posted on November 26, 2007 12:07:28 PM new
Oh wait, global warming was supposed to INCREASE hurricanes....
Hurricane predictions miss the mark
Two years ago, way under. Last year, way over. This year, still not right.
It's been a stormy few years for William Gray, Philip Klotzbach and other scientists who predict total hurricane activity before each season begins, which raises fundamental questions as the 2007 season draws to an end on Friday:
Why do they bother? And given the errors -- which can undermine faith in the entire hurricane warning system -- are these full-season forecasts doing more harm than good?
''The seasonal hurricane forecasters certainly have a lot of explaining to do,'' said Max Mayfield, former director of the National Hurricane Center.
''The last couple of years have humbled the seasonal hurricane forecasters and pointed out that we have a lot more to learn before we can do accurate seasonal forecasts,'' he said.
The numbers provide abundant support for those statements.
Just before the season started on June 1, the nationally prominent Gray-Klotzbach team at Colorado State University predicted that 17 named storms would grow into nine hurricanes, five of which would be particularly intense, with winds above 110 mph.
A different team at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted 13 to 17 named storms, seven to 10 hurricanes and three to five intense hurricanes.
The actual results for the 2007 season: 14 named storms, five hurricanes, two intense hurricanes.
That turned a season predicted to be extremely active into one that was about average in number of storms and well below average in total intensity.
Even mid-season corrections issued by both teams in August -- somewhat akin to changing your prediction about a baseball game during the fifth inning -- proved wrong.
Their pre-season predictions in 2005 and 2006 were even worse.
The teams defend their forecasts, saying they are based on the best science available, were closer to the mark in prior years and serve an important public service.
''The seasonal forecasts are quite good,'' said Gerry Bell, NOAA's lead seasonal forecaster. ``Last year, we over-predicted and this year we over-predicted, but our track record, I think, is excellent.''
Klotzbach, who now is the lead forecaster of the Colorado State team created more than two decades ago, said long-range predictions satisfy the public's ``inherent curiosity.''
Both teams employ what they call ''climate signals'' -- a variety of ocean and atmospheric conditions -- along with historical records to produce their forecasts.
''Seasonal forecasts are meant to provide people with the best information possible about how active or inactive the coming season is likely to be,'' Klotzbach said.
Mayfield and virtually all hurricane researchers and forecasters, some of whom were skeptical years ago, now support the issuing of full-season predictions.
But many openly share concerns about the current system, focusing in particular on NOAA's tendency to subtly link the National Hurricane Center in West Miami-Dade County to the seasonal forecasts produced by Bell's team, which is based in Maryland.
In fact, it is important to emphasize the distinction between the six-