Met Office porkies

[lustyd]

an intensity more akin to 'religious fanaticism', even sectarianism, than sober evaluation of the range of 'known unknowns'.

While I don't question that climate change is real, I very much agree with this. It was the same during Covid where those experts were later shown to be wrong. It shouldn't be taboo to question the "what do we do about it?". Planting trees, for example, cannot help with climate change and yet there's an enormous industry dedicated to carbon credits for planting trees. Some very well executed research showed that rainforests have an overall damaging effect with greenhouse gases since biomass (leaves etc.) fall and get turned to methane by bacteria.

 

[franksingleton]

Clearly, the IPCC has failed to convince many people of the gravity of the reality of climate change. The Roysl Society, one of the most highly regarded scientific institutions says that -


Human activity is changing the climate of our planet and destroying its biodiversity at an unprecedented rate. Over the past two centuries, greenhouse gas emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities have altered the composition of the atmosphere. This in turn is causing more heat to be retained and driving up global temperatures.

Climate change is increasing the risk of extreme weather and rising sea levels, harming our ability to grow food and making it harder for biodiversity to thrive; potentially impoverishing our planet in ways that will hamper the benefits we can derive from it.
That is an unequivocal statement. Clearly, the IPCC has failed to convince many people of the dangers we are facing. In particular, they have failed to make it clear that GHGs are the main driver of climate. I make no claims to be a climate scientist but, after a lifetime involvement in meteorology, I see no reason to doubt the basic facts. Over most of the past 800,000 years for which data are available, CO2, the dominant GHG, remained under 300 ppm. During that period, through glacial and inter glacial periods, animal and plant life evolved to where we are now. Since the Industrial Revolution, CO2 has increased, rapidly, to about 420 ppm, values last seen around 3 or 4 million years ago. Temperatures then were about 1.5 degC higher than they are now. Unless we take action, first, to reduce GHGs to net zero and, secondly reduce GHGs generally, the future is bleak. Yes, it will be at great cost but what is the alternative?

This is from the UK Met Office/ Hadley centre.


Taken in conjunction with the next diagram, it really is a no-brainer
http://weather.mailasail.com/w/uploads/Franks-Weather/Rev-temp-co2-800000.png

 

[NormanS]

Statistics are wonderful. A quick glance at the previous post had me seeing "haircuts".
Just as global mean temperatures are shown to have risen, so has the number of haircuts performed. Obviously it's haircuts that are the problem.
Or just possibly the collosal increase in human population. That is the real elephant in the room, which nobody dares to mention. Without getting the world population down to a realistic level, all the "green" solutions are pointless.

 

[johnalison]

Like many people here, I won’t be around to see the worst of what will happen, but this doesn’t mean that we don’t have real concerns for our children and grandchildren. It is a shame that when I see myself being hectored by Greta or wonder about the possibility of missing my trip to hospital or airport by people gluing themselves to the road, I have an uncontrollable desire to go out and burn as much fuel as I please and book an unnecessary flight to somewhere far-flung just for the hell of it.

 

[zoidberg]

I don't know about the "eye-watering salaries and stipends", I've always understood scientific salaries are normally on a fixed scale, though the budget for their research may well be eye-watering.

I take it you haven't looked at the Remuneration figures for senior management of the Met Office ( a 'limited company' wholly owned by HMG ) over the years..... and the eye-watering performance bonuses they award themselves....?

It's matter of record that one such Senior Executive of the Met Office was forced to repay a large chunk of 'choke-a-horse' performance bonus when it emerged the figures on which the annual performance was based - rather like those mentioned above - were largely 'porkies'.

It proved difficult to excuse that as 'experimental error' or even 'Other data series have been derived using statistical and other techniques in order to combat gaps in observed data series.' It is certainly Jesuitic understatement blandly to chant 'there was always understandable doubts due to the quality of the data.' ( see #23/31 )

There's quite a history of senior Met Office apparatchiks packaging tentative conclusions part-based on incomplete information ( data ) and peddling them to the rest of us as hard fact. To have these individuals claim they are acting as 'scientists' when in fact they are clearly administrators and have strayed into 'marketing' is to bring discredit and deep scepticism - i.e. distrust - to the whole of their enterprise.

