if the weather stations that provide the data are constantly changing year on year its pointless compairing statistics from the current crop with statistics from the different weather stations in the system five years ago...
its like the headline we had a couple of summers ago... hottest english summer for 300 years... a digital thermometer had registered 0.1 of a degree higher than that recorded on a mercury thermometer in a vicar's garden. at best the vicar was probably only reading to half a degree... no data on the basic accuraccy of his thermometer....two different locations.. comparing the two readings is meaningless.
we may now have a calibrated precise world wide measuring system but historical data has to be assumed to be less accurate... so at best only large changes in climate can be assessed with any hope of doing it correctly
even if we assume climate change is happening, the biggest influence is the energy output of the sun... how long have we been assessing that with any degree of accuraccy... weve basically got nothing to compare current figures to... so any predictions f the future or estimates of the past are at best a guess.
Hot...
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Colin Miles
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Yes - Richard - and one of the problems that has existed with satellite readings is calibration drift!
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madasafish
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So lets get this straight.
If we have a hot summer, that's evidence of man-made global warming.
If we have a cool summer and a record cold winter, that's evidence of man made global warming as well. And the UK weather is irrelevant.
I think I understand it now.
If we have a hot summer, that's evidence of man-made global warming.
If we have a cool summer and a record cold winter, that's evidence of man made global warming as well. And the UK weather is irrelevant.
I think I understand it now.
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peter
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I merely note that the UK Met Office no longer forecasts much more than five days ahead and that is despite having one of the three most powerful computers in the UK.
They stopped doing longer range forecasts for the very sound scientific reason that events proved them to be so inaccurateas to be worthless.
Many of their current forecasts now include a "probability" factor.
They stopped doing longer range forecasts for the very sound scientific reason that events proved them to be so inaccurateas to be worthless.
Many of their current forecasts now include a "probability" factor.
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Colin Miles
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In reality there are so many microclimates in the British Isles that even the daily forecast can only be taken as a probability. But that is weather not climate. However, the bigger problem that the Met and other Forecasters face is that of timing and direction. Small changes in the speed and the direction of weather events inevitably diminish the accuracy of the general forecasts in the days ahead. Unfortunately the lack of accuracy in these forecasts greatly diminishes their credibility when it comes to climate change. Funding pressures also, I think, lead to their spinning the accuracy of their forecasts.
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Geoff
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The trouble is global warming / climate change is a distraction. If you tell people they won't have the fuel to drive to work in 10 years time (or whatever) because fossil fuels are running out that will focus minds more than theorising about the effect of a 10cm sea level rise or a 2 degrees temperature rise. Whatever the temperature trend data and whether it is influenced more by man or the sun is irrelevant compared with the depletion of a finite resource. We have to make changes in how we produce and use energy and if by chance we also save the planet from climatic meltdown that is a bonus. Change the message and the objective and people will buy into it and make it happen
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madasafish
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Peter said :
"I merely note that the UK Met Office no longer forecasts much more than five days ahead and that is despite having one of the three most powerful computers in the UK.
They stopped doing longer range forecasts for the very sound scientific reason that events proved them to be so inaccurateas to be worthless."
Hmm..
So lets see: they have huge computing power but cannot forecast more than 5 days ahead... yet tell us what the climate will be 50 years from now.
And you wonder why I am healthily sceptical about what they say about the future..
I was trained as a physicist that unless your results conform to your theories, your theories are wrong...
"I merely note that the UK Met Office no longer forecasts much more than five days ahead and that is despite having one of the three most powerful computers in the UK.
They stopped doing longer range forecasts for the very sound scientific reason that events proved them to be so inaccurateas to be worthless."
Hmm..
So lets see: they have huge computing power but cannot forecast more than 5 days ahead... yet tell us what the climate will be 50 years from now.
And you wonder why I am healthily sceptical about what they say about the future..
I was trained as a physicist that unless your results conform to your theories, your theories are wrong...
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John Walker
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I'm sorry this is rather a lengthy post but since my last posting there have been several interesting comments which I feel need a response.
I posted here initially to try and clarify any confusion between weather and climate (and how a few cold days don't disprove a gradually warming world) but this has brought out some other interesting points from forum members.
I don't intend to add very much more now because I am keen not to enter into endless two-way and unproductive exchanges. I would urge anyone keen to learn more to visit http://www.skepticalscience.com where many of the misconceptions around global warming (especially the arguments made against it) are addressed in largely accessible language.
