Tuesday
Feb182014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Slingo out to dry
Feb 18, 2014 Appearances Climate: MetOffice I have written up the story about the travails of Professor Slingo for the Spectator's Coffee House blog.
See here.
Reader Comments (57)
I think you are giving the Met Off too much kudos. They really haven't hung out to dry at all they just created another diversion by praising the models which Slimgo was quoting.
I'm sure they still (and will always) need a better computer, so a little hiatus over the results won't do too much damage.. :-(
Once the weather establishment realises that the painfully obvious disconnect between what Slingo has said and the actual position as put by the same establishment goes almost completely unremarked and has no effect on Dame Slingo's reputation...they will draw the obvious conclusion.
To wit, just as Viner's famous pronouncement has had no deleterious effect on his career: It really does not matter what you say...as long as you say it is worse than we thought.
For Mat Collins... I can see only trouble ahead.
Once we hear people like Slingo going on about how unreliable models are and how hard it is to "forecast" the weather then we will know we have finally won!
Until then people like Slingo will continue to say exactly what their political masters want to hear.
Mailman
There is a similar article at the Times, part-reproduced by GWPF.
I was right. An about turn:
http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/met-office-in-the-media-16-february-2014-response-by-professor-mat-collins-and-the-met-office/
Krebs attempts to defend Slingo with this:
Dear Lord Krebs, can I point out to you that an "increase in extreme weather events" can be definitively linked to "climate change" by nature of our language - no science is required.
Fools, don't you get it?
Sometimes it's dryer than normal and sometimes it wetter than normal, the CLIMATE CHANGES. Sometimes it feels normal but that's just because it's wetter and dryer AT THE SAME TIME - could there be any clearer proof that we are heading for disaster?
Don't beat yourselves up for not understanding this truth. In addition to being selfless hero's, climate scientists are the top 1% of academics, every other field of science has to accept those too useless to become climate scientists.
Slingo and Collins agree that increased precipitation is consistent with global warming.
And presumably they also agree that reduced precipitation (such as they were forecasting for the UK just before the storms broke) is also consistent with global warming.
So one must probably also conclude that any change at all is consistent with global warming since we have no idea how global warming is going to affect us on a regional scale, particularly in the short to medium term and even more particularly before we have witnessed any significant warming.
We don't really need a computer for this amount of insight.
What's perhaps more interesting in the light of Professor Mat Collins's "denial" of any climate change link is that he actually holds the Joint Met Office Chair of Climate Change. Who'd have thought it. (Joint btw means equally funded by the Met Office and Exeter University).
simon abingdon
"(Joint btw means equally funded by the Met Office and Exeter University)"
Yup, is the Met Office becoming an academic version of Chelsea F.C.?
How many do they have out "on loan"
University of Exeter:-
Mat Collins - Joint Met Office Chair in Climate Change
Professor Richard Betts - Chair in Climate Impacts
Prof John Thuburn - Chair in Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, jointly funded by the Met Office
University of Leeds:-
Professor Paul Field holds a joint position with the Met Office and the University of Leeds
Professor Doug Parker is the Met Office Professor of Meteorology at Leeds
Professor Simon Vosper - Simon manages the Academic Partnership with Leeds, on the Met Office side.
Dr Cathryn Birch is a Research Scientist at the UK Met Office but is based in the School of Earth and Environment here in Leeds.
Plus
Some recent examples of Met Office staff secondments to Leeds:-
• Andy Hartley, Summer 2012, working with Doug Parker, Luis Garcia-Carreras, Sean Milton and Stuart Webster on the modelling of rainfall over variable tropical forest.
• Matthew Clark, September-November 2012, working with Doug Parker and Phil Rosenberg on the analysis of intense cold fronts over the UK in surface and radar data.
• Franco Marenco, November 2012, working with Jim McQuaid and Phil Rosenberg on the use of airborne lidar data to measure aerosol profiles.
• Volker Horlacher, working with Andrew Ross on the analysis of UK surface measurements of airflow in valleys.
University of Reading:-
A jointly funded Chair to lead the Reading part of the collaboration. Professor Peter Clark is the Joint Met Office Chair.
