Has the Met Office built a computer model that works?

I am asking this because the met office have predicted the following;

Night-time temperatures could rise above 25C because of climate change

An extract;

The number of sweltering nights when the temperature in cities stays above 20C (68F) and the elderly become vulnerable to heat exhaustion will increase fivefold because of climate change, a Met Office study has found.

Opening the windows will make no difference because the outside temperature will be too warm for the heat in homes to escape. The “urban heat island effect”, in which buildings and roads absorb heat during the day and release it at night, could result in the temperature on the hottest nights remaining above 25C.

When will this happen then?

The Met Office study found that, by 2040, it could need to issue heatwave warnings for urban areas four times more frequently. The warning system was established after the 2003 heatwave to help people to protect those at risk, including the elderly, young children and those suffering with poor health caused by respiratory diseases.

So by 2040 the night time temperature will be at least 20C.

So they are predicting within 30 years what the temperature will be.

Does anyone remember this headline from March 2010;

Met Office drops seasonal forecast

An extract from the article;

Dave Britton, of the Met Office, admitted last night that it was just too difficult to give an accurate forecast for the seasons using the current science.
"Although we can identify general patterns of weather, the science does not exist to allow an exact forecast beyond five days, or to absolutely promise a certain type of weather.
"As a result, 'seasonal forecasts' cannot be as precise as our short-term forecast," he said.

The last line of the article reads;

The Met Office, based at Exeter in Devon, added that it would work towards developing the science of long range forecasting.

So has the Met Office built a new computer model that accurately predicts the weather in the future?

The Ash Cloud and the Computer models

I have been reading that the Met Office have been using their computer models to predict where the ash cloud is going.

I have a question.

Are these the same computer models that predicted our BBQ summer and our mild winter last year?

Just asking.

Met Office drops seasonal forecast

The Met Office is to stop publishing seasonal forecasts, after receiving criticism over its repeated failures to predict long-term weather prospects.

That is the headline to this article.

An extract from the article;

"Although we can identify general patterns of weather, the science does not exist to allow an exact forecast beyond five days, or to absolutely promise a certain type of weather.

I thought they could predict what will happen over 100 years from now, or am I getting the wrong end of the (hockey) stick?

Climate Change Time Again.

Just read this article.

The headline reads;

New evidence for man-made global warming

Man is responsible for global warming, according to a new report that hits back at the growing scepticism around climate change

An extract from the above article;

The Met Office-led report looked at the latest figures on global temperatures, melting sea ice and humidity. It also considered new evidence on the extent of warming in the Antarctic, rainfall patterns and salinity of the oceans.

It concluded that is was "human influence" that is changing the climate.

The article reminded me of this article a week ago.

The headline reads;

Met Office to look again at global warming records

The Met Office is to re-examine 160 years of global temperature records following the 'climategate' scandal.

An extract from the article;

The project, in partnership with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), will gather the original temperature records from thousands of weather stations around the world. The readings will be double-checked and new information that has become available, such as improved understanding of atmospheric change, will be added. The data will then be independently analysed to assess how the temperature has changed over different regions.

The new analysis, that will take three years, will not only provide a more detailed picture of global warming but boost public confidence in the science of climate change.

Now did the Met Office forget it was looking at all it's data again, or did these scientists not get the memo?

Or did they go through the 150 years of data in a week?

I am still sceptical about global warming. I am very sceptical about CO2 being the main contributor to global warming, but the governments of the world are still going ahead with the carbon credit scheme costing Britain, and other countries, millions if not billions of pounds.

All I want is the truth.

Has the Met Office messed up once to often?

Will they or won't they?

Met Office could be dropped by BBC after weather blunders

The Met Office and its presenters could be dropped by the BBC after string of weather blunders.

Read the Telegraph article for full details.

What Planet is this Guy on?

This is the headline to this article in the telegraph.

Met Office boss says winter forecasts have been 'very good indeed'

The head of the Met Office yesterday insisted that its recent forecasts had been "very good indeed", and blamed the public for not heeding snow warnings.

Here are a couple of my blogs on this subject, here and here.

What can i say, He must be laughing all the way to the bank with his £200,000 salary.

Barbeque Summers & Mild Winters

These are the two predictions for the summer and winter in the last year by the ONCE respected Met Office.

What more can be said.

Well, i have just read that for getting the weather completely wrong the chief executive John Hirst is receiving a 25% pay rise.

Here is a quote from the telegraph article

According to a copy of the organisation’s latest annual report and accounts, John Hirst, the organisation’s chief executive, received between £195,000 and £200,000 in pay and bonuses in 2008/9.

The figure is a 25 per cent increase on the £155,000 to £160,000 "pay equivalent" for Mr Hirst in 2007/8. Mr Hirst had joined midway through the previous financial year in September 2007.

Here is the best quote from the article, it did make me laugh;

A Met Office spokesman said Mr Hirst’s total pay had jumped because a “performance related bonus” from 2007/8 was paid in 2008/9. There was no underlying increase in salary, she said.

She said: "John Hirst’s salary reflected the need to bring in, and appropriately reward, skills to meet the significant opportunities and challenges in our weather and climate business.

Performance related bonus, so he was brought in to get the weather completely wrong then, or have i got the wrong end of the stick.

I know predicting the weather can be difficult, but to get it completely wrong over the last 2 - 3 years doesn't give me much confidence in John Hirst's abilities.

There are arguments that this is due to people in the met Office being part of the climate change conspiracy, where there computers are being manipulated to show or predict climbing temperatures to show global warming.

What ever the reason the people at the met office are getting the forecasts very wrong. In my opinion new blood should be brought in, and they must be allowed to do the job without being pressured by any side of the climate change argument.

I have just looked at the met office's website and i found the following;

"The Met Office provides a service which is second to none in helping the UK understand and make the most of the weather in this country and overseas."
Derek Twigg, Under Secretary of State for Defence

'A service second to none'. Not lately they haven't.

Another quote;

The Met Office’s Public Weather Service (PWS) provides the weather forecasts that the UK depends upon. It funds and is responsible for gathering observations of the current weather, developing and operating the computer model that predicts future weather, and the analysis of observations and model output to create our weather forecasts.

Yes we depend on the forecasts being right, or as near as possible, but you haven't been doing that well lately have you.

You fund and gather weather observations for computer model output to create weather forecasts, well i don't think the computers are working correctly, because i think your computers are adding 1 + 1 and coming out with an answer 4,573,458,215.3.

You can read for yourself the ' How valuable is the met office' web page here. Have a look and see what you think.

In a previous blog entry the met office predicted that 2010 will be 'more likely than not' the world's warmest year on record.

Well let us see what happens this year.

Next Year (2010) to be the World’s Warmest on Record, Met Office predicts.

This is the the prediction that the Met office has given. (See article)

Here are some quotes from the article;

Next year is “more likely than not” to be the world’s warmest year on record and man-made climate change will be a factor, according to the Met Office.

It announced at the Copenhagen climate change summit that it expected the global average temperature next year to be almost 0.6C warmer than the 1961 to 1990 average. It forecast an annual average of 14.58C compared with 14.52C in 1998.

They maybe right, but they did predict a 'barbecue summer' for this year.

Let us come back to this next year as see if they were right.

Anyone want to make any bets on the outcome.