John Ward June 7, 2015 At the End of the Day

At the End of the Day

I never cease to be amazed at the ease with which weather forecasters change their minds with insouciant aplomb. But equally, I’ll never grow tired of how interesting the skies are here. Lot et Garonne can change from pleasant heat and deathly-still quiet to rampaging tempest in a matter of minutes.

This shot shows the gathering storm that appeared, chucked a celestial bath of wind and water at us – and then left as abruptly as it had arrived.

And this screen capture illustrates how the short-term forecast changed during the day:

So, not far out then.

Look, I’m the first to accept that wind speeds and directions can cock up a forecast – and there’s not a lot any mortal can do about it.

But we’re talking a whole new weather front here: we’re talking drought become deluge. This is going to f**k up a lot of people’s lives. But the forecasters – do they really deserve that soubriquet? – simply change their little pictures and carry on taking the paycheck.

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Let us move on from physical to metaphorical storms before I really go off on one.

I wonder how many of our viewers spotted that the two central players at Deutsche Bank bowed out in haste today. On a Sunday. The way you do. Deutsche has long been fingered by myself and thousands of other commentators as the most derivative-bet exposed bank on Earth. Greek default would (I am reliably assured by insiders) bury DB for good.

I wonder how many of our viewers at home noticed that Austria formally (ie legally) abandoned its EU commitment to honour the first E100,000 of every bank account holder last month.

I now find myself confused on this question of bailins: eleven EU Member States are under pressure from the EC to ‘fall in line’ on the new bailin template devised by Drivelboom the Dutch Cap. The countries are Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, France and Italy.

But the EU also has a ruling that states all banks must give depositors at least E100,000 of their money back.

So Austria has legally dumped this commitment illegally. It has formally reneged on the promise to which it was formerly committed.And the EC is encouraging all member States to get a move on and pull the same illegally legal stunt to change the former into the formal.

I suppose all this must be part of the Grand Plan to turn savers into creditors, and thereby warn them that whereas customers are entitled to keep a hundred grand, creditors must realise that the value of their investments may go up, or perhaps down the toilet, never to be seen again. We are, I fear, watching the stunts of those in the punts whose identity rhymes with Hunt.

What will we all be next? We used to be electors, but perhaps now we shall become approvers. We used to be citizens, but maybe from here on we’ll all revert to being subjects again. The feminists will be pleased: they’ve campaigned to be objects no more, and so victory is theirs.

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And finally, I sat down in the TV den last night armed with the silly delusion that I would be watching the Champions’ League final live and free on ITV. It looked to me like a lively encounter, and indeed it turned out to be, allegedly, the best final in years. But I didn’t see any of it. What I saw was a black screen declaring ‘No signal’.Could it be that ITV has attracted the eclectic bordering on universal wrath of the Sino-American Australian Ropey Turdoch? Or is it just that the Digger Toff has once more changed the orbit of one of his satellites, thus requiring all we Frogbifs yet again to buy another circular lump of aluminium in order to receive him loud and clear? Let’s face it, we’ve all been on the receiving end of Rupert the Turd Burglar for many a decade.

Seriously, if anyone has info on this development do please let me know: atmospheric conditions are perfect and my monitor picks up all other channels immaculately and without exception. So please don’t tell me I need to cut down trees, evict dragon flies from dishes and other nonsense.

Earlier at The Slog: Further proof that neoliberal economics are bunk

21Comments

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1

Robin Banks on June 9, 2015 at 5:35 pm

So when Katla goes off and we’re freezing our gonads off you’ll still be peddling this man made global warming guff. I work and lecture in healthcare and we aim to practice evidence based medicine. Models and expert opinions are surrogate markers and are pretty irrelevant while primary end points such as people dying from a disease/drug or famine induced by erupting volcanoes are completely relevant.

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2

Rowan on June 9, 2015 at 7:34 am

Robin – enhanced WHAT argument? So far you’ve claimed that global warming isn’t anything to do with humans because volcanoes, and even though CO2 levels are rising that’s ok because photosynthesis rates will increase up to a certain point so no need to worry because George Carlin says so.
Is that really the best you can do?

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3

Robin Banks on June 9, 2015 at 6:25 am

As it is normally present in the
atmosphere at very low concentrations
(about 0.04%), increasing carbon dioxide
concentration causes a rapid rise in the
rate of photosynthesis, which eventually
plateaus when the maximum rate of
fixation is reached.