Moreover, the Department has hosted Met Office groups for over two decades, and currently hosts around 25 Met Office scientists in MetOffice@Reading,
University of Oxford also joined Met Office Academic Partnership in October 2013, so there will be more Joint Chairs.
The above list is not intended to be exhaustive
Edit: forgot to post link Met Office Academic Partnership
I agree with Stephen Richards in the first comment. A sticking plaster has been applied to cover the gap between Julia Slingo's alarmist and unsupported statement and what most climate scientists admit to - such as the position of Prof. Collins and many others. Science is starting to return to Climatology - it might be slow, but papers with an alternative view of the warming (and cooling) are seeping through. Some have noticed that Arctic sea ice is increasing again **, Antarctic sea has been increasing for 35 years, some glaciers are extending, NH snow cover is at the highest extent since 1978. Surely some in climate science must be saying to themselves - well we don't know what this means, but it sure as hell is not what we predicted. Surely some must be embarrassed when the opposite happens, that some in their ranks jump up to claim that this is caused by CO2 and warming.
Most of the climate science community does not want to fess-up to misgivings about the true state of the climate. They are just hoping that this stage is a blip and it will soon return to BAU which will keep the grant fountain going. If the Sun watchers are right and temps decline now - after all they have been in the USA and UK for a decade or more - the more sensible with a strong survival instinct will have an exit strategy to use. "I always thought that this is what would happen".
In some ways I feel sorry for Julia Slingo, she moved into her current position from Reading University. I don't know whether anyone else was up for it at the time, but it is absolutely certain that any candidate who expressed the view that the Met Office should do research to see if an cAGW was exaggerated, would only hear the word "next". Heaven forbid that a Chief Scientist should oversee balanced proper science. Is anyone in the Met Office saying to Julia Slingo - well actually winter 1929/30 was wetter overall? If they are then the paper referenced by the Bish is a cherry-picker. If they are not, is it that Julia Slingo would shoot the messenger? She was writing media pieces last autumn in readiness for the Climate Jamboree saying that Arctic sea ice was melting when a month before ships had been almost trapped in the NW passage and several expeditions to highlight "climate change" had to be abandoned because there was too much ice - and this in summer.
She was recruited in 2009/10 because she had the correct warmist views. The Met Office & Hadley Centre only recruits in its own image and therefore group-think is built-in. Prof. Slingo had only been in post a short while before she was required to alter her opinion about what was her area of expertise - as WUWT reported at the time.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/20/the-met-office-brings-doom-to-a-place-near-you/
**
Reported as area and volume up 50% year on year - it may not continue and may reverse in trend, but is it ever reported in the MSM. The Graun and Indy will always have a "record" low sea ice article, but the opposite???
"agreed that no single storm could be put down to climate change"
Wait a minute. Does this person even understand what they are saying? If no single storm could be put down to climate change, then no group of single storms could be put down to climate change, which means climate change isn't responsible for anything.
Andrew
I forgot I did have one extra word today : MMR ... Aswell as goal-poaching & quacktivism.
- Look this "is consistent with"BS can be countered with "that's just like MMR"
- If Wakefield had sound MMR science, he would be able to produce multiple proper trial data showing a link between autism and MMR. That would be validated by an ability to predict that groups with vaccinations got Autism cases than similar groups.
- As we know he "jumped the gun" and went beyond-science in over extrapolating certainty from his opinion. Given the chance he would have behaved like Slingo claiming events (flooding) as his own after they occurred (post hoc) and shouting for action. That is quack & activist : quacktivism.
But just like him, validation of Slingo's theory doesn't come from goal poaching at the end, but rather from consistently being able to predict patterns of extreme weather well in advance.
- Jumping the gun is not the way science is done, you collect your proper evidence, and then claim victory. Not claim victory and get your evidence later.
- Slingo, The BBC et al are bigging up Extreme weather link just like people did with MMR/autism.
.. and spitting in the face of proper scientific method.
I fear that Mr Savage is dead right. The more rational among us may take some comfort in the knowledge that Sligo et al have been shown to be talking total tosh for years, global warming being anything they deem it to be at any given moment, whether hotter, colder, wetter, drier, etc., and always more serious than we thought.
