This headline could really use the word "hurricane" in it. I had no idea what Otis or Acapulco were, and my initial guess was wildly off: some sort of space probe experienced a catastrophic failure on the way to an asteroid.
Trying to make sense of why Otis exploded en route to Acapulco
51–60 of 133 posts
Re: Trying to make sense of why Otis exploded en route to Acapulco
#52> So how did every reliable model we use miss this? That’s for graduate students and researchers to answer in the coming years, because I have no formal idea. Would love to see followup on this. Wish there were some way to like bookmark or something and come back in a few years.
there is already a very good theory. see this interview with an expert from Yale: https://youtu.be/CSVFpval4Dw?si=oelutbqzOGcpI8gm tldr: garbage data into the model, garbage out. Detailed summary from interview: • only 1 hurricane hunter flight was done into this storm. • mexican hurricanes just don’t get as much reporting coverage (historically). For example for atlantic hurricanes, NOAA hurricane hunter airplanes h…
This is the most likely answer. Since the atmosphere is a chaotic system weather models are extremely sensitive to initial conditions. A lot of the improvements in weather forecasts have come from better data assimilation for better initial conditions.
Re: Trying to make sense of why Otis exploded en route to Acapulco
#53This headline could really use the word "hurricane" in it. I had no idea what Otis or Acapulco were, and my initial guess was wildly off: some sort of space probe experienced a catastrophic failure on the way to an asteroid.
Exact. Same. Guess. on my end.
Re: Trying to make sense of why Otis exploded en route to Acapulco
#54For a weather forecaster this is a really strange take. Anybody who understands what the big words 'climate change' mean, could have predicted this. HAVE predicted this. I personally have predicted this and I'm not even a weather forecaster, I just know what chaos theory is. Adding energy to the system produces a wider range of possible outcomes. This is absolutely one of the possible outcomes. A few degrees less war…
It is strange, but it’s not. My friends keep asking me why it seems like the weather predictions are always off lately. I tell them because they have no climate models for the state of the climate that we’re living in right now. They’re all based on past climate. so this weather forecaster is just doing the same thing, he’s trying to predict future events on past performance. What they need to do is start looking rig…
> And they need to get some testicles and start screaming that this is a problem at the top of their lungs
Are you serious? People have been screaming about this since the 70s at least. Everyone’s ears are sore so they tune it out.
Re: Trying to make sense of why Otis exploded en route to Acapulco
#55Cloudflare blocked me from accessing it. edit: wow, that was some unexpected downvotes
Same here. I guess they don’t like my IP.
Re: Trying to make sense of why Otis exploded en route to Acapulco
#56For a weather forecaster this is a really strange take. Anybody who understands what the big words 'climate change' mean, could have predicted this. HAVE predicted this. I personally have predicted this and I'm not even a weather forecaster, I just know what chaos theory is. Adding energy to the system produces a wider range of possible outcomes. This is absolutely one of the possible outcomes. A few degrees less war…
And we have 10 to 20 years before effects from current emissions are felt: https://earth.org/data_visualization/the-time-lag-of-climate... As COVID-19 showed us, humans aren't great at dealing with delayed effects.
Back around 1980, they had already forecast the CO2 emissions curve we are on (we are tracking their best guess scenario) and the economic impact.
We’re currently approaching the regional disasters stage.
They thought we’d hit 2.5C warming by either 2038 or 2025, which will be enough to halt global economic growth. We seem to be on the 2038 curve.
That curve has us hitting 5C by 2069, with globally catastrophic impacts.
The document I’m referring to is here:
https://download.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/g/f/f/l/gffl0228...
It is a set of AQ-9 climate task force minutes. In the end, they conclude:
——
AT A 3% PER ANNUM GROWTH RATE OF C02, A 2.5°C RISE BRINGS 2 WORLD ECONOMIC GROWTH TO A HALT IN ABOUT 2025.
Even If this estimate is grossly wrong it Is still probable that
• WHETHER THERE ARE GROUNDS FOR IMMEDIATE RESPONSE TO THE THREAT DEPENDS ON THE VALIDITY OF THE LONG MARKET PENETRATION TIME CONCEPT.
• EVEN IF THE LATTER IS APPLICABLE, PRESENT DAY SIGNIFICANCE OF THE IMPACT DEPENDS STRONGLY ON CHOICE OF A FUTURE DISCOUNTING FACTOR.
• NEED FOR IMMEDIATE POLICY ACTION HINGES ON THESE LAST TWO FEATURES.
—-
The document also says that back in 1980, there was no leeway to wait to take action to mitigate climate change. Instead, they ended up spending unprecedented amounts of money on disinformation campaigns and in support of climate change denying politicians in the 1990s and afterwards to prevent action from being taken.
I guess their discount factor valued their grandchildren at ~ $0.
Re: Trying to make sense of why Otis exploded en route to Acapulco
#57> So how did every reliable model we use miss this? That’s for graduate students and researchers to answer in the coming years, because I have no formal idea. Would love to see followup on this. Wish there were some way to like bookmark or something and come back in a few years.
I'm one of the researchers on a new disease forecasting project, and I'm bookmarking this because we often use hurricane forecasting as an example of a level of accuracy we aspire to, so this is a really interesting breakdown.
What forecasting models / techniques are prevalent in disease forecasting?
Re: Trying to make sense of why Otis exploded en route to Acapulco
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Adding energy to the system Best estimates I've found to date: [ EDIT: 0.6-0.8 ] * Petawatts * of extra energy circulating in the atmosphere as a result of anthropogenic changes to radiative forcing. EDIT: For the people downvoting this because "watts are units of power not energy", please read the Wikipedia page on radiative forcing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing For the people downvoting because…
I think you mean Joules? A Watt is a joule of energy transferred over one second, i.e. they're a rate .
Feel free to take it up with the scientists who study and discuss radiative forcing in units of watts/m^2
Re: Trying to make sense of why Otis exploded en route to Acapulco
#59This headline could really use the word "hurricane" in it. I had no idea what Otis or Acapulco were, and my initial guess was wildly off: some sort of space probe experienced a catastrophic failure on the way to an asteroid.
I'm all for naming an asteroid "Acapulco", though.
Re: Trying to make sense of why Otis exploded en route to Acapulco
#60This headline could really use the word "hurricane" in it. I had no idea what Otis or Acapulco were, and my initial guess was wildly off: some sort of space probe experienced a catastrophic failure on the way to an asteroid.
I'm all for naming an asteroid "Acapulco", though.
A gold-bearing asteroid, naturally.