VillagePlank

Aren't they both the same

(11) Hopecasting?

I was four, and if I recall correctly the snow gave me lots of time indoors to play with my Star Wars toys . . .

Many thanks for your kind words

We are witnessing the process of moderation. Firstly, it was a full-blown ice-age; at least now we're into a little ice age. Can't wait to reduce the predictions to a cold February which, I think, on the basis of Daniel's trend will take another 6/7 months; which should be just in time for the May SST's and the Feb of 2008.

Taken today

Any chance to the (free) source of daily CET information?

Yes, the worst thing about it all is, of course, is that a disproportionate quantity of the population believe what they read in such newspapers.

You use my chart didn't you? Admit it :lol:

14.5C (The moving average is for 10 years, btw)

I knew my teacher was wrong

Just for a love of pendantry: trends are statistics.

Although the least meteorological photograph, I went for JC's photo. An excellent example of hyperfocal length.

The climate behaves like a strange attractor which is perfectly in line with what you are describing.

I agree. *************** Consider the partitions of a number. This sounds horrendous, but really it's the number of ways to write a whole number as a sum of other whole numbers. Consider 5. This can be 'partitioned' 7 ways: 1+1+1+1+1 2+1+1+1 2+2+1 3+1+1 3+2 4+1 5 We can say that 5's parition is 7; mathematical this can be called p, so p(5)=7 (partition of 5 equals 7) Easy right. Now we can form a hypothesis on this basis; we can look to the past for instance; in this example we'll look at the partitions for the whole numbers leading to 5 p(1) = 1 p(2) = 2 p(3) = 3 p(4) = 5 p(5) = 7 We can see, easily, that this forms a sequence of prime numbers. We now have a workable hypothesis. Let's go for a short-term prediction. Let's look at p(6) Well, p(6)=11 so this confirms our hypothesis. It is unfortunate then that when we try p(7) it turns out to be 15, which is not a prime number and our little conjecture fails miserably. ********* We can, and do, look into the past and see patterns emerge and correlate them to what we expect the future to hold. This works for the very near future, but as we push further and further out all our conjectures increasingly become less reasoned conjecture, and more like guesswork.

SF, I would continue to argue but I think we've reached a joint opinion, with only very minor niggles left to cogitate. One remaining thing, though, I hope you do not lump me in with people who come to the forums with, what I can only describe as, a 'fringe' opinion.

With regard to an inverse being true (apart from being a logical fallacy on my part - as I'm sure you are aware inverses are often not true, have you ever tried to unboil an egg and grow a chicken?) Are corrections being made to ensure that any cooling factors are mitigated? For instance flattening a big mound reduces surface area of insolation which can happen in road building exercises. Reduced surface area means less stored heating (I think) in the same way orographic forcing is, in part, down to a greater surface area in the same area of land. I've looked for papers on land surface area and local weather, and I can't find any. This is why I was vague, and I cannot follow the argument through. I would still argue that land surface area is a significant contributer to weather. I was under the impression that the model view of the weather does not account for density of surface area. I could be (and probably am) wrong.I am absolutely sure there are missing corrections. Whether they are significant both in a chi-squared analysis, or indeed, in an absolute sense is, I think, the point. Are you really going to correct temperature for a station when the known effect is 0.000000000000001C? I think it's unlikely. There is always the case to presume, I think, that there could indeed be corrections whether warmer, or cooler, that might be significant. I guess the question is: what is the degree of significance? I think, on my understanding that the CET is the mean of only a very few stations, that the mean is too coarse. This is, of course, a matter of opinion. Given the size of the UK I think that your contention is a reasonable one, and probably, for the disinterested, or casual reader, it is certainly enough. Perhaps that's the reason the CET series exists. I do not think, however, that your contention is enough for those with a more vivid interest in UK climate and it's subsequent analysis. I'll concede that this, then, becomes a matter of use, and nothing else. There is nothing to suggest this because nobody has looked? I think that the atmosphere is sufficiently complex enough to have an overall warming trend, but to have more local effects such as cooling. This is my opinion (and belief) and I have no evidence to back this; although I'm looking. I will argue, though, that there are plenty of proposals that show a mean global warming, and local cooling. The Antarctic is cooling in a world that is warming for instance. Sure, you might want to argue about scale . . . . Yes, apolgies. My point, though, however ineloquently put, is that the CET is only of use for long term and significant analysis. Synoptic arguments (which are both temporal and spacial) to conclude a future CET seems at the very least spurious, to me, on this basis. The CET, by definition, is a mean. My point was that synoptic arguments are irrelevant; the CET does not, in and of itself, contain any synoptic detail; it does contain long term synoptic variability, though. It may (and is for me) be of interest to record notable event's CET which do not occur, conveniently, on a calendar monthly basis. No argument there. The chances are, as you say, that the whole sample will be self-similar at all scales. This view, however, does result from the flattening of nosie; increasing the sample frequency introduces more 'noise' and I contend that on a number of occasions that the noise contributes in some significant fashion. I'd still like to do the exercise, though. Has anyone got the daily CET for the last 100 years that I can borrow? I'll publish the results here I think we'll have to agree to disagree here. It is possible to make many different 'views' from the same dataset.

