At http://phys.org/news/2013-06-meteorologists-mull-weird-british-weather.html … climate scientists and meteorologists from the Met Office had a meeting a couple of days ago. They were somewhat bemused by all the soggy weather it would seem, last year and the year before. Too early to say what it is going to be like this year but by the looks of things the Jet Stream is so far south that we are above and beyond its wet reach. Basically, the weather over the last few years has not conformed with the models – I wonder why that is? They are saying it is weird weather and all to do with climate change – or the warm Arctic ocean. The trouble with that meme is that currently ice extent in the Arctic is higher than it has been for quite a few years. Last year's thin ice doesn't count anymore – or does it? It seems they do recognise 'a run of natural variability' has kicked in – but natural variability is supposed to be overridden by all that nasty co2 in the atmosphere. Actually, the weather is much like it was in the 1950s and 1960s. Notice it is the coldest spring for 50 years – which confirms that missive. Hardly anything out of the ordinary so what is all the fuss about?
At http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/met-office-do-i-see-a-prediction/ … whichs warms to the same meeting and press release, and the forecasting of natural mixtures – although they can't help themselves by saying the high levels of greenhouses gases are making things worse. At www.scotsman.com/news/environment/stand-by-for-10-years-of-rain-soaked-s… … stand by for 10 years of soggy summers – sounds like a prediction to me. Tall Bloke suggests they don't have a clue. Will this quote rival the famous barbeque summer of last year.
At http://phys.org/print290781293.html … more of the same, the press release after the meeting. Apparently it is all due to a warm North Atlantic Ocean – nothing to do with global cooling. The Met Office spokesman, with the apt surname of Belcher, said the Jet Strream had dropped too far south. Remarkable – if global warming was taking place the Jet Stream would have moved northwards. Clearly the warming has stopped and if the graphs and models still have a projected line going upwards they have nothing in common with reality. Another spokesman added, as if in a surreal parallel universe, most scientists agree the Earth's temperatures have risen because of emissions of heat trapping greenhouse gases. Well, they ain't trapping much heat at the moment.
Putting it all in a more lively way go to http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/seanthomas/100222487/when-it-comes-to-… trust-our-scientists-because-they-know-a-lot-of-big-words/ … which is taking the mickey out of the Met Office meeting. Sean claims he was there, in spirit form, and he heard what they had to say – something along the lines of describing one of them, the great belching One, as having a ghost stick and fingering a bunch of sharks teeth and mammoth bones and blowing smoke into a conch shell, 'here come de heap big warmy. Big time warmy warmy. Is big hot. Plenty big warm burny hot. Hot! Hot! Hot!But now not hot. Not now hot. Now is coldy coldy …' and so on. You can read all about this at www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/6/19/here-come-de-heap-big-warmy.html and at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/19/hump-day-hilarity-big-kahuna-warmy/ … where one commenter, Vukcevic, quotes a passage of Rudyard Kipling, 'a thin grey (dreary) fog hung over the city and the streets were very cold; for summer comes in England', which just goes to show, nothing new. Then there are all those Constable paintings of agricultural scenes with half the picture composed of the sky, and dark and forbidding clouds. Truly, an English summer – but only in the cooling cycle. In the complimentary warming cycle, every 30 years or so, we have warmer springs and milder winters. Says everything really.
Putting it all in some kind of perspective – from a statistical point of view and therefore not necessarily something to impress everybody, see http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/18/the-ensemble-of-models-is-complete… … which sums it all up nicely. RG Brown of Dukes University Physics Dept, takes apart the climate science practise of averaging the results of their models. The answer will always be wrong because 19 out of 20 of those models will by necessity be wrong – even supposing one of them was any where near to reality (which is unlikely). He calls this a horrendous abuse of statistics.
In a non statistical explanation of what is happening with our weather go to http://notrickszone.com/2013/06/20/joe-bastardi-to-rolling-stone-by-the-… … which is based on the real world rather than the computer screen – and a long knowledge of climate change and natural variability. It's how he makes his living – and it doesn't involve statistical calculations.