I don't know how he has arrived at these odds but at least they're
better than his normal 50:50 heads its mild, tails its cold methods.

To be fair to him he (The Met Office) must put a lot of work into
these trend forecasts.

Perhaps he reckons the current set up which brought record-breaking
heat to Europe will bring record-breaking cold.

Comments anyone?

"martin rowley" wrote in message
...

"Scott Whitehead" wrote in message
om...
I don't know how he has arrived at these odds but at least they're
better than his normal 50:50 heads its mild, tails its cold methods.

To be fair to him he (The Met Office) must put a lot of work into
these trend forecasts.

... just to clarify, Bill Giles no longer has anything to do with the
Met Office or the BBC.


... He no doubt does, but when we did some casual verification of his
long range forecasts (within NMC as was in Bracknell), the forecasts
were sometimes good, sometimes awful, and often neutral - or written in
such a way as to be all things to all men! In other words, good stuff to
give the troops but not often sound. If it hadn't the name 'Bill Giles,
OBE' attached, I doubt anyone would have taken any notice.

Martin.

How can you verify a forecast like that? 60% / 40% is very like "Heads
I win. Tails you loose." Last night's TV program said that the 'String
Theory' was not science (only philosophy) because it could not be
tested. Can't you say the same of the Giles' forecast?

Cheers, Alastair.

"Scott Whitehead" wrote in message
om...
I don't know how he has arrived at these odds but at least they're
better than his normal 50:50 heads its mild, tails its cold methods.

To be fair to him he (The Met Office) must put a lot of work into
these trend forecasts.

.... just to clarify, Bill Giles no longer has anything to do with the
Met Office or the BBC.


.... He no doubt does, but when we did some casual verification of his
long range forecasts (within NMC as was in Bracknell), the forecasts
were sometimes good, sometimes awful, and often neutral - or written in
such a way as to be all things to all men! In other words, good stuff to
give the troops but not often sound. If it hadn't the name 'Bill Giles,
OBE' attached, I doubt anyone would have taken any notice.

Martin.

On Mon, 3 Nov 2003 14:34:01 -0000, "Alastair McDonald"
k wrote:


"martin rowley" wrote in message
...

"Scott Whitehead" wrote in message
om...
I don't know how he has arrived at these odds but at least they're
better than his normal 50:50 heads its mild, tails its cold methods.

To be fair to him he (The Met Office) must put a lot of work into
these trend forecasts.

... just to clarify, Bill Giles no longer has anything to do with the
Met Office or the BBC.


... He no doubt does, but when we did some casual verification of his
long range forecasts (within NMC as was in Bracknell), the forecasts
were sometimes good, sometimes awful, and often neutral - or written in
such a way as to be all things to all men! In other words, good stuff to
give the troops but not often sound. If it hadn't the name 'Bill Giles,
OBE' attached, I doubt anyone would have taken any notice.

Martin.

How can you verify a forecast like that? 60% / 40% is very like "Heads
I win. Tails you loose." Last night's TV program said that the 'String
Theory' was not science (only philosophy) because it could not be
tested. Can't you say the same of the Giles' forecast?

String theory is a model postulated to describe more accurately the fabric of
the universe. Can't see how Bill's unashamedly publicity-seeking pronouncements
can be quoted in the same paragraph.

JPG


Cheers, Alastair.

I'll go out on a limb and say there is a 61 % chance of a cold dry winter

Home Page: http://bellsouthpwp.net/k/h/khogue22/index.htm
Join in chat at #ukweather on undernet and #usweather on Austnet.
K2MAH

"Alastair McDonald" k
wrote in message ...


How can you verify a forecast like that? 60% / 40% is very like
"Heads
I win. Tails you loose." Last night's TV program said that the 'String
Theory' was not science (only philosophy) because it could not be
tested. Can't you say the same of the Giles' forecast?


.... that was the problem. As we have been banging on about for some
time, if you want to go into extended forecasting, it must be expressed
in probabilistic language: the forecasts issued via the BBC weather site
that I mentioned were not. This one at least does attempt this in it's
headline phase, but then he lets himself down with the following (as an
example)

"13 - 17 January
High pressure is still likely to be in charge during this period, but
with its centre out to the west of Ireland most of the country will have
bitterly cold northerly winds, which may bring some snow showers to
north facing coasts and hills. Inland, sheltered from the winds, there
will be a severe and penetrating frost."

Not a lot of doubt there!

I've copied the forecast referred to and will post a periodic analysis
as the period unfolds. He may well be right (and many in the ng will be
happy) ... so I'll suspend further judgement until the forecast has run
it's course.

Martin.

================================================== ==================
This posting expresses the personal view and opinions of the author.
Something which everyone on this planet should be able to do.
================================================== ==================

JPG agree entirely. String theory is a piece of elegant mathematics that holds
the promise of scientifically uniting our theories of the universe. It can be
tested in the sense that if nothing is found *experimentally* to contradict it
then it has an excellent chance of being correct. That was the case with quantum
mechanics and I have every faith that the physicists are on the right track.

