BoM predicted heat late 2011 – another BoM utter failure

On with our series exposing, inaccurate Australian Bureau of Meteorology Outlook predictions for max and min temperature – this time for October to December 2011. The comparison between the Outlook and real world result is stark.
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The BoM promised scorching daytime heat in a variety of places – note that amazingly – NO areas would be cooler than normal. The result showed we experienced cooler than normal days over the vast majority of Australia and mostly near normal days over the rest.
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These BoM models are not worth a cup full of warm spit – yet the entire effort costs us $millions every year.

14 thoughts on “BoM predicted heat late 2011 – another BoM utter failure”

  1. Sorry Warwick couldn’t find where to put this copy of a comment I put on Jo Nova’s blog

    Steve Goddard has the 2012 Global Warming report posted (with graphs and links)
    www.real-science.com/2012-global-warming-report-card
    in summary (as he says)
    The massive bulk of evidence indicates that nothing is wrong, and that Hansen, Mann and the rest of the hockey team are not being honest with us.

    ■Temperatures are below Hansen’s zero emissions after 2000 Scenario C
    ■Global temperatures are declining this century
    ■Sea level has been declining for several years, and is lower now than it was in 2003
    ■Arctic ice extent and area is the highest for the date since 2005
    ■Temperatures in western Greenland last year were the coldest since 1996
    ■Temperatures in Antarctica have been declining for 30 years
    ■Antarctic ice has been increasing for 30 years
    ■Winter snow extent is increasing, and has been near record highs in recent years
    ■Temperatures in Texas show no increase since 1895
    ■Drought in Australia is at historic lows
    ■Drought in the US is well below the mean
    ■Severe tornadoes are on the decline in the US
    ■US hurricane strikes are on the decline
    ■Intense hurricanes are on the decline
    ■Polar Bear populations have tripled
    ■Yellowstone Grizzly Bear populations have tripled
    ■USHCN raw thermometer data shows that the US has been cooling since 1895
    ■The ten deadliest floods in history all occurred with CO2 below 350 ppm
    ■The deadliest US hurricane, the most powerful US hurricane, and the deadliest US tornado all occurred with CO2 below 350 ppm

    and as he says ‘Lets put this scam to bed in 2012; it has nothing to do with science …’

    and don’t miss S Fred Singer ‘Fake, fake, fake’ www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/fake_fake_fake_fake.html

    Time is becoming short. We’re reaching a tipping point — not of the earth’s climate, but of the financial schemes that permanently divert funds from productive activities into wasteful ones, all in the name of “saving the climate.” The results are evident: higher levels of spending, deficits, or taxes; higher prices for energy and electricity and therefore for all manufactured goods; less productive activity; less employment; and more misery.

    It seems odd that all of this is essentially based on a fake — the data that seem to show a (nonexistent) warming. It will be difficult to overturn this notion, but we must keep trying.

    ——————————————————————————–

  2. The BOM should stick to 5 day forecasts; at least the Adelaide office has been pretty close. Alternatively, they could take off their alarmist glasses; they might start to more accurate for long term forecasts.

  3. val majkus Says – Fred Singer

    Thanks for the link. Very interesting. It does raise the question of how much warming did occur in the twentieth century?

    Certainly it warmed from somewhere around 1905 until 1940/2. But it cooled until about 1975. It warmed up in the 1980’s and early 1990’s, but did it warm any more than the previous peak in 1940?

    I have always wondered about the OFFICIAL version. It had a slow warming from 1850-1885, but that was the time when most glaciers were well and truly retreating. Major retreats were noted in the European Alps by the late 1860’s. Considering the Official line of a fraction of a degree of warming, that argues for very high climate sensitivity. It is true that in the last 20 years certain passes through the Alps have become passable, along with indications that they were in use at various times in the past. Also that the Grindlwald glacier has retreated enough to uncover trees recorded as being covered by it in the 1260’s, but do glaciers actually respond instantly to air temperatures; I think not.

    I realise that glacial retreat in Canada and Iceland wasn’t as strong, and that there were advances in 1890-1905 (setting off a ‘coming Ice Age’ scare), but there was rapid movement after that time. In the 1920’s they started growing grain (oats, barley? definitely not wheat) in Iceland again, after a gap of 400 odd years, indicating a rise in average local temperature from 1 to more than 4.5ºC.
    All the information about the Arctic seems to indicate that in 1940 the area of pack ice was less than now (even 2007).

    Singer’s reference is mainly to marine proxies not showing any warming for the past century, but the oceans are a giant heat ‘flywheel’ and would average out fluctuations. Besides, any change in temp. is unlikely to exceed any measurement error with those methods.