Numerous professional meteorologists - who are not all employed by the Met Office - have strong scepticism about numerous aspects of the Met Office's operation.... including one past-President of the Royal Meteorological Society, with whom I collaborated some years ago on some 'mischief' related to the debunking of the claimed reliability of the Shipping Forecast.... which was published by the then-Editor of Practical Boat Owner ( a real old-style campaigning journalist! ) and later in the Journal of the Royal Met Society.

It is telling that the Met Office attempt to dismiss the published debunking was made by a 'marketing officer' and not a data scientist.

 

[franksingleton]

Statistics are wonderful. A quick glance at the previous post had me seeing "haircuts".
Just as global mean temperatures are shown to have risen, so has the number of haircuts performed. Obviously it's haircuts that are the problem.
Or just possibly the collosal increase in human population. That is the real elephant in the room, which nobody dares to mention. Without getting the world population down to a realistic level, all the "green" solutions are pointless.

Statistics do not explain or predict climate. They only describe what has happened. They provide confirmatory evidence. Statistics can disprove a theory but not prove one. As I have said many times and what is either overlooked or not understood by many people, including some in these threads, is that increasing GHGs leads to climate change aka global warming. I agree that increases in global population is an important factor. Assuming that we are not going to have a massive cull then decreasing GHGs is the best option if mankind is to exist much beyond 2100.
It is possible that I might be here in 2033, even a year or two longer. My concern is for my grandchildren and great-grandchildren. With temperatures continuing to rise and sea levels also,what chances will they have?

 

[franksingleton]

I take it you haven't looked at the Remuneration figures for senior management of the Met Office ( a 'limited company' wholly owned by HMG ) over the years..... and the eye-watering performance bonuses they award themselves....?

You are clearly jaundiced. The CEO is paid less than the average CEO. Bonuses were discussed in a thread not long ago. Per capita, the average was modest.

It's matter of record that one such Senior Executive of the Met Office was forced to repay a large chunk of 'choke-a-horse' performance bonus when it emerged the figures on which the annual performance was based - rather like those mentioned above - were largely 'porkies'.

Standards in public life are not always what we would like. What happened to the Brexit claim of money that would be available for the NHS after Brexit? Who lied about Covid parties at No 10?

It proved difficult to excuse that as 'experimental error' or even 'Other data series have been derived using statistical and other techniques in order to combat gaps in observed data series.' It is certainly Jesuitic understatement blandly to chant 'there was always understandable doubts due to the quality of the data.' ( see #23/31 )

There's quite a history of senior Met Office apparatchiks packaging tentative conclusions part-based on incomplete information ( data ) and peddling them to the rest of us as hard fact. To have these individuals claim they are acting as 'scientists' when in fact they are clearly administrators and have strayed into 'marketing' is to bring discredit and deep scepticism - i.e. distrust - to the whole of their enterprise.

There is no point in trying to respond to vague innuendos.

Numerous professional meteorologists - who are not all employed by the Met Office - have strong scepticism about numerous aspects of the Met Office's operation.... including one past-President of the Royal Meteorological Society, with whom I collaborated some years ago on some 'mischief' related to the debunking of the claimed reliability of the Shipping Forecast.... which was published by the then-Editor of Practical Boat Owner ( a real old-style campaigning journalist! ) and later in the Journal of the Royal Met Society.

More vague innuendo. I think that you are referring to an article written over 30 years ago by John Thorne. It was not published in the QJ RMetS. In effect, he recommended crossing the Channel using yesterday’s weather as a forecast. I made my views about the article quite clear when Thornes presented it at a RIN/R Met S meeting.

It is telling that the Met Office attempt to dismiss the published debunking was made by a 'marketing officer' and not a data scientist.

That is so for many replies to the media. It will have been written on advice from relevant experts. The Daily Skeptic article is plainly as sillyp as the letter to the MP upon which it was based.