Comments on: BBC interviewer absolutely grills UK Met Office’s John Hirst over weather forecasts and salary

By: ClimateReview

ClimateReview — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 01:11:23 +0000

The BBC is potentially one of Britain’s best exports. However, even though it is publicly funded, it is riddled with vested interests and is far less objective than we generally credit it. For example, the sudden tanking of David Bellamy’s career because he wouldn’t tow the party line (http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/69623).

The “we love to hate it” Fox network seems to be taking the risks and delivering a far more insightful version of the news with irritating but good characters like Glenn Beck:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fsAGJwQhoY

By: yonason

yonason — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:29:18 +0000

"He duly did, smugness personified, declare that the Met Office had made the severe warning prediction as far back as the day before!" ...the day after he read it on WeatherUnderground? ...because the Brits depend on these Bozos for life and limb.

By: TaxanBan

TaxanBan — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 09:09:21 +0000

Thanks for your well researched reply. It doesn’t actually answer my question, but thanks for taking the time to send it. I suggest that you save it and keep posting it as it may eventually be relevant ot something nin the real world.

By: polistra

polistra — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:23:23 +0000

Neal is great! Slapping the Met with detailed facts.

But it’s not starting to resemble Fox News. Fox has some rightish commentators who are on the side of science, but the “news” parts of Fox are still firm believers in the Carbon Cult. Shep Smith, for instance, openly refers to the “deniers” as Nazis and says they should be institutionalized.

By: mike t

mike t — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 09:55:05 +0000

Just face it they ain’t got a clue what they are predicting and your sarcasm doesn’t add anything to their bullshit

By: DougS

DougS — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 21:35:43 +0000

Andrew Neil (or is it Neal) has jus become my favourite interviewer.
The (unspeakable) BBC should appoint him as ‘AGW sceptic interviewer’ and let him loose on a few other AGW zealots…….but they won’t!

By: TCWHITTLE

TCWHITTLE — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 20:35:29 +0000

Models. Huh! Even the “Climate Scientists” don’t have great faith in them – they know they are overly simplistic, and too “mathematical”. The system is way too chaotic to model, and they know it. Yet the models are all they have, in the face of observation which is showing them up, constantly. Why can’t we spend money where we know it will help? $US70 billion would feed a lot of starving kids, and treat a lot of Aids sufferers. But that’s not what AGW is about, is it? How dare people say “Let them die so we can save more later.” Has anyone asked those dying Kids how they feel about their sacrifice?

By: Steve Mennie

Steve Mennie — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:48:19 +0000

TaxanBan..

As I understand it, they run models that have been fed known instrumentation based information..(past records) and if the models give them answers that correspond with the known data – data that is not model generated but based on known instrumentation – then the models are considered reliable. This is a layman’s view, but I think I have the general concept right.

By: Steve Mennie

Steve Mennie — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:45:31 +0000

Here’s a thought experiment for you, Lady in Red..

Look at your front lawn..if you don’t have one then imagine having one and look at it. Supposing it’s healthy, it’ green right?

Okay now get a little closer..maybe actually stand on the lawn and look directly down at it..now you can see little bits of dead grass and maybe some sticks and leaf remains etc. The green is now flecked with bits of other colours right?

So get down on your knees and look even closer. It’s beginning to look not so all-over green anymore isn’t it? And if you you were to get even closer..say using a magnifying glass..or closer yet and use a microscope and the concept of ‘green’ begins to disappear altogether and if we went to an electron microscope the concept of organic might even disappear and we have only atoms and molecules to look at.

Or..maybe this is better..mix salt and pepper together and you have a mixture that looks grey..but if you looked at that mixture with a microscope you would only see black and white bits and pieces.

This works for me to get a handle on the difference between weather and climate. The CLIMATE would be your lawn..and it looks ‘predictably’ green..the WEATHER would be the individual bits that actually make up what you refer to as your lawn and they are not uniformly or predictably green. They are pretty much chaotic and randomly coloured.

So while it may be very difficult to make any dependable predictions about the colour of the individual bits, it is possible to make out larger and more dependable predictions about the larger ‘pattern’ – your lawn.

By: TaxanBan

TaxanBan — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:18:05 +0000

Andrew Neill did a very good job, but he missed one thing. John Hirst said that long term climate models were reliable – how does he know that? We haven’t had a long enough period to test them, unless he has regenerated from being Dr. Who and has travelled into the future.