    And also, where do the official figures come from? In 1850 there were no Weather Bureaus in Sydney, Brisbane, Darwin nor Perth. Just adding temperatures from them in would seem to show a rise in average temp. for Australia even if none occurred.

    Re Singer’s comments on the “approaching tipping point” of financial calamity; I have long been a fan of the (late) Prof. C. Northcote Parkinson, a prophet who managed to be accorded no honour in any country despite accurate predictions. He may get a passing reference for his book Parkinson’s Law (essentially that a bureaucracy, especially a public service, expands regardless of the work to be done) but was able to write another book 20 years later pointing out that it had not had any effect in the UK.
    He also published in 1963 EAST and WEST, in which he predicted the collapse of communism, the breakup of the USSR and the rise of Islamic extremism. At least he saw that one come about before his death (1993).

    More importantly, in 1959/60 he wrote THE LAW and THE PROFITS in which he predicted (as there was no natural barrier) the continuing rise of government expenditure (and taxation and debt) and increasing tendency to interfere with people’s behaviour (the Nanny State) with resistance in the form of increasing tax evasion, rising crime and corruption, and a rise in the black economy. Exactly the mess Europe (including the UK) and the USA find themselves in.

    Those in charge would be baffled and resistant to any change (see ineffectual attempts to prop up the Euro) until the actual limit which would be the general populace using the politicians to decorate the lampposts.

    You may occasionally find copies, usually paperbacks, in the OP Shops etc. I think you would enjoy them.

  4. Warrick,

    I don’t know if these projections came out of models or imaginations. It was a brave? call given the amount of soil moisture over most of the continent and the strong possibility of a second La Nina season. But then there was a Carbon tax to defend and Durban over the horizon. Has the BoM any credibility left?

  5. Sorry Warwick, to be slightly off topics but in reply to Graeme Inkster -I read one of Parkinson’s books, the one about Parkinson’s Law which was very entertaining.
    I can recommend another book which actually mentions climate changes or cycles
    “The Great Seesaw -A view of the western world 1750-2000” by (Prof) Geoffrey Blainey 1988. In some of the chapters he stretches the time back a little. Blainey also links climate cycles in his “A Short History of the World” 2000. His Chapter 15 has the title “The Perils of climate and disease”. Climate also gets a mentions in Chapter 23 “Dethroning of the Harvest” with crop failures and cold winters eg “Called in retrospect the Little Ice Age, this era of climate continued for about 300 years. Thousands of French, Swiss, Italian and Austrian farms on the foothills of the Alps were devastated by the the cooler seasons.”
    The history of climate cycles is there also in Australia. Try Chapter 5 “Pleistocene Origins” in “The Prehistory of Australia” by D J Mulvaney. Travel some time to Maree SA and look at the ruins of houses along the way particularly the town Farina en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farina,_South_Australia

  6. Graeme thank you for that tip, I’ll keep an eye out for The Law and the Profits

    I checked out C. Northcote Parkinson on the net and found some great quotes at www.qotd.org/search/search.html?aid=917&page=1

    the ones that struck a chord with me are these ones:

    Deliberative bodies become decreasingly effective after they pass five to eight members
    A committee grows organically, flourishes and blossoms, sunlit on top and shady beneath, until it dies, scattering the seeds from which other committees will spring
    Expenditure rises to meet income.
    If there is a way to delay an important decision, the good bureaucracy, public or private, will find it.
    The man who is denied the opportunity of taking decisions of importance begins to regard as important the decisions he is allowed to take. He becomes fussy about filing, keen on seeing that pencils are sharpened, eager to ensure that the windows are open (or shut) and apt to use two or three different-colored inks.
    The matters most debated in a deliberative body tend to be the minor ones where everybody understands the issues.
    The smaller the function, the greater the management.
    Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. General recognition of this fact is shown in the proverbial phrase “It is the busiest man who has time to spare.”

    and a scientific quote for you

    Parkinson’s Law is a purely scientific discovery, inapplicable except in theory to the politics of the day. It is not the business of the botanist to eradicate the weeds. Enough for him if he can tell us just how fast they grow.

  7. Hey sillyfilly,
    Snip
    I am not having blatant misinformation here. There is enough around in the main stream media.
    Editor.

  8. On the first hot day the BOM state on the news that it was another record breaking “hot” year as they predicted and as a result of AGW. Yet still no “journalist” can ask real questions to them.