But it would be good to hear from some other forum members as to whether they've found this thread informative and enlightening, and whether they've learnt anything from it - either from the discussion itself or from any of the links.
@Colin Miles
I asked John Cook, the creator of http://www.skepticalscience.com to look at the comment you left on 30 November. Here is his response (any additions from me are in brackets):
"The general thrust of the argument is that the evidence is shaky, but the evidence for warming, and that humans are the cause, is not based on any single line of evidence. There are many independent lines of evidence, measuring different parts of the climate system using a variety of techniques, all pointing to the same answer. With each independent piece of evidence, our confidence in the result increases [i.e. man-made global warming].
To the question of warming, we have tens of thousands of lines of evidence that warming is happening. We have thermometer measurements. These are confirmed by satellite measurements which find the same warming trend. Ocean heat measurements also find the world’s oceans are accumulating an astounding amount of heat (at a rate of 2.5 hiroshima bombs per second). The warming oceans are causing ice sheets to slide faster into the oceans, hence Antarctica and Greenland are losing ice at an accelerating rate (currently Greenland is losing 280 billion tonnes of ice per year). Glaciers are retreating, animals are migrating towards the poles, spring is coming earlier, and so on [for more information see http://www.skepticalscience.com/evidenc ... arming.htm].
Similarly, multiple lines of direct evidence indicate humans are the cause. Satellites measure less heat escaping to space at those specific wavelengths where CO2 absorbs heat. Surface measurements find this extra heat is returning back to Earth. With all this heat being trapped, weather balloons and satellites find the upper atmosphere is cooling and lower atmosphere is warming, a distinct fingerprint of greenhouse warming.
In 1895, Svante Arrhenius predicted that CO2 warming should lead to winter warming faster than summer and nights warming faster than days. Both have been observed. And there are a number of other lines of evidence that man is to blame [for more information see http://www.skepticalscience.com/its-not-us.htm].
There is a scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming – 97% of actively publishing climate scientists agree with the consensus. The reason for the consensus of scientists is the consensus of evidence – all the independent lines of evidence pointing to a single, coherent answer [i.e. man-made global warming]."
@richard p
Despite popular belief, the energy output of the sun is of little relevance to current global warming. There's a good explanation at Solar activity & climate: is the sun causing global warming?:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-a ... arming.htm
Yes, weather is irrelevent in the sense that it does not disprove man-made global warming is happening. Weather and climate are different. I offered information explaining why in my previous post (anyone reading in at this point might like to go back to that).
@peter
Forecasting tomorrow's weather and future global climate scenario's as warming increases are of course very different issues. I'm not sure having a bash at the Met Office is actually constructive in this discussion, especially as they are not here to defend themselves. I think what we can all agree on is that modern weather forecasting is improving constantly. They are not going to get it right all the time, but of course the natural world doesn't always do what we increasingly seem to think it should.
@Colin Miles
The notion that because weather forecasting is not bang on accurate all the time somehow sheds doubt on the ability of organisations (such as the Met Office) to look at what a warming climate might look like is surely a spurious and very red herring. As John Cook points out above, there are numerous lines of independent evidence all pointing to man-made global warming.
@Geoff
Global warming and diminishing reserves of fossil fuels (oil, coal, natural gas) are not two separate issues but are intrinsically linked. To try and separate them is the real distraction - and a dangerous one at that. There is very little evidence yet that the copious knowledge that fossil fuels are in decline is having any measurable effect on how we live our lives. Carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels is increasing year on year. The more carbon emitted by human activity, the more extreme climate change is predicted to become.
The predictions about rises in sea levels are not wild 'theorising' but are based on what we know to be factual evidence from how the earth has behaved in the past, when it has been both warmer and cooler. Scientists know how much water is stored as ice and what the effects are if it should melt.
So preventing climate chaos is not somehow a spin-off from reducing fossil fuel use. The two go hand in hand - we need to drastically decarbonise our ways of living as well as our economies to avoid both a resource crash and a climate crisis. I don't think anyone is saying it is going to be easy, but trying to decouple the two issues is extremely unwise.
I posted here initially to try and clarify any confusion between weather and climate (and how a few cold days don't disprove a gradually warming world) but this has brought out some other interesting points from forum members.
