Flawed Science Costs Us Dearly

The average annual household energy bill is £1,330 - twice what it was five years ago.

The 'big six' energy companies are claiming that aside from the wholesale gas price, the biggest factor in rising tariffs is the raft of subsidies for wind farms and other low-carbon technologies.

British Gas, the country's biggest utility, said green charges account for £150 of the overall bill - a 50% increase from 2007, when they accounted for £94.

Energy UK, the industry body, will publish a report within the next few days, which is expected to say that a new scheme designed to slash household energy use will add as much as another £50.

Politicians blame the huge increases on the greed of the 'big six' but never mention the increasing 'green' tax on bills.  They substantiate imposing these green taxes on every household and business because they want us to believe that without them these islands will shortly lose all power and we will be back to living as they did in the 1800s.

But I suspect few noticed the Met Office report (graphic above) which was released recently. According to the Mail on Sunday it states the world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago and that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperature.  I never heard that on the main BBC or Sky news - mainly because it the report was issued quietly on the internet.

This means that the 'plateau' in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996.  Before that temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.

Naturally there's disagreement with the pro and anti groups, with Phil Jones, of the University of East Anglia saying 16 years is too short a period from which to draw conclusions.  Others disagree. Judith Curry, who is the head of the climate science department at America's George Tech university, said it was clear that the computer models used to predict future warming were 'deeply flawed'.

The Guardian rubbishes the Mail article and insists the journalist has misinterpreted the report. (Unfortunately I can't find it on their site now).  The Guardian's summary is dependent on 'global surface temperatures have most likely increased since 1997'.  Don't they know?  How can they insist others are wrong when they themselves have no proof they are right?  The last point in their summary shows the prime concern of  the Guardian's view - money. 'Carbon pricing will result in a net benefit [to] the economy as compared to doing nothing and trying to adapt to the consequences'.

Joe Bastardi, a meteorologist and chief forecaster to Weatherbell Analytics (a respected company) has questioned Barack Obama's climate change plans.

Anthony Watts has an interesting article entitled Carbon dioxide - our salvation from a future ice age? which suggest peatlands could contribute towards global cooling.

For the first time in 18 years the IPCC will not be attending the upcoming United Nations Climate Change conference.  Why?  Because they haven't been invited.

Are other countries waking up to the cost of green taxes which have evolved from flawed science?

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The Met Office's Prediction for winter 2010.

In October 2010, National Grid published its Winter Outlook 2010/11




It bases its purchasing and transmission commitments upon many variables, perhaps the most important being the weather.





The country's energy supply, and, reliable security-of-supply therefore depends upon the accuracy of weather forecasts.


This is particularly important for the Nation's gas supply because sufficient gas has to have been previously committed to storage; and, contracted to be withdrawn from storage [whilst the distribution system remains topped-up].

Unlike electrical power supplies which can be temporarily interrupted & then switched back on again, the Gas Transmission System MUST remain pressurised.




Perhaps the organisation which was responsible for those weather predictions ought to invest in a more accurate computational model?

Met Office Global long-range probability maps [Enter 'Issued' - Oct 2010; 'Period' - 2-4 months; 'Region' - Europe to see how warm they thought it'd be.]

Because that forecast also heavily influenced local authority road-salt purchasing & storage decisions, it perhaps explains why so many councils were 'unprepared' for the prolonged snow + ice conditions.

A guest post by Joe Public.

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Who Would You Believe?

The photograph shows Professor Julla Slingo OBE, who is the Met Office's chief scientist, posing in front of "deep black" the MO's Supercomputer (courtesy of WattsUp).

Professor Slingo firmly believes in global warming.  Well she would wouldn't she as head of the Met Office.  A fellow blogger has quoted part of an interview Prof Slingo gave to Nature magazine.

What’s the biggest obstacle to creating better, hazard-relevant weather forecasts?

Access to supercomputers. The science is well ahead of our ability to implement it. It’s quite clear that if we could run our models at a higher resolution we could do a much better job — tomorrow — in terms of our seasonal and decadal predictions. It’s so frustrating. We keep saying we need four times the computing power. We’re talking just 10 or 20 million a year — dollars or pounds — which is tiny compared to the damage done by disasters. Yet it’s a difficult argument to win. You just think: why is this so hard?

So bigger computers, costing more millions, is the answer to more accurate Met Office forecasting.

My fellow blogger wasn't at all happy with the above comment and yesterday decided to email Joe Bastardi and Piers Corbyn to ask what computers they use in their far more accurate forecasts.

Already he has received comprehensive replies from both men.  You can read them here.  It will be a few minutes well spent.

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Met Office Announcement and Not Before Time

The Met Office is scrapping its long-term weather forecasts. Yes you read that correctly.

In what will widely be seen as an embarrassing climbdown, the Devon-based weather centre insisted the move came in response to public poling. (Nobody ever polls me.)

"Our research suggests the public aren't interested in seasonal forecasts but they do want monthly forecasts," a spokeswoman insisted.

Rather an obtuse way of saying 'the public cottoned on too quickly to the fact that our long-range forecasts were rubbish' don't you think.

source

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