That's what I meant; without successive nighttime minima it is highly unlikely that we will record a subzero CET Indeed. I outlined a single strategy when of course, there are a lot more. The summation of a number of stations scattered throughout the UK whether aligned to a grid or otherwise, might indeed show the warming trend in a more pronounced way; it might, of course, show the opposite (which I don't think would be the case) Of course. Slap my wrists for venturing of topic THis fails any sort of test of logic. The CET, which I presume you support, can still, mathematically be described as a grid. A grid does not need to be uniform, nor square, nor linear. Indeed. What does this suggest? Not true. The CET is already corrected for effects such as UHI and for other factors. If it holds true to reduce effective warming of the CET trend, does it not also hold that the inverse (should it happen) also be true. It may be the case that places that are known frost-hollows have not shown any warming. I don't know. I do not have the data to hand Watch the weather forecast and compare degC for S/E against N Scotland. This, of course, is a daily pattern. I think you are correct to presume (I take it it's a presumption as no evidence is provided) that the rate of warming for all areas of the UK are similar; but I'd bet my bottom dollar that there are exceptions. Of course, you mitigate exceptions by using trends, means and other such statistical tools to protect your argument. Missing the point here. Consider a warm 2 weeks to Nov, and cool last two weeks, a very cold beginning to December, and am mild new year. The way you want it is to record an average November, and an average December. In fact the record should show that the four weeks between the middle of Nov to the middle of Dec should have shown a very low CET. There is no statistical way of unpacking that result unless you move the timeframe. The record will show a winter of averageness; which, I presume, is the way you prefer it. In reality, of course, the UK would've experienced a remarkably cool period of time for nearly a month.What's even worse is your propensity to accept the CET as a 'good' record without, it appears to me, to be a thorough understanding of it's semantic shortfalls - of which there are a great deal. I think that the CET shows an average picture, and that, by definition, shows no detail, or no clarity of the changes in the climate unless they are long lived and significant (like the current recent warming trend) To argue, in detail about synoptics affecting UK climate and it's subsequent effect on the CET value for a calendar month to me seems a little wrong. It is entirely feasible that the CET could record a highly anomalous sub-zero temperature for one month. Indeed I made this point, myself. You presuppose that I am looking to change to find a colder pattern. I apolgise if I've inferred that (I haven't) I have performed analysis on the CET (in what can only be considered unique ways) that strongly reinforce a warming pattern.

Naieve as I am, I still think that it's possible to describe expected events, and perhaps, bifurcation of events. You do not need to specify actual dates, but you could certainly extend a forecast to include the series of events.

It is certainly possible to have a sub-zero CET. This, of course, will more likely be the result of successively cold nighttime minima, rather than lovely white scenes at Christmas. Interestingly, the CET is an anomalous record. I think it is perhaps better to ask: 'Is there a four week period that has a sub-zero temperature mean?' Another interesting measure, and one, that is not, as far as I am aware, available, is to have high granularity grid across the UK, and to count the sum of stations that observe subzero months (or preferably groups of four weeks) I think that this would show a more accurate picture of the warming significance in the UK. But then that's the nature of statistics isn't it? I suppose comparing the same month year on year out on the CET series holds some meaning, but then when you compare differences from the solar mean time to the sidereal time, the differences in days between solar, star, and calendar months can be quite substantial (but not enough to move the mean +/- 0.5C) where, say, the end of the winter needs correcting as much as 24 hours (as we approach the 29th Feb in a leap year) Of course, we still haven't corrected smoothly for daylength as timezones are a discrete human invention, when in reality, as we all know, 'timezones' are a smooth function of solar movement overhead.

I couldn't be bothered to read the rest of the thread, but the simple biological answer to why isolated tribes do not appear to suffer from cancer is genetics. It would be much better, according to my understanding, to investigate the differences in their genome, against the differences in the genome of, say, a society that has a large cancer suffering rate. It could well be that B17 (if it exists) protects the genome from cancer, but that, I suspect, is yet to be empirically demonstrated.

Hey, mate, you are an antithesis to the norm. This IS a VERY good thing. Not only that you report your findings with sources, and admit the bias. You, my friend, deserve the utmost respect.And NEVER be ashamed of excellence.

Indeed. . . . but graphs will . . . B)

What's the scale on the left? (the y axis)

Of course I'm not comparing years to the same baseline I am using a running mean. I accept that the average of today's climate is different from the average of the last centuries climate. Why would you pick any period for a mean? Let's look at the 1970-2000 mean. Why use that range. Primarily, I presume, it's because it's close enough to today to be of use If that is the case then when you look at temperatures for 1900 why do we not use the same standard? Use a mean that is close enough to the date so it's useful I understand that it's more complex to understand, and extrapolate useful information from; but, in my opinion, complexity should never prevent the production of such entities.