I don't intend to add very much more now because I am keen not to enter into endless two-way and unproductive exchanges. I would urge anyone keen to learn more to visit http://www.skepticalscience.com where many of the misconceptions around global warming (especially the arguments made against it) are addressed in largely accessible language.
But it would be good to hear from some other forum members as to whether they've found this thread informative and enlightening, and whether they've learnt anything from it - either from the discussion itself or from any of the links.
@Colin Miles
I asked John Cook, the creator of http://www.skepticalscience.com to look at the comment you left on 30 November. Here is his response (any additions from me are in brackets):
"The general thrust of the argument is that the evidence is shaky, but the evidence for warming, and that humans are the cause, is not based on any single line of evidence. There are many independent lines of evidence, measuring different parts of the climate system using a variety of techniques, all pointing to the same answer. With each independent piece of evidence, our confidence in the result increases [i.e. man-made global warming].
To the question of warming, we have tens of thousands of lines of evidence that warming is happening. We have thermometer measurements. These are confirmed by satellite measurements which find the same warming trend. Ocean heat measurements also find the world’s oceans are accumulating an astounding amount of heat (at a rate of 2.5 hiroshima bombs per second). The warming oceans are causing ice sheets to slide faster into the oceans, hence Antarctica and Greenland are losing ice at an accelerating rate (currently Greenland is losing 280 billion tonnes of ice per year). Glaciers are retreating, animals are migrating towards the poles, spring is coming earlier, and so on [for more information see http://www.skepticalscience.com/evidenc ... arming.htm].
Similarly, multiple lines of direct evidence indicate humans are the cause. Satellites measure less heat escaping to space at those specific wavelengths where CO2 absorbs heat. Surface measurements find this extra heat is returning back to Earth. With all this heat being trapped, weather balloons and satellites find the upper atmosphere is cooling and lower atmosphere is warming, a distinct fingerprint of greenhouse warming.
In 1895, Svante Arrhenius predicted that CO2 warming should lead to winter warming faster than summer and nights warming faster than days. Both have been observed. And there are a number of other lines of evidence that man is to blame [for more information see http://www.skepticalscience.com/its-not-us.htm].
There is a scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming – 97% of actively publishing climate scientists agree with the consensus. The reason for the consensus of scientists is the consensus of evidence – all the independent lines of evidence pointing to a single, coherent answer [i.e. man-made global warming]."
@richard p
even if we assume climate change is happening, the biggest influence is the energy output of the sun... how long have we been assessing that with any degree of accuraccy... weve basically got nothing to compare current figures to... so any predictions f the future or estimates of the past are at best a guess.
Despite popular belief, the energy output of the sun is of little relevance to current global warming. There's a good explanation at Solar activity & climate: is the sun causing global warming?:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-a ... arming.htm
If we have a hot summer, that's evidence of man-made global warming.
If we have a cool summer and a record cold winter, that's evidence of man made global warming as well. And the UK weather is irrelevant.
Yes, weather is irrelevent in the sense that it does not disprove man-made global warming is happening. Weather and climate are different. I offered information explaining why in my previous post (anyone reading in at this point might like to go back to that).
@peter
I merely note that the UK Met Office no longer forecasts much more than five days ahead and that is despite having one of the three most powerful computers in the UK.
They stopped doing longer range forecasts for the very sound scientific reason that events proved them to be so inaccurateas to be worthless.
Many of their current forecasts now include a "probability" factor
Forecasting tomorrow's weather and future global climate scenario's as warming increases are of course very different issues. I'm not sure having a bash at the Met Office is actually constructive in this discussion, especially as they are not here to defend themselves. I think what we can all agree on is that modern weather forecasting is improving constantly. They are not going to get it right all the time, but of course the natural world doesn't always do what we increasingly seem to think it should.
@Colin Miles
Unfortunately the lack of accuracy in these forecasts greatly diminishes their credibility when it comes to climate change. Funding pressures also, I think, lead to their spinning the accuracy of their forecasts.
The notion that because weather forecasting is not bang on accurate all the time somehow sheds doubt on the ability of organisations (such as the Met Office) to look at what a warming climate might look like is surely a spurious and very red herring. As John Cook points out above, there are numerous lines of independent evidence all pointing to man-made global warming.