I would say the basic chemistry you sent me somewhat enhances my argument.

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4

Rowan on June 8, 2015 at 10:11 pm

Robin – photosynthesis is rate limited by more than CO2, and increased CO2 doesn’t linearly scale with increased photosynthesis, there is a tailing off of effect. Temperature also plays a role in photosynthesis rates – see graphs at the following link:

Click to access Rate%20of%20photosynthesis%20limiting%20factors.pdf

Of course climate models run to help predict the future climate do not include future volcanic eruptions (unless modellers force one in manually to study possible effects). It is possible, however, to hind cast the climate; setting the model to use known historic forcings and running the model from the past to the present. It is one way in which new models are tested.

Your argument as stated seems to be that climate models can’t be trusted because a volcano might erupt. Predicting volcanic eruptions is predominantly the realm of specialised geologists called volcanologists. Studying the effects on climate of said eruptions is where climate science comes in. Yes, a volcano might erupt. But that doesn’t contradict any part of the science underlying AGW. Which you would already know if you bothered to do your own research.

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5

mike on June 8, 2015 at 7:18 pm

The met office works for the government. They are part of the mechanism designed and managed to keep the peasants upbeat and in spending mode.
Hence the forecasts are usually upbeat too, and that is why you went out and bought a bbq and lots of summer gear but haven’t yet used them. That is why you are often dashing off down for a lovely weekend in Devon at great expense and end up sitting under the pier shetering from the wind & rain.
Nevertheless the GDP is doing fine – seemingly!

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6

Robin Banks on June 8, 2015 at 6:16 pm

Photosynthesis is a rate limited reaction (governed by the levels of CO2) so any small change brings about dramatic increases in the efficacy of this series of reactions.
By the way Rowan, do your models include volcanic eruptions. When Katla erupted in 1783 it completely changed the climate in Northern Europe (killing quarter of a million French persons) causing decades of failed crops, a mini-ice age and sparked the French revolution. Katla may erupt next year, a decades time or even next century. When you know, I’ll take these piss poor climate models seriously.

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7

AJC on June 8, 2015 at 6:15 pm

It wasn’t long ago that the UK Met Office was pushing for a new “super computer” to improve the accuracy of their longer term forecasts. It appears to have done nothing of the sort and even the short term forecasts are less reliable. But it
can (the idiots) claim accurately predict fifty years ahead.

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8

Rowan on June 8, 2015 at 2:34 pm

Oh, now, don’t get started on economists, especially when I’ve been writing about climate…
Y’see, no economic model has ever been tested against real world observations. Many of the variables used in the models are not linked in any way to physical real world data, they’re just included to make the model “work” according to the theory it is meant to support. The model is run, sometimes only once, to give “the result”. Economists have it entirely backward – the model is made to fit the theory.
Now, your typical climate model is constructed from equations based on known physics determined from real world experiments. Real world data is plugged in and the model is run thousands or millions of times, with different estimates for unknown variables. These model runs are ensembled together; there is no single “result” just a range of possible futures, some more likely than others. In climate science, the model supports the theory.
And yet the same people (often right-wing old men, but not always) that deny the results of climate models also accept the “results” of economic models without question! Probably because the economic models are designed to tell them what they want to hear, whereas the climate models are producing independent results they don’t want to hear…

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9

Rowan on June 8, 2015 at 2:14 pm

Now, now Uncle – stop misrepresenting the jobs available at the Met Office; it’s a lot bigger than you think…
http://careers.metoffice.gov.uk/career-options

There is a REASON the Met Office is renowned world wide for its work – because it’s damned good at its job, building on hundreds of years of British obsession with the weather. It is one of the few things we Brits are GOOD at; it should be something we are PROUD of.

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10

Rowan on June 8, 2015 at 2:04 pm

@Robin,
Perhaps you don’t realise that the Met Office doesn’t tell you what the weather IS going to be, just what the weather is MOST LIKELY to be. The forecasts on the Met Office website are much more nuanced than those on telly forecasts or in the papers – the Met Office data is dumbed down for the typical British audience. Then you have the likes of the Daily Fail who use their own “independent experts” to predict weather months in advance; nothing to do with the Met Office but they get the blame anyway.
Perhaps you also don’t realise that climate is an average of long term weather. Weather is chaotic – difficult to predict. Climate is not chaotic and is thus easier to predict. Go look at Lorentz attractors for examples of how chaotic equations can produce long term stable patterns.
I see you are pre-decided that global warming has nothing to do with the billions of tons of CO2 that human industrial activity has added, and continues to add, to the atmosphere, despite the 100+ years of evidence that supports the theory. Perhaps your “amazement” on such matters comes merely from your ignorance and unwillingness to do your own research?