But even when shown more or less to be lying, it has almost no impact on the wider public. Meaning that they can and will continue to dissemble while still exercising a disastrous hold on government policy. Which is depressing.
That said, by tiny increments, they are at least now being forced to offer justifications for their evident idiocy. So we can take some minor comfort, not least as said justifications are so obviously nonsensical/preposterous/irrelevant/laughable. But there is a long, long way to go before they are finally bested.
Kerry says that the USA is doomed by draught while Slingo says we face floods.
Clearly our two nations need to join forces if we are ever to defeat the evil of Global Warming.
May I suggest that we adopt a form of 'lend-lease'; they send us their dredgers and pumps; we give them Somerset.
From the Grauniad today:
Science? We don't need no stinking science!
From Wikipedia: "In 2006 she [Julia Slingo] founded the Walker Institute for Climate System Research at Reading, aimed at addressing the cross disciplinary challenges of climate change and its impacts". Hmm.
Of course. MRDA!
retireddave
"the more sensible with a strong survival instinct will have an exit strategy to use. "I always thought that this is what would happen"."
Problem is that these open-minded 'moderates' will be remembered as cowards or, like Richard Betts, unable to delete the 4+ degrees alarmist grant-farming tosh they've written down the memory hole. The internet isn't just for xmas, it's for life.
If Julia "knew" why didn't you tell the EA and stop the floods before they happened ?
- no she is simply drunk and claiming the credit afterwards
A professor is a scholarly teacher....
She teaches??
Who would listen?
The MO response looks more like a smoke screen than hanging Slingo out to dry. By not mentioning her they give the impression that the dispute was about their report and there is no dispute about that, so move along, nothing to see here.
Unless, Bish, you know something we don't. How significant is the feeling that Slingo opened her mouth and put a flooded wellington boot in it?
Andrew, your penultimate sentence contains the phrase 'consistent with'. This phrase has become a cliche' with alarmists and raises weasel-word flags. Probably better written some other way...
Whether or not her colleagues are annoyed with her, she has created a massive benefit for the warmist camp with the BBC and press going into overdrive and politicians calling for more cuts in carbon emissions. She has also shifted public perception about the cause of the bad weather.
As others have pointed out, her statement is at odds with several facts. Just a few months ago the MO thought that climate change would give a relatively dry winter. She can hardly claim now that she always thought it would produce one of the wettest.The level of rainfall has happened before, so there is no justification for claiming a special case. The IPCC says there is no link between the wet weather and climate change and there is no evidence that climate change is causing the jet stream to stick at lower latitudes.
I conclude that there is sufficient evidence to suggest that she may have deliberately misled the public. If that is the case, for someone in her position it should be a resigning matter.
If she made the statement for good reason she should share her reasoning with the rest of us. If she made the statement in error, she should apologise and issue a press release making it clear that there is no evidence to support her statement.
Given the importance of this matter it essential that the truth is uncovered. This potential scandal must not be allowed to fade away. Ms Slingo must clarify her position.
@ simon abingdon
"(Joint btw means equally funded by the Met Office and Exeter University)"
Yup, is the Met Office becoming an academic version of Chelsea F.C.?
When will "climate science" produce its equivalent of José Mourinho? Even a Sam Allardyce would be a vast improvement on Dame Slingo et al.
By the way, when you google "Senna the Soothsayer," Dame Slingo is no longer the top hit. In fact she isn't even on the first page. This is, undoubtedly, a tribute to the considerable improvement in the accuracy of the Met Office's seasonal forecasts, e.g. their stunning prediction of a drier than normal winter.
Let's hope they keep up the good work!
In case Dame Slingo happens to read this blog, I think I should explain that I did not mean any offence by comparing her unfavourably in my previous comment with José Mourinho. I am sure that as far as Cameron, Clegg and Miliband are concerned, Dame Slingo is indeed, the Special One.
Dame Julia seems to be an excellent example of the Peter Principle.
"so we're not out of the
woodsfloods yet"One of the curious things about all these claims is that there hasn't been any warming for 15+ years. And on top of that the air in these cyclones was cold, dumped a tonne of snow in Scotland. The cyclonic activity was linked to the jet stream that in turn was likely linked to the polar vortex. I wonder if Slingo knows what the jet stream is.