@Geoff
The trouble is global warming / climate change is a distraction. If you tell people they won't have the fuel to drive to work in 10 years time (or whatever) because fossil fuels are running out that will focus minds more than theorising about the effect of a 10cm sea level rise or a 2 degrees temperature rise. Whatever the temperature trend data and whether it is influenced more by man or the sun is irrelevant compared with the depletion of a finite resource. We have to make changes in how we produce and use energy and if by chance we also save the planet from climatic meltdown that is a bonus. Change the message and the objective and people will buy into it and make it happen
Global warming and diminishing reserves of fossil fuels (oil, coal, natural gas) are not two separate issues but are intrinsically linked. To try and separate them is the real distraction - and a dangerous one at that. There is very little evidence yet that the copious knowledge that fossil fuels are in decline is having any measurable effect on how we live our lives. Carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels is increasing year on year. The more carbon emitted by human activity, the more extreme climate change is predicted to become.
The predictions about rises in sea levels are not wild 'theorising' but are based on what we know to be factual evidence from how the earth has behaved in the past, when it has been both warmer and cooler. Scientists know how much water is stored as ice and what the effects are if it should melt.
So preventing climate chaos is not somehow a spin-off from reducing fossil fuel use. The two go hand in hand - we need to drastically decarbonise our ways of living as well as our economies to avoid both a resource crash and a climate crisis. I don't think anyone is saying it is going to be easy, but trying to decouple the two issues is extremely unwise.
wonderful post john you seem to like the sceptical science website.... pity all the links dont produce any hard science to back your postulations. im not going to bore eveyone by nit picking my way through it.
however i will say that i think it is extreemly arrogant of you to post...
"I think what we can all agree on is that modern weather forecasting is improving constantly. "
i certainly dont agree with that statement, and im sure others dont either.
on a totally different tack one of the favourit postulations is...
we have global warming, ice is melting, sea levels are rising.
ok in the 70,s the thames barrier was built to protect london from flooding by the rising seas..(at the time we were told it had a finite life cos it would be overwhelmed by the ever rising sea in 20 or 30 years.) if you look at the thames barrier website they detail how often the barrier is raised into place... if the global warming , ice melting , sea level rising model is accurate we would expect to see the barrier raised more often year on year since its completion in 82.... sorry the hard figures dont show that happening, no doubt sceptical can explain that
i live in the somerset levels a region near sea level cut though by tidal rivers weve not seen an increase in sea flooding in my lifetime either.
however i will say that i think it is extreemly arrogant of you to post...
"I think what we can all agree on is that modern weather forecasting is improving constantly. "
i certainly dont agree with that statement, and im sure others dont either.
on a totally different tack one of the favourit postulations is...
we have global warming, ice is melting, sea levels are rising.
ok in the 70,s the thames barrier was built to protect london from flooding by the rising seas..(at the time we were told it had a finite life cos it would be overwhelmed by the ever rising sea in 20 or 30 years.) if you look at the thames barrier website they detail how often the barrier is raised into place... if the global warming , ice melting , sea level rising model is accurate we would expect to see the barrier raised more often year on year since its completion in 82.... sorry the hard figures dont show that happening, no doubt sceptical can explain that
i live in the somerset levels a region near sea level cut though by tidal rivers weve not seen an increase in sea flooding in my lifetime either.
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Colin Miles
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A very long post John and I won't try to answer it in detail. I am very well aware of the scientific evidence both for and against and the general consensus but, as you will no doubt be aware, science progresses by continually testing the theories with new facts. And new 'facts' emerge all the time - I put it in quotes as until facts are verified they are merely the latest bits to be added to all the rest, and some verify the theories, some don't - hence the need, with vastly complicated theories to be supported by a consensus of opinions. As for CO2 causing global warming that was something that worried me a bit back in 1961, but there we go. Nothing new under the Sun.
I respect Ben Goldacre for what he tries to do, but having had an email correspondence with him over the accuracy of Met Office Forecasts, or rather trying to have one, I found him more than a 'bit over the top'. When one is convinced of ones position there is a tendency to overstate the case and I fear this is what has happened on matters relating to GW. Understandable if indeed we are faced with potential disaster, but not necessarily the best way of forwarding the case.
I respect Ben Goldacre for what he tries to do, but having had an email correspondence with him over the accuracy of Met Office Forecasts, or rather trying to have one, I found him more than a 'bit over the top'. When one is convinced of ones position there is a tendency to overstate the case and I fear this is what has happened on matters relating to GW. Understandable if indeed we are faced with potential disaster, but not necessarily the best way of forwarding the case.
