Free Republic

No matter how advanced science gets, we’ll always reach a wall on forecasting the weather into the future—and that threshold, on average, is two weeks. That is how long an unaccounted-for event in our environment takes to have a significant impact on the weather. If you’re planning on inviting friends for a picnic or thinking of going on a hike in two weeks, don’t bother looking at whether it’s expected to rain or not: The chances of it changing are very likely. Here’s why.Why can’t we forecast the weather two weeks ahead?As you can probably guess, two weeks isn’t some...

Recent predictions have turned out wrong. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center said 2022 would be a whopper, "predicting above-average hurricane activity [this] year – which would make it the seventh consecutive above-average hurricane season." It wasn’t. In fact, in terms of combined frequency, intensity, and duration, 2022 represented a noteworthy "low mark" in the past 42 years of all hurricane occurrences on the planet. Talk of seven "above-average" seasons was the real whopper. The eleven years from 2006-2017 show an unprecedented period in which no major hurricane made continental landfall, and yet the "average" data set was selected to comprise these...

[What freeze? See 1st comment] February 2021 may be warmer than average across much of the United States from the South to the Northeast, according to the latest outlook from The Weather Company, an IBM Business. February's forecast shows far-above-average temperatures are possible across most of the Northeast, as well as the Southern Plains. Above-average temperatures are also expected.. In March, most of the nation's midsection may see far-above-average temperatures...April outlook temperatures look much the same, with perhaps a better chance of warmth farther east, including the Mississippi Valley and Southeast.

This Saturday Summary includes a discussion about the causes of atmospheric warming.

The Trump administration is seeking to slash the budget of one of the government’s premier climate science agencies by 17 percent, delivering steep cuts to research funding and satellite programs, according to a four-page budget memo obtained by The Washington Post. The proposed cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would also eliminate funding for a variety of smaller programs, including external research, coastal management, estuary reserves and “coastal resilience,” which seeks to bolster the ability of coastal areas to withstand major storms and rising seas. NOAA is part of the Commerce Department, which would be hit by an overall 18 percent budget reduction from...

Jewish Wisdom By Ari Bussel A journalist looks around and beyond reporting asks himself: What is it that I do not see? Who is not here who should be? Why is something done in a certain manner and not another? An analyst looks at commonalities, trends and correlations. Since forecasting is an art, and given that one usually fails in forecasts since one often bases them on past behavior, analysts restrict themselves to providing a set of scenarios, from the probable to the less likely. The choice between the different scenarios is left for decision makers. A history buff studies...

When I think of all the evidence I have been presented with over the past several years regarding the main driver of our climate, one man stands tall. That would be Piers Corbyn, founder of WeatherAction.com in the UK. He does long range weather and climate predictions and his accuracy is amazing, especially for the extreme events all based on the Sun. I had seen his forecasts on the web but I had my first chance to talk with him in person at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change in New York put on by the Heartland Institute. It...

Deflation: The Experts’ Latest Scare Tactic John Tobey August 03, 2010 The big, bad forecasts refuse to die. It’s time to shoot (i.e., ignore) the messenger. We need to focus on what is really happening, not the latest scary scenario being pushed by an investment manager. The people furnishing frightening visions are not altruistic. When some wise investment manager issues a warning, question the motive – guaranteed, it’s not to help us. They have taken positions, and now they want to encourage investors to help those investments pay off. The record is dismal, so why listen now? Based on past,...

Environmentalists, or opportunists, depending on your viewpoint, had been forcing the Bush administration to list the fuzzy white polar bears on the Endangered Species List. This would have allowed the environmentalists to force the United States to adopt a Kyoto type carbon emissions program without ever having a vote in Congress. They were using the bears to push their agenda. The discussions were covered under many venues so there should be no doubt that this was at least one of the objectives. The logic goes that the IPCC says man’s CO2 is warming the world so Arctic ice will melt...

Unless a dramatic and historical flurry of activity occurs in the next 9 weeks, 2007 will rank as a historically inactive TC year for the Northern Hemisphere as a whole. During the past 30 years, only 1977, 1981, and 1983 have had less activity to date (January-TODAY, Accumulated Cyclone Energy). For the period of June 1 - TODAY, only 1977 has experienced LESS tropical cyclone activity than 2007. For the North Atlantic basin, Tropical Storm Noel is currently too weak to impact any of these results. However, one should always be prepared for late-season developments since hurricane season ends on...

