Prof Collins made clear that he believes it is likely global warming could lead to higher rainfall totals, because a warmer atmosphere can hold more water."
Unfortunately, the atmosphere has not become warmer it has stayed around the same 'global average' for more than 15 years - during which as you will remember the Met Office has also told us to expect more extensive droughts as it became warmer.
Professor Collins also made it clear that it was the meridonal jetstreams held in position by blocking highs that had caused the rain and he was not aware of how 'global warming' could lead to that effect.
This is the kind of institutional cognitive dissonance that you see when the senior management is supporting the current political (aka funding) position and the scientists are trying to be honest about the science. It leads to weasel worded vague responses when the cracks start to show.
1) No. Why amplify a deceit? The Met Office is not required to give a line by line exlanation of Slingo's comments.
2) That seems a plausible criticism. OTOH, Met Office public outreach is almost constantly impersonal. They're hardly going to let Rose dictate their style.
3) Aboslutely not.
4) That's what they did, in an appropriate environment.
5) Collins didn't say that, it's Rose's commentary.
They are consonant, not only because each of them (MO, Slingo, Collins) point to increased rainfall as consistent with global warming, but because that is the ONLY specified link each of them directly name.
You mistake me entirey. The due diligence given to checking this story is what is demonstrably and hopelessly sloppy. I reread the thread. Not one post displayed the full quoted sentence or the rest of Slingo's comments on the matter. Not a word on it. Despite my encouragement, more recently. The elided version appears, though. Rose has set the play nicely.
You seem like a straight shooter, omnologos. Got any thoughts on what she might have meant by "no definitive answers?"
Unfathomably, the full quotes have not appeared in any criticism of Sligno's comments, even though they had been in the public domain 5 days before the Daily Mail article. That might explain why you needed me to provide them. But it doesn't explain why this requirement only applies to my analysis, and not the Daily Mail's, Bishop Hill's or WUWT (for example).
So, thanks for encouraging me to supply full verbatim quotes. Shall I assume you mean to apply the standard equally?
> Shall I assume you mean to apply the standard equally?
For example, to the Met Office "response" to Rose?
Oh wait.
They couldn't get around to quote Dame Julia themselves.
At all.
One wonders why.
ps Got any thoughts on what she might have meant by "no definitive answers?"
You missed this from a few comments earlier.
Perhaps it's a generalistic comment on the part of Slingo. That's then either a pleonasm or a sottise. Since climate change is assumed to have a role in any weather pattern, we do not need a Chief Scientist to say that any evidence suggest it have such a role.
I wonder if the Dame has reminded people that all the evidence suggests that climate change had a role to play in the absence of Atlantic hurricanes in 2013.
Just for the record, in case anyone comes this way again researching Slingo Floods, here is a useful link to research papers showing no trends in floods, no link to CO2, and some evidence of a link to solar cycles: http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/new-paper-finds-strong-correlation.html
Some extracts:
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., 11, 10157-10178, 2014
www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci-discuss.net/11/10157/2014/
doi:10.5194/hessd-11-10157-2014
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., 11, 10085-10116, 2014
www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci-discuss.net/11/10085/2014/
doi:10.5194/hessd-11-10085-2014