They don't know what's going to happen tomorrow but they know what's going to happen in 30 years.
If we're talking about dynamic systems then it makes sense
Warm Oceans Turned a 3-Inch Forecast into a Record NYC Blizzard
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Re: Warm Oceans Turned a 3-Inch Forecast into a Record NYC Blizzard
#12They don't know what's going to happen tomorrow but they know what's going to happen in 30 years.
And this contrasts with other fields - for example, in orbital mechanics, we're pretty darn certain where the Earth will be tomorrow. We're a bit less sure about 30 years, and increasingly uncertain after that.
Re: Warm Oceans Turned a 3-Inch Forecast into a Record NYC Blizzard
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you really equating daily weather predictions with meteorological science? That's like saying "they don't know what the next 3 coin flips are going to be but they know half of the next 10,000 will be tails"
That's not exactly true, it seems. Forecasts become less accurate the further out you go, unlike coin flips. Weather forecasts are generally accurate about 90% of the time for a five-day forecast and around 80% for a seven-day forecast. Forecasts beyond ten days are only correct about half the time.
you're conflating statistics and trends with discrete predictions
Re: Warm Oceans Turned a 3-Inch Forecast into a Record NYC Blizzard
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you really equating daily weather predictions with meteorological science? That's like saying "they don't know what the next 3 coin flips are going to be but they know half of the next 10,000 will be tails"
You can’t predict a coin flip because it is random. However, we have an accurate understanding of the random process producing coin flips and therefore, we can make accurate predictions about large quantities of flips. Weather may or may not be random. It could be entirely deterministic for all we know. However, we lack the ability to fully model all the factors that contribute to weather and therefore our prediction…
All responses are so focused on exact predictions. We have high certainty that 50% of flips will be tails over long enough timespan. We don't know what any single flip will be. Climate science works the same way. But climate is not a coin, let's say it's a multisided die and it appears the sides are changing sizes as we compare data year over year.
Re: Warm Oceans Turned a 3-Inch Forecast into a Record NYC Blizzard
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can’t predict a coin flip because it is random. However, we have an accurate understanding of the random process producing coin flips and therefore, we can make accurate predictions about large quantities of flips. Weather may or may not be random. It could be entirely deterministic for all we know. However, we lack the ability to fully model all the factors that contribute to weather and therefore our prediction…
All responses are so focused on exact predictions. We have high certainty that 50% of flips will be tails over long enough timespan. We don't know what any single flip will be. Climate science works the same way. But climate is not a coin, let's say it's a multisided die and it appears the sides are changing sizes as we compare data year over year.
I think you’re missing my point: we’re only able to predict large numbers of coin flips because we have an accurate model.
We don’t have an accurate model for weather, so we can’t predict it well.
I don’t see a reason to assume our model for climate is accurate, either.
Re: Warm Oceans Turned a 3-Inch Forecast into a Record NYC Blizzard
#16They don't know what's going to happen tomorrow but they know what's going to happen in 30 years.
Because energy in > energy out is a pretty simple non-chatoic thermodynamic equation with pretty limited variables and weather is one of the most complicated dynamic fractal systems imaginable. Why is this hard to understand? You might as well complain that they haven't described the exact curvature of the coast line of England at the nanometer level and yet they can avoid crashing ships into it with GPS.
Re: Warm Oceans Turned a 3-Inch Forecast into a Record NYC Blizzard
#17They don't know what's going to happen tomorrow but they know what's going to happen in 30 years.
A bit of scorn coming your way in the replies but it's not necessarily intuitive if you haven't thought about it. Some analogies that might help:
- If I play roulette in a casino today, I might win big, break even, lose a little or lose a lot. If I play roulette in a casino every day for a decade, I can be nearly certain I will lose a lot.
- Consider an ant walking on a rough stone road built up the side of a hill. If you look at the ant at any particular second, its body might be pointing up (head higher than tail) or down (vice versa) or level, depending on what particular angle of rock it's on at that time. But measured over minutes its likely to be at a greater altitude above sea level than where it started. Measured over the hours it takes to get from the bottom to the top, it's definitely higher.
- A random day of the year (pick from 1-365) in England might be sunny or rainy, but the chances of it being sunnier are higher if the day picked is in the summer.
The point is that there's a tremendous amount of noise in short-term measurements which tend to smooth out over longer term where trends are more clearly revealed. That's the counterpoint to your argument and the reason why climate prediction is not the same as weather forecasting. Going back to the casino analogy, climate prediction is looking at your bank balance over decades; weather forecasting is deciding how to bet on a particular poker hand.
(And finally, we actually kind of do mostly know what's going to happen tomorrow, but not a week out; that's not the point you're making though.)
Re: Warm Oceans Turned a 3-Inch Forecast into a Record NYC Blizzard
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you really equating daily weather predictions with meteorological science? That's like saying "they don't know what the next 3 coin flips are going to be but they know half of the next 10,000 will be tails"
You can’t predict a coin flip because it is random. However, we have an accurate understanding of the random process producing coin flips and therefore, we can make accurate predictions about large quantities of flips. Weather may or may not be random. It could be entirely deterministic for all we know. However, we lack the ability to fully model all the factors that contribute to weather and therefore our prediction…
> more like weather, where unknown unknowns have outsized impact on accuracy
"Unknown unknowns" aren't the reason weather forecasts are inaccurate.
Weather is path-dependent. Small changes to starting conditions or minor differences between modeled and actual conditions shortly after the simulation begins lead to large differences by the end of the simulation. Errors propagate and magnify.
Over large time periods the errors average out.
Re: Warm Oceans Turned a 3-Inch Forecast into a Record NYC Blizzard
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you really equating daily weather predictions with meteorological science? That's like saying "they don't know what the next 3 coin flips are going to be but they know half of the next 10,000 will be tails"
That's not exactly true, it seems. Forecasts become less accurate the further out you go, unlike coin flips. Weather forecasts are generally accurate about 90% of the time for a five-day forecast and around 80% for a seven-day forecast. Forecasts beyond ten days are only correct about half the time.
Why do you pack a light jacket if you go to Tasmania for a week in June, regardless of the forecast?
Re: Warm Oceans Turned a 3-Inch Forecast into a Record NYC Blizzard
#20They don't know what's going to happen tomorrow but they know what's going to happen in 30 years.
A bit of scorn coming your way in the replies but it's not necessarily intuitive if you haven't thought about it. Some analogies that might help: - If I play roulette in a casino today, I might win big, break even, lose a little or lose a lot. If I play roulette in a casino every day for a decade, I can be nearly certain I will lose a lot. - Consider an ant walking on a rough stone road built up the side of a hill. I…
We’ve been discussing it for 30 years.
Having people making the same stupid comment after 3 decades needs to be handled more critically
Let’s go back 40 years and listen to the warning: