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UK Met Office Spins into 2009
The Met Office have released their prediction for global temperatures in 2009. No record to beat 1998 is forecast for 2009, unlike the failed forecast for 2007, which resulted in the 2008 forecast being tempered.
Pacific continues to influence climate
30 December 2008
2009 is expected to be one of the top-five warmest years on record, despite continued cooling of huge areas of the tropical Pacific Ocean, a phenomenon known as La Niña.
According to climate scientists at the Met Office and the University of East Anglia the global temperature is forecast to be more than 0.4 °C above the long-term average. This would make 2009 warmer than the year just gone and the warmest since 2005.
During La Niña, cold waters rise to the surface to cool the ocean and land surface temperatures. The 2009 forecast includes an updated decadal forecast using a Met Office climate model. This indicates a rapid return of global temperature to the long-term warming trend, with an increasing probability of record temperatures after 2009.
Professor Chris Folland from the Met Office Hadley Centre said: “Phenomena such as El Niño and La Niña have a significant influence on global surface temperature. Warmer conditions in 2009 are expected because the strong cooling influence of the recent powerful La Niña has given way to a weaker La Niña. Further warming to record levels is likely once a moderate El Niño develops.”
These cyclical influences can mask underlying warming trends as Professor Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, explains: “The fact that 2009, like 2008, will not break records does not mean that global warming has gone away. What matters is the underlying rate of warming – the period 2001-2007, with an average of 14.44 °C, was 0.21 °C warmer than corresponding values for the period 1991-2000.”
Admin: More unscientific nonsense from Phil Jones – warming cannot be ‘masked’ and why is 1991 to 2000 considered more significant than any other period in the 12,000 year old Holocene? Who says 14C is the ‘correct’ global average temperature and what proof do they have? What’s all that CO2 doing?
Notes
* The Met Office Hadley Centre advises the UK government on climate change research. Its work is, in part, jointly funded by Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs); DECC (Dept for Energy and Climate Change and MoD (Ministry of Defence).
* The Met Office, in collaboration with the University of East Anglia, maintains a global temperature record which is used in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
* Each January the Met Office, in conjunction with the University of East Anglia, issues a forecast of the global surface temperature for the coming year. The forecast takes into account known contributing factors, such as El Niño and La Niña, increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, the cooling influences of industrial aerosol particles, solar effects and natural variations of the oceans.
* The 1961-90 global average mean temperature is 14.0 °C.
* Global temperature for 2009 is expected to be 14.44 °C, the warmest since 2005, when the value was 14.48 °C.
* The warmest year on record is 1998, which was 14.52 °C, a year dominated by an extreme El Niño.
* Over the nine years, 2000-2008, since the Met Office has issued forecasts of annual global temperature the mean value of the forecast error is 0.06 °C.
* The first Met Office decadal forecast to 2014 was issued in 2007.
* Interannual variations of global surface temperature are strongly affected by the warming influences of El Niño and the cooling influences of La Niña in the Pacific Ocean. 2008, with a provisionally observed temperature of 14.31 °C compared with the forecast value of 14.37 °C.
See also on CRN: Mystic Met: A Review of UK Met Office Predictions and Statements
January 4th, 2009 at 5:18 am
They are a bit like clairvoyants— keep making statements such as ” scorcher” of a summer and yes sooner or later one will come along. The bottom line is the weather is not playing along with the CO2/ AGW line at present and we need to stop and look at whats really happening before we commit billions of £ to waste.
If it could be shown to me that we are definately changing the climate seriously then I would gladly cut back on C02 emmissions, but to date whenever I ask the evidence isnt convincing.
I spent a lot of time looking at the UFO scene carefully and again when pressed the evidence evaporated away but people where making money out of it. Trouble is when someone comes up with a tall UFO story you know its likely to be false, but when they come up with an AGW scare its so much more difficult to disprove. I have to say most MP’s and Media have a terrible lack of science knowledge
January 4th, 2009 at 9:22 am
What amazes me is no one holds the Met accountable for screwing up in the past, and their obvious scientific bias.
As the Admin points out above, (a) Why is 1961 – 1990 considered the time frame that creates a “normal” temperature range? NASA tried the same crap science, and finally had to admit the 1920′s and 1940′s were hotter in the U.S. than any years since. (b) Why is the press not completely skeptical of new forecasts given out by the Met when it has been wrong multiple times in previous years?
I continue to be amazed that the Met, and other global warming advocates, are taken seriously about long term global warming predictions when they can’t even predict the coming year.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
You missed the obvious blunder. Sometimes they’re harder to see.
The title of the Met Office article is “Pacific continues to influence climate”, but the illustration is of the INDIAN OCEAN.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:35 am
The Met Office’s annual forecasts have consistantly over-estimated temperature by 0.075° on average.
Year Forecast Actual Error
2000 0.41 0.238 0.172
2001 0.47 0.4 0.07
2002 0.47 0.455 0.015
2003 0.55 0.457 0.093
2004 0.5 0.432 0.068
2005 0.51 0.479 0.031
2006 0.45 0.422 0.028
2007 0.54 0.403 0.137
2008 0.37 0.312 0.058
Average 0.474 0.400 0.075
Forecasts from http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/science/specialist/seasonal/global/
Actual data from http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/hadcrut3.html
Doesn’t give one much confidence in their longer-range climate change forecasts.