Andrew Montford is increasingly being invited onto radio and television as a rational foil to extremism and here is writing in a weekly “magazine”, lively read is The Spectator.
Why the Met Office has hung its chief scientist out to dry
Andrew Montford 18 February 2014 10:57
Link to Spectator article and of course is linked by his blog Bishop Hill
The Met Office has not changed even though it might look that way to some. I’m not sure what Slingo did wrong from the Met Office point of view if anything since this might be knee jerk damage limitation after the event.
Montford mentions the heat means more water ploy where the idea is that AGW produced the heat therefore more rain. “This made a great deal of global warming having increased the water content of the atmosphere, leading to increased rainfall…”
I’ve mentioned this in the past but in a different context, as a raining out after historic hot times. I spent some time ages ago looking at ancient flood reports from China, Indian and so on. These seem to fit a vague cyclic pattern but not sound enough for me to speak out.
As I see it the flaw in the Met Office position is the chicken, they have no causal but like so many others they see a correlation which fits their own fear CO2… so it must be that. Correlation is causation.
The free running heat engine which is the earth water cycle has perhaps shed excess heat to space, fine, why is a whole different matter.
At the Talkshop the suspicion is that this is extraterrestrial in the form of input heat coupling with the external earth environment.
The reason for the recent prolonged wet and storms in the UK is explained I hope on my own blog, basically the stuck in place cold over North America is also a stuck Atlantic cooling loop and the UK is on the receiving end.
What actually comes before the effect, who knows, could indeed be external. Trying to understand what happened seems a better idea than losing one’s head, ending in a chicken stew.
Posted by Tim
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
“This made a great deal of global warming having increased the water content of the atmosphere, leading to increased rainfall…”
OK, but with no additional warming in the last 15+ years, let’s ask: why now?
And: why here in the UK? There’s a major drought in California at the moment, for example.
MetO were predicting more frequent droughts a year or two back, so where’s the credibility?
They always have a theory AFTER the event – usually one that contradicts the theory they had before the event.
Is this the first sign of the “silent majority” of scientists starting to make their presence felt? While most may still be wed to the IPCC dogma, they may, at least, be moving to slap down people like Slingo whose statements go over and beyond what the IPCC are stating.
Baby steps, people. Baby steps.
Anything is possible says:
February 18, 2014 at 4:56 pm
Is this the first sign of the “silent majority” of scientists starting to make their presence felt?
NO, just one chair, payed for by the Met Off donc UK taxpayers, who, for one second, forgot about the grant gravy train. He has been rehabilitated by the rest of the UK Met Off commisariat. No Problem. !!
They always have a theory AFTER the event – usually one that contradicts the theory they had before the event.
This winter being the classic. The Betts stable of accurate climate models forecast a winter tending to dryness. The previous year in april the same team forecast a year of drought and had all unnecessary water use banned only for it to pee of rain a week later and not stop ’til the end of the following winter. But as you said they had a theory (arctic ice, geese flying north, seaweed who knows? they certainly don’t.
@ Stephen Richards.
You, Sir, are even more cynical than I am, and that is no mean achievement! (:
I was looking forward to spending my final years in a Mediterranean Climate and quaffing some superb local grown wines.., (sigh)
Drought in the US coastal strip? I wonder how that relates to deluge here?
Good question TC – does anybody have an idea? See satellite photo in link below.
‘The last 12 months have been the driest since at least 1885, NASA said. From Feb. 1, 2013, through Jan. 31, 2014, the state [California] received an average of 6.97 inches of rain, or roughly 15 inches below the normal 22.51.’
http://news.yahoo.com/california-drought-space-nasa-photos-150921067.html
One man’s flood is another man’s drought perhaps.
Wet one side of N. Hemisphere, dry the other. Twas ever thus. But how and why?
News. 16th Feb marked one year of Chilbolton data. There will be around 200,000 active data points for each of many parameters. ~27MB in text form. Not perfect.
Normal weather for California guys! Sometimes drought, sometimes flood, at times in the same year. Just normal! My family has lived here near 200 years. After the 1885 drought, “Flood” of biblical proportions. The central valley was a lake for months. That is why they built reservoirs in the mountains and irrigation systems down in the valleys. When Anglos came to California the interior valleys were wilderness that even Indians refused it live in. Men turned Hell into Paradice. Ecoloons that don’t know better want wilderness. Maybe they think that they can live on Acorns like the Indians did. :-p yuk! pg
Does the pronounced shifting of the magnetic poles from northern Canada to Northern Siberia have anything to do with the movement of the northern jet stream which has brought colder air to the USA and more rain to the UK?
Hi Baz: Might be worth asking that question again on ren’s thread. Cheers.
Considering that the Met Office’s main task is to give acccurate and timely forecasts, surely on this measurement alone, this publicly paid for office should have dismissed these alarmists years ago.
tom0mason says: February 19, 2014 at 12:28 pm
I agree completely, in any Private Industry they would have been sacked long ago, the only people on a par with them is Bankers who are also rewarded for utter failure.
What is very encouraging though is that it is actually getting in to the MSM now rather than being hushed up.
Dr North has given Moonbat another kicking:
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=84728
“A longer report used by Mr Monbiot is also unhelpful to his cause. It merely calls for more time to assess the true impact of catchment-scale effects. The bucolic uplands stream, rushing through wooded glades, presents a fine picture, but there is no evidence that this contributes to the management of large-scale floods.
Even an Environment Agency report cited by Mr Monbiot, merely notes that the impacts of working with natural processes at a catchment scale “cannot currently be distinguished (especially during extreme precipitation events) “. All it could manage was the assertion that, “evidence is emerging that land-use change may have an impact in smaller catchments (i.e. potentially up to 10km2).
This is not then a case of a misunderstanding or ambiguity. Multiple references and as many papers as you care to consult, all attest to the same thing. Mr Monbiot is wrong. He is misrepresenting the situation and misleading his readers.”
‘Mr Monbiot is wrong. He is misrepresenting the situation and misleading his readers’
As long as his readers keep falling for it his job is safe, so why should he worry?
How to be worse than useless…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2564358/Could-Met-Office-wrong-Just-floods-secret-report-told-councils-Winter-drier-normal-especially-West-Country.html