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11

boncourage on June 8, 2015 at 10:36 am

John
We had several freesat channels down for best part of 4 days last week. Bloomberg, France24, RT – amongst others – no signal. Friday morning – PING there they were again, good signals too. Looks to me as if atmospherics didn’t have much to do with it, more like someone flipped a switch to turn them back on again. It’s happened before.

I’m not too bothered about it, particularly at this time of year, when there’s not enough time to watch much telly anyhow. But the women-folk…now that is a different story, it really hacks them off. When they become really desperate, connecting one of the the laptops to the TV settles them down nicely again!

O/T: Someone told me the other day that Test Match Special was being moved from Radio4 LW to Radio5 Live. Anyone else heard that? If true, that’s a real travesty.

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12

Jeremy Stocks on June 8, 2015 at 10:13 am

John just spent an idyllic week to the right of you in Tarn gorges near Le Rozier. My mate who is the Bavaria Satellite expert tells me the signal has gone from even ropier lately – we’ve lost even CBS channels. So I am going to go the IP TV route. He sells a box which gives you perfect Internet telly.

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13

Bill on June 8, 2015 at 10:08 am

Are those latrines in the hedge line?
And the red power cord stretched across the foreground “Very interesting. Ve ave ways of making you talk” springs to mind.

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14

Alan on June 8, 2015 at 9:02 am

No more amazing than these ‘economists’ who can tell me what GDP is going to be in 2016,,,and 2017,,,and 2020, and yet don’t know with any certainty what is was last quarter, or the quarter before that, or

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15

kfc1404 on June 8, 2015 at 7:16 am

It seems to me that, warm sunny weather is impossible to get right, on the other hand, wet, windy and cold never fails to appear on que but, I suppose that is the British weather in a nutshell.

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16

Uncle Rob on June 8, 2015 at 7:12 am

@RB
surprised? No this is the MOD sub department staffed by bimbos and airheads earning mega salary/pension for promoting public sector cleavage on live media. The director gets 6 figure bonus each year.

o/t if cameron wants to take on his critics over the eu vote, he might well be in for a nasty surprise, as many mp’s are more concerned about their country than the piffling prime ministers bodge job. Then when referendum day comes, most labour voters will join the bandwagon and vote out. That’s when cameron wakes up after being given the flick by the working people.

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17

Robin Banks on June 8, 2015 at 6:10 am

It amazes me how the UK Met Office cannot tell me what the weather is going to be tomorrow but can accurately predict where our climate will be in fifty years time, thanks to “man-made” global warming.

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18

RichardT on June 8, 2015 at 2:36 am

John, I shall repeat that if you want to know more about why the forecasters get it so wrong and how the weather really works, go and read about the solar lunar technique devised by Piers Corbyn. He might be a bit funny looking and his PR is not always the best. However the fundamental science behind the man is exceedingly strong and worth a thorough look into.
Love the look of your garden and pool by the way!

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19

Jaime in Quebec on June 8, 2015 at 1:18 am

It was received loud and clear for free by your rosbif cousins in Quebec.

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20

Professor Metwetwe jnr on June 8, 2015 at 1:17 am

Fascinating view of life at Slogger’s Roost.
Only the dirty digger will give you uninterrupted access to what you want to see. Sky tv is impossible to beat if you take the full package.
Will there be some development of the swimming pool area..? Solar heating, low stone wall windbreak / naturist barrier, bar, lighting, large screen, to name a few. Let the imagination run riot. Developing this area into a sexy oasis could change your prospects on the lovelife front…..the ladies in my experience love an intimate candlelit bathing area after a few glasses of the grape.
I do design and build – give me a call….you can afford it chapter…………

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21

the ghost on June 7, 2015 at 9:56 pm

I watched the final on ITV +1 & before the second half came on a message appeared saying that it could not be shown for legal reasons & turn to itv,15 secs later it appeared & i watched the game,but how many switched over???

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