John A writes: After a brief search, I found the paper “ Global Warming: Forecasts by Scientists versus Scientific Forecasts” This paper came to my attention via an article in the Sydney Morning Herald. It concerns a paper written by two experts on scientific forecasting where they perform an audit on Chapter 8 of WG1 in the latest IPCC report. The authors, Armstrong and Green, begin with a bombshell: In 2007, a panel of experts established by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme issued its updated, Fourth Assessment Report, forecasts. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s...

Will prices go up - inflation? Or will they go down - deflation? Is there some way to predict trends? How? Someone once said that if all the economists in the world were laid end to end they would never reach a conclusion. Well, it just got harder for them do so. Prices in the US and economic trends are now dependent on what is happening in India. Monetary policy is affected by trends in China. Problem is - the Fed still makes their predictions based on domestic factors alone. Something is missing in this picture, no? What happens if...

QuakeFinder's QF-1005 Ground Instrument predicts future quakes QuakeFinder CEO Tom Bleier explains the functionality of the QF-1005 Ground Instrument, a machine that can telegraph future earthquakes. 1 minute 30 seconds Apr 19, 2006 6:57:00 PM

Products based on NASA Earth observations and a new Internet-based decision tool are providing information to help land and water managers combat tamarisk (saltcedar), an invasive plant species damaging precious water supplies in the western United States. This decision tool, called the Invasive Species Forecasting System (ISFS), is being used at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Institute of Invasive Species Science in Fort Collins, Colo. It is the result of combining USGS science and NASA Earth observations, software engineering and high- performance computing expertise. "The ISFS combines NASA satellite data with tens of thousands of field sampling measurements, which...

A fifth straight year of economic expansion in 2006 promises to mean new jobs, higher pay, and maybe even fatter investment portfolios for millions of Americans. Despite a backdrop of challenges - notably signs of climate change in the nation's sizzling real estate market and investor jitters over bond rates - this forecast represents a strong consensus among economists. There's no guarantee that the economy will actually match current expectations of 3.4 percent growth next year. But of more than 50 business economists surveyed by Blue Chip Economic Indicators, all but five see growth of 3 percent or higher. The...

Wouldn't it be great to know which horse to put your money on, which team to pick in the Super Bowl, or which stock is going into the stratosphere? There could definitely be some solid returns if we just knew in advance how some events would work out. Even in sports we don’t generally take these decisions lightly. We research, analyze, and ponder. Then based on our very best summary, we make our choice. We put our money down....and we wait. Therefore, let's look at the facts of the presidential race. 1. Incumbents have an advantage. The president's compassionate delivery...

June 6, 2003 New I.B.M. Supercomputer to Begin Its Weather WorkBy JOHN MARKOFF he nation's most powerful supercomputer for weather forecasting is scheduled to go online today, I.B.M. said yesterday, a machine that may eventually rival the Japanese Earth Simulator as the world's fastest supercomputer.The new computer, with a theoretical peak computing power of 7.3 trillion operations a second, is expected to be enhanced over the next few years, and it may reach speeds up to 100 trillion operations a second by 2009, I.B.M. said.It ranks third in the United States in speed, behind two Hewlett-Packard machines at Los...

MIAMI - The dissipation of the El Nino warm water phenomenon in the Pacific will contribute to an above-average Atlantic hurricane season with eight hurricanes, a noted storm forecaster said Friday. Colorado State University expert William Gray said the season, which begins officially on Sunday, will produce a total of 14 tropical storms, of which three will be major hurricanes with winds of 111 mph or more. The prediction would double the number of hurricanes compared with last year, a season that produced 12 ``named'' storms but just four hurricanes and two major hurricanes. Gray's forecast paralleled that of the...

Caltech’s Thomas Sterling, often referred to as the “father” of Beowulf clusters, recently joined the board of directors of a relatively obscure financial firm called JJX Capital. JJX plans to build a massive AMD Athlon processor-based cluster to help it try and predict the future direction of the financial markets before its competition can. The company has labeled the machine “the largest commercial supercomputer in the world for securities trading using AMD Athlon microprocessors.” Supercomputing Online interviewed Sterling this week to learn more. SCO: You've recently joined the board of directors of JJX Capital. Please give us a little background...