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posted by mrpg on Tuesday February 19 2019, @07:25AM   Printer-friendly
from the clouds-are-flat dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Last month, as much of the United States shivered in Arctic cold, weather models predicted a seemingly implausible surge of balmy, springlike warmth. A week later, that unlikely forecast came true—testimony to the remarkable march of such models. Since the 1980s, they’ve added a new day of predictive power with each new decade. Today, the best forecasts run out to 10 days with real skill, leading meteorologists to wonder just how much further they can push useful forecasts.

A new study suggests a humbling answer: another 4 or 5 days. In the regions of the world where most people live, the midlatitudes, “2 weeks is about right. It’s as close to be the ultimate limit as we can demonstrate,” says Fuqing Zhang, a meteorologist at Pennsylvania State University in State College who led the work, accepted for publication in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences.

Forecasters must contend with the atmosphere’s turbulent flows, which nest and build on each other as they create clouds, power storms, and push forward cold fronts. A tiny disruption in one layer of turbulence can quickly snowball, infecting the next with its error. A 1969 paper by Massachusetts Institute of Technology mathematician and meteorologist Edward Lorenz introduced this dynamic, later dubbed the “butterfly effect.” His research showed that two nearly identical atmospheric models can diverge widely after 2 weeks because of an initial disturbance as minute as a butterfly flapping its wings.

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by fritsd on Tuesday February 19 2019, @05:12PM (2 children)

    by fritsd (4586) on Tuesday February 19 2019, @05:12PM (#803542) Journal

    You didn't preempt jackshit. Climate, according to the 90's IPCC report itself, is a complex, dynamic, chaotic system And, quote, long term prediction of climate is impossible.

    No, that's what we call "weather".
    You're confusing weather with climate :-)

    Do you own swimming clothes? If so, why?? It's freezing outside, you can't predict that it will become warm enough to swim in 6 months!

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  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday February 19 2019, @06:17PM

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 19 2019, @06:17PM (#803586) Journal

    That's short term climate prediction. I'll agree that long term climate prediction is impossible. But long term is measured in at minimum thousands of years. Short term climate prediction is nearly as good as weather prediction, and in some ways better. (Summer is always warmer than winter, but noon isn't always warmer than midnight.)

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 20 2019, @07:03AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 20 2019, @07:03AM (#803907)

    You really have no knowledge there, do you. You are talking seasons, not climate decades ahead. Way to prove your ignorance. You know of the famous/infamous Butterfly Effect. That's bloody weather, unpredictable, same with climate. Even more complex system. BTW, Comples, Chaotic are technical terms and if that what climate is it means it's inherently unpredictable, fucking perios. Same as earthquakes. There is not going to be any fucking long term future knowledge of climate unless you are psychic.
    IPCC climate scenario oh we base it on:
    prediction of future temps, prediction of future technology prediction of future populatiin numbers, prediction of future Dun activity, prediction of future cosmic rays, and we make readonable scenarios.
    No, you fucking morons. You are bullshitting innocent people that you have knowledge that nobody can have, you dirty imbecilic liars.