  9. Substantive criticism not allowed obviously. Have I hit a raw nerve in pointing out you obvious errors.
    Added by Editor: We allow a big range of discussion but you are expected to understand the issue.
    You sent in two links to BoM maps that are nothing to do with the issue of checking the performance of the Outlooks.
    Making smartarse pejorative comments will get you nowhere here.
    The first link you sent is to an average max temp climatology over 56 years – no relevance at all to the Outlook map I have tested – Australians know their land is mostly warmer in the north than the south.
    The second link of yours can make a 3 month map of actual max temp contours – also not relevant as a test of the Outlook map.
    You have to use “anomaly” maps to test the Outlooks – as I do – because the Outlooks are all about the “chance” expressed as contoured percentages – of exceeding the average max temp for the various regions over the 3 month period.

  10. Editors note: The BoM makes the same comparisons that I do – if you would only check.
    Take the Spring 2011 Outlook – published on 25 August.
    Now scroll down the page – down past the Minimum T Outlook.
    See the two links;
    Maximum temperature departures from average for May to July 2011 – base period 1961-1990
    Minimum temperature departures from average for May to July 2011 – base period 1961-1990

    I have just put in the Max T link for you – see what it brings up – a map of the Maximum Temperature Anomaly for the preceding 3 month period. So the Spring Outlook will be ground truthed at the time the December Outlook is published – which was 20 Dec – and sure enough if you scroll down that page – there is the link.
    I think it is game-set & match to me MikeH and sillyfilly.

    MikeH comment starts; The first graph is the chance of exceeding the median Max Temp which is based on 56 years of data 1950 to 2005.

    This is identified at BOM with the sentence “The chance that the average October to December maximum temperature will exceed the long-term median maximum temperature” Click the link on “median maximum temperature” for the definition.

    The second graph is labelled at BOM with “All temperature anomalies are calculated with respect to the average over the 1961 to 1990 reference period.”

    You are comparing apples and oranges.

  11. More like a foot fault to you Warwick.

    Again the first graph is the outlook (probability) of that the average October to December 2011 maximum temperature will exceed the long-term median maximum temperature which is based on 56 years of data – 1950 to 2005

    www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/climatology/temperature/percentile/maximum/50/p50-October-December.png

    The temperature anomaly is not based on the same median.

    In any event your claim that “The BoM promised scorching daytime heat in a variety of places – note that amazingly – NO areas would be cooler than normal” is not what the BOM claimed at all.

    The BOM says “Probability outlooks should not be used as if they were categorical forecasts.” BOM only assigned moderate confidence to these probabilities. Even so based on the average (not median) anomaly graph (baseline 1960-90 excluding the warmer years after 1990) they were not far from the mark.

    Perhaps you can explain to your readers what a probability of 50% implies. Here is a hint – there is equal probability that temps would be lower than the 1950-2005 max median.

  12. I think your explanation is wastyd on them, Mike – these people are clearly suffering from a deep-seated intellect envy towards those who are obviously much smarter than them.

    They are also completely deluded as to their own intellectual abilities, which are hilariously minimal.

    Here’s an interesting question: Who’s dumber? Warwick Highes or Jo Nova?

  13. Vince, MikeH, and Sillyfilly,

    OK the graphs are not exactly comparable, but surely you should be blaming the Bureau for this, rather than Warwick. The Bureau makes forecasts that are then difficult to check exactly against reality because the reality charts are on a different base period. There is no good reason for this – the real reason is probably just that the two workstreams are done in different parts of the Bureau that don’t talk enough to each other.

    The other difference in the graphs is that the predictions are given as percentage chances of warmer than usual, whereas the reality charts are actual degrees warmer (or cooler) than usual. Here again it would be a lot easier to judge predictions if the Bureau directly forecast the temperature anomaly. In any case, just giving the chances of warmer or cooler than normal is pretty useless if you don’t know by how much.

    Forecasting actual degree anomalies would also get away from the Bureau’s confusing mumbo-jumbo about reliability. First they give percentage chances of warmer than usual weather. But then we hear they “only assign moderate confidence to these probabilities”. So, what if they are only 70% sure of a 70% chance of warm weather? Does this mean they are only 49% sure of warm weather, or what does it mean? It would be much clearer if they just made a map showing what temperature anomalies they predict.

    In the end Warwick still has a strong point. The Bureau said they expected 95% of the continent to be warmer than normal, and 60% then turned out cooler than normal. So they stuffed it.

    By the way, 25% of the continent was more than a degree below normal, which would dwarf any differences attributable to base periods. And if the 1961-90 base for the reality chart is cooler than the 1950-2005 base for the prediction, then reality was even cooler relative to prediction than it now appears.

    It is not as if this is an isolated case. The BoM forecasts have been quite useless for years. Whatever minor adjustments might be made for base periods, the regional patterns of over and under for both temperature, and more important, rainfall, have been unreliable time after time. See lots more examples here. www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=931.

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