Climatology = Voodoo BS Science

[number six]

I don't track every Hurricane.. just the ones that are expected to hit Florida. But when I do track the Hurricanes it never ceases to amaze me how almost completely useless the tracking models are.

It all boils down to this:

We know there's a hurricane.
We know how strong it is.
We know what part of the world it's in and generally what direction its going in.

That's basically it.

The rest? Let's just guess and change our guess every 3 hours. You could literally have some random person draw the track on a map with a Crayon and they are just as likely to be right as our billion dollar Climatology programs. Hell even though they've all be inaccurate for whatever reason the European models have been 'better' which is funny given Europe isn't even a place that's really effected by Hurricanes.

From what I can tell Climatology is like Medicine in the 1700s. We sort of understand anatomy.. we know what part of you is sick but we don't really know why and the treatments are just as likely to kill you as help you.

So every time a Hurricane is on a track to maybe hit Florida and we do this dance I have to remember.. we have no fucking clue where this is actually going to hit.. just that it's in the area.. Be prepared? sure.. but take everything else with a grain of salt.

[leewoo]

Exactly my thoughts. I always think about the people that were told to evacuate Punta Gorda and all went to Orlando and the hurricane went through Orlando and not Punta Gorda.

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[Niloc]

It gets more exact as it gets closer, but it just doesn't do any good with a storm this big, it's too many people to evacuate all at once, not enough gas, water, etc.

Employers don't help either, they want everything running until the last possible moment, when it's far too late to get out.

[JimB]

You got that right about employers.  Last year had to beg to leave early to get ready for Mathew.  This year our high up boss says take care of your self and remember work will still be here when it passes.  Wow, glad to know that.

[Mando]

Actually I think they are way better at it now .. look at the Tuesday cone was dead on just got it wrong for like a day.

[AshBurton]

I can recall that in my Advanced Statistical Methods course we actually skipped a section which is widely used in Climatology as my professor had the same mindset as the title of this topic.

 

[thepita007]

the fact that the hurricane models were horribly wrong with Irma proves climate models have significant flaws. There is no reasonable way they can peg the temperature in 50+ years to within 0.5 of a degree when they cannot predict the path of a current hurricane. We just don't have the data or technology yet to make these predications reliably.

Also back to grade school science for a minute remember displacement? Sea levels will not rise as much as predicted as displacement has already occurred. Now some of the poles sit on land so some sea level rise will occur but the vast majority of the ice in the poles has already displaced the oceans and has since it original froze.

We don't have 100% climate modeling available yet so any predications are no better than a psychic reading your hand.

I equate current climate science to that of medical science in the 1800s when blood letting was the cure for everything.

[number six]

What we have is better than nothing for sure but the world's weather system is extremely complex.. well beyond our current technology to accurately predict apparently.

As far as it being more accurate a day out.. on this go around the models were completely wrong even 2 hours out. They had the storm headed straight for Tampa, then Brandon (ie where I live) before it finally ended up quite a bit further east than that sparing us the worst part of it. Even the TV weather guy was saying he didn't believe the models at one point.

So who knows.. just don't tell Al Gore because according to him we can predict weather down to it's very minute details.

[kbvette]

What we have is better than nothing for sure but the world's weather system is extremely complex.. well beyond our current technology to accurately predict apparently.

As far as it being more accurate a day out.. on this go around the models were completely wrong even 2 hours out. They had the storm headed straight for Tampa, then Brandon (ie where I live) before it finally ended up quite a bit further east than that sparing us the worst part of it. Even the TV weather guy was saying he didn't believe the models at one point.

So who knows.. just don't tell Al Gore because according to him we can predict weather down to it's very minute details.

  Invoking Al Gore......should we move this to the "political forum" ?

[Mamushka]

  Invoking Al Gore......should we move this to the "political forum" ?

I think you should complain directly to the owner of board. 

[kbvette]

I think you should complain directly to the owner of board. 

                Not complaining .....just an inquirey

[number six]

Everything is on topic in general

[PinFever]

they knew more about the weather in 1959 as this Disney video suggests . I really like the part after 18 minutes in to this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n46Uhnkr1Lk