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Nature's Babe
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As always with scientific argument there are lots of different theories and supporters on both sides with everyone sure they are right and have all the answers. If we had all the answers we wouldn't be in such a pickle , with pollution problems, , climate change with more unpredictable weather incidents, melting icecaps, loss of bio diversity, and economic crises. Well as a woman with children and grandchildren and probably great grandchildren soon, I feel we owe it to future generations to err on the side of caution not to be right but to bend over backwards to protect their future and their environment and that is why I do my best to keep my emissions low and tread lightly on this planet. I want to be able to look my grandchildren in the eye and say I did my personal best to avert runaway global warming. and to conserve rescources for them. Actually the sun has been through quite a long period of low activity, when it recovers we might well rue the fact we ignored warnings.
Sit down before a fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconcieved notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.
By Thomas Huxley
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Elle's Garden
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To answer John Walkers question, as a reader of a thread like this, I find it fascinating. I don't have time to read all the links, I have to rely on the posts as I have so little time to enjoy the forum. I particularly enjoy discovering the totally diverse backgrounds of members of the forum - all brought together by a love of growing your own!
Kind regards,
Elle
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peter
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As I am being accused of bashing the Met Office when I was not it seems my original comment needs expansion.
The Met office owns one of the worlds most powerful computers, on which it runs one of the most sophisticated models of this world, which was devised by some very clever scientists in it's employ, this model use millions of items of data gathered in real-time from tens of thousands of sources.
Despite these resources they cannot accurately predict the weather in the UK this time next week.
Yet a number of less well-resourced people are adamant that they can accurarely predict what will happen in the same weather systems in five or ten years time.
Consider and contrast the realism and humility of the weather forecasters, with their probabilities of accuracy and willingness to accept their limitations, against the conviction, belief and lecturing of some global warming advocates, who are their own worst enemies when they preach and lecture from a position of being the only and wholly accurate truth.
That absolute conviction scares me and turns me away from listening to the message they want to convey, as in my head I hear the mob chanting "kill the unbelievers".
A more reasoned and argued case which recognised that it might not be entirely right would command my attention.
As yet the only world conclusion I have come to believe with any degree of certainty is "That there are no problems facing humanity or the planet we live on that could not be resolved by there being substantially fewer humans living on the planet." .
Articulating that principle is very difficult as the Chinese one-child law has shown, bringing it to a personal level impossible, of your twenty closest friends you decide who is to be allowed to have children and how many.
The Met office owns one of the worlds most powerful computers, on which it runs one of the most sophisticated models of this world, which was devised by some very clever scientists in it's employ, this model use millions of items of data gathered in real-time from tens of thousands of sources.
Despite these resources they cannot accurately predict the weather in the UK this time next week.
Yet a number of less well-resourced people are adamant that they can accurarely predict what will happen in the same weather systems in five or ten years time.
Consider and contrast the realism and humility of the weather forecasters, with their probabilities of accuracy and willingness to accept their limitations, against the conviction, belief and lecturing of some global warming advocates, who are their own worst enemies when they preach and lecture from a position of being the only and wholly accurate truth.
That absolute conviction scares me and turns me away from listening to the message they want to convey, as in my head I hear the mob chanting "kill the unbelievers".
A more reasoned and argued case which recognised that it might not be entirely right would command my attention.
As yet the only world conclusion I have come to believe with any degree of certainty is "That there are no problems facing humanity or the planet we live on that could not be resolved by there being substantially fewer humans living on the planet." .
Articulating that principle is very difficult as the Chinese one-child law has shown, bringing it to a personal level impossible, of your twenty closest friends you decide who is to be allowed to have children and how many.
Do not put off thanking people when they have helped you, as they may not be there to thank later.
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"That there are no problems facing humanity or the planet we live on that could not be resolved by there being substantially fewer humans living on the planet."
Indeed the major elephant in the room is population and it's massive growth. An interesting fact is that it took a thousand generations for the world's population to get to 1 billion.
It took a SINGLE generation for it to get to 6 billion.
It's this fact coupled with the energy and associated pollution that comes with this growth which is going to cause many more problems in the future.
It was also a popular myth that global warming would lead to hotter climate for UK. yes and no - it would mean more extreme weather, including winters.
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madasafish
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