As I have said before we need a concerted "Slingout Slingo" campaign.
The "Spectator" article is a good start.
It doesn't really matter what Slingo says as the climate establishment will not speak out in any critical manner. Has the climate community ever criticised Mann or Al Gore for their nonsense? They are so used to speaking alarmist drivel that they cannot help themselves.
Remember Vicky Pope about 10 years ago telling us about the coming Thermageddon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WyDmdcPw7Uw
But this what you expect from pseudoscience!
Charmingquark: was that video playing back at double speed, or does she really jabber that fast?
Hang on... is it increased or decreased precipitation consistent with umm whatever its called?
Press release
Water companies must plan for a drier climate
Organisation: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs
Page history: Published 20 May 2011
Dry weather is likely to become a more frequent occurrence in the future due to the impacts of climate change.
This Spring’s intense dry spell is a sign of things to come and water companies need to be prepared to avoid water shortages, Environment Minister Lord Henley warned today.
CharmingQuark
In the first 30 secs of that video two EPIC FAIL.
0.3 degrees of warming from 2007-14. Ooops!
Radical Rodent
I think Vicky Pope talks crap pretty fast. It is easy to speak without thinking!
Remember this briefing doc. last year.
Following the wet summer in the UK last year, the Met Office provided the Environment Agency with a briefing document, giving an overview of the weather. This was discussed at the September Board Meeting of the Environment Agency, which Met Office officials attended.
Jet Stream Changes
It is now well known that that last year’s wet weather, (and the drought that preceded it), was the result of changes in the position of the jet stream. The Briefing Document has this to say:-
What is causing this summer’s wet weather?
The jet stream has been displaced southwards compared to its climatological summertime position. The jetstream is the fast-moving ‘river’ of air at altitudes of around 30,000ft which forms in the mid-latitudes at the boundary between the cold air surrounding the poles and the much warmer air in the tropics. It usually runs from west to east, and acts to develop and steer the low pressure systems which are responsible for much of the UK’s rain. On average, these systems pass to the northwest of the UK, and hence northwestern parts of the UK – particularly higher ground such as in Western Scotland and Cumbria – receive the most rain.
However, when the jetstream dips to the south of the UK, the distribution of rainfall is skewed away from the climatological average, and southern areas can see periods of significantly above average rainfall and associated higher risk of river and surface water flooding. Not only do the low pressure systems steer across southern areas, but the following factors act to increase the risk of heavy rain and flooding:
• different prevailing wind direction means that different windward slopes will be subject to enhanced rainfall
• the frequent southerly to easterly component to the airflow means that warm, thundery air from the near Continent may be drawn towards the UK, increasing the potential for heavy rainfall
• fronts are more likely to become slow-moving, giving persistent rain in some areas
• between the low pressure systems themselves, the dominant low-pressure (‘cyclonic’) environment is conducive to formation of heavy showers during summer. Again, these may be slow-moving, with an increased risk of intense downpours and surface water flooding.
Low pressure systems of this nature are unusual in summer and because the atmosphere is warmer it can hold more water than in other seasons resulting in significant amounts of rainfall.
The jet stream, like our weather, is subject to natural variability – that is the random nature of our weather which means it is different from one week, month or year to the next. We expect it to move around and it has moved to the south of the UK in summertime many times before in the past. It has, however, been particularly persistent in holding that position this year – hence the prolonged unsettled weather.
This could be due to natural variability – a bad run of coincidence, if you will – but scientific research is ongoing research to investigate whether other factors at play.
stewgreen (Feb 18, 2014 at 3:58 PM) - your assertions on Wakefield are well wide of the mark, he did not instigate the MMR scare, the Urabe strain MMR vaccine had already been hastily withdrawn by the UK government following serious adverse reactions and brain injuries, (and the UK committee which initially approved its use ignored advice from the Canadian Government not to). It was parents not doctors who first noticed that their children were suffering significant adverse reactions to the MMR jab. All Wakefield did was to listen to the parents, and try to treat the children. Wakefield's case study was not quackism, indeed it was praised by Ben Goldacre. The MMR-autism issue is very complex and I am not going to discuss all this here as it is OT, but see my and other's comments on page 1 and 2 at http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/3/14/stringer-on-climate-and-mmr.html#comments for some enlightenment.