Bill Giles, who's he ? Did he work for the Met office before retiring :-)

Will.
--

" Love begins when judgement ceases "
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A COL BH site in East Dartmoor at Haytor, Devon 310m asl (1017 feet).

mailto:
www: http://www.lyneside.demon.co.uk

DISCLAIMER - All views and opinions expressed by myself are personal
and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

JPG wrote in message ...
On Mon, 3 Nov 2003 14:34:01 -0000, "Alastair McDonald"
wrote:


"martin rowley" wrote in message
...

"Scott Whitehead" wrote in message
om...
I don't know how he has arrived at these odds but at least they're
better than his normal 50:50 heads its mild, tails its cold methods.

To be fair to him he (The Met Office) must put a lot of work into
these trend forecasts.

... just to clarify, Bill Giles no longer has anything to do with the
Met Office or the BBC.


... He no doubt does, but when we did some casual verification of his
long range forecasts (within NMC as was in Bracknell), the forecasts
were sometimes good, sometimes awful, and often neutral - or written in
such a way as to be all things to all men! In other words, good stuff to
give the troops but not often sound. If it hadn't the name 'Bill Giles,
OBE' attached, I doubt anyone would have taken any notice.

Martin.

How can you verify a forecast like that? 60% / 40% is very like "Heads
I win. Tails you loose." Last night's TV program said that the 'String
Theory' was not science (only philosophy) because it could not be
tested. Can't you say the same of the Giles' forecast?

String theory is a model postulated to describe more accurately the fabric of
the universe. Can't see how Bill's unashamedly publicity-seeking
pronouncements
can be quoted in the same paragraph.

JPG


Cheers, Alastair.

Yn erthygl , sgrifennodd
Alastair McDonald :
How can you verify a forecast like that? 60% / 40% is very like "Heads
I win. Tails you loose."

As a one-off forecast, yes. But as one of many forecasts, no.
If you have, say, 10 or more such forecasts, and the accuracy is actually
around 20%, then you can say they weren't very good forecasts. Arguably,
you could also say the forecasts weren't good if the accuracy was 90%
(at least, the probability estimating wasn't good!).

Adrian
--
Adrian Shaw ais@
Adran Cyfrifiadureg, Prifysgol Cymru, aber.
Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Cymru ac.
http://users.aber.ac.uk/ais uk

JPG agree entirely. String theory is a piece of elegant mathematics that holds
the promise of scientifically uniting our theories of the universe. It can be
tested in the sense that if nothing is found *experimentally* to contradict it
then it has an excellent chance of being correct. That was the case with quantum
mechanics and I have every faith that the physicists are on the right track.
....Will
Totally OT- but I hope people aren't gonna get the idea that Strings are the only game in town.Loop
Quantum Gravity is a viable alternative TOE,even complementing ST in many respects eg 'background
independence'.Looks like the programme is going be a big advert for ST.Other physicists are
complaining that ST monopolises TOE research and pushes out alternative ideas (in some respects
similar to Anthropogenic Global Warming research?)
An interesting read is Lee Smolin's 'Three roads to Quantum Gravity',
http://makeashorterlink.com/?P22F42F66
see also-
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/smol...n03_index.html
inc interesting remarks on democracy and/in science,

--
regards,
david

"Waghorn" wrote in message
...
JPG agree entirely. String theory is a piece of elegant mathematics that
holds
the promise of scientifically uniting our theories of the universe. It can
be
tested in the sense that if nothing is found *experimentally* to contradict
it
then it has an excellent chance of being correct. That was the case with
quantum
mechanics and I have every faith that the physicists are on the right track.
...Will
Totally OT- but I hope people aren't gonna get the idea that Strings are the
only game in town.Loop
Quantum Gravity is a viable alternative TOE,even complementing ST in many
respects eg 'background
independence'.Looks like the programme is going be a big advert for ST.Other
physicists are
complaining that ST monopolises TOE research and pushes out alternative
ideas (in some respects
similar to Anthropogenic Global Warming research?)

In rapid climate change research, the hypothesis that is pushing all others
out is the one to be shown on Horizon. ie that the last stadial (minor
glaciation) was caused by a switching of the ocean currents. Philip and Mike
both expressed surprise when a paper was published last year showing that the
ocean currents do not have a large effect on western European climate. They
knew that already! Yet the oceanographers behind that program still believe
that rapid climate changes are caused by slow currents switching, not by a
violent climate system.

So the theory Horizon are putting forward is already flawed. But worse, their
argument is that the same will happen again from global warming. But if the
ocean currents stop, and the northern regions cool then the ice will reform in
the Arctic and the NADW generation will restart warming Europe. Reductio ad
absurdum. Lets face it, glaobal warming will not return Britain to an ice age!

HTH,

Cheers, Alastair.