From the Spectator article:
They keep banging on about this and 'increased storminess'. Where is the evidence? If convective rain has increased the troposphere has become less stable. Where is the paper showing that tropospheric instability has increased since the 70s?
There's no excuse, they have all the data (real data not models) going back many years from balloons.
This could be due to natural variability – a bad run of coincidence, if you will – but scientific research is ongoing research to investigate whether other factors at play.
So what ongoing research has evolved in the last 18 months or so to prompt Slingo to say what she did?
lapogus - Wakefield's failings ran wider than concerns over the Urabe strain.
Is the BMJ article referenced here incorrect and thus defamatory?
'In January 2011, an editorial accompanying an article by Brian Deer in BMJ identified Wakefield's work as an "elaborate fraud" '
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield
Has Wakefield sued and won? No, he sued and lost. Goldacre's support, if he gave it, appears to have been in error, as was Private Eye's.
Phil D - Not discussing this, it is OT. Just wanted to redress stewgreen's comment. MMR is a long and nasty political scandal with a lot of money at stake. Wakefield made some mistakes, and has paid dearly for them. But the BMJ and Brian Deer were just doing the dirty work for others higher up - http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2009/01/13/secret-british-mmr-vaccine-files-forced-open-by-legal-action/#British_Govmnt_Deny_Comp
Charmingquark: was that video playing back at double speed, or does she really jabber that fast?
-Radical Rodent
Could it be an example of the Dopeler Effect? (the tendency of dumb ideas to sound smarter if they're coming at you very fast)
From steveta's graun link:
Firstly, I think Dame Slingo has rattled some cages among the masses and the cynic would no doubt suggest - her words had the desired effect in that, those bovvered by climate change has risen according to these NOP stats[1].
People agreed that, the "frequency and severity of the storms were a result of climate change" [2] - but what was the question?
How was it phrased - I wonder?
At a guess...................."If you have looked out of the window in the last few days, you may have noticed it has been raining a lot recently and some areas are having terrible floods" - who do you think is to blame for the most rain ever to fall on England since time began?
a) The quite splendid Ed Miliband who toiled night and day to craft the wonderful climate change act.
b) Aliens from Venus.
c) Climate change.
d) Ant and Dec.
Supposing, not suggesting.
The Guardian November 2011
"Exceptionally dry weather could lead to drought in 2012, say water companies"
"As well as the recent dry weather, water companies and environment regulators are expecting the UK to have more frequent dry winters as a result of climate change."
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/nov/17/dry-winter-drought-weather-forecast
I don't know that Dame Slingo has been left high and dry, my reading of it is the Met Office "spinsters" are trying to avert the gaze of the public from the anti-science (if I may borrow from the warm camp) assertion that climate change isn't causing the bad weather, but it is...
Is the Met Office embarrassed? I doubt they feel the need, you have to remember that in their own collective minds that emissions of CO2 are causing global warming/climate change and there will be problems, so the occasional mangling of the scientific truth is collateral damage in a good cause.
So I don't appear "holier than thou" I suspect if I had the same panic-stricken belief in the future I doubt I'd act differently from those who do. Although I hope I wouldn't, I probably would.
"Although I hope I wouldn't, I probably would." Should have read:
"Although I hope I would, I probably wouldn't."
This could be due to natural variability – a bad run of coincidence, if you will – but scientific research is ongoing research to investigate whether other factors at play.
Feb 18, 2014 at 9:25 PM | Unregistered Commenter Martyn
Are you another of the minions sent out to arse-cover?
There is a lot wrong with your post but this last bit will do for now. If you are researching and it's scientific and you therefore don't know what caused the problem about which you are being questioned then the answer is ......
I DON'T KNOW not the ever growing stream of BS coming out of Sling and her followers.
This is not the problem some think it is , due to the magic of CO2 AGW can lead to anything , nothing and everything, so all circumstances are covered no matter what. Now you may say that this is not a scientific approach, and I would agree with you, but this is not a problem either becasue its not science that is being done. Think politics or religion then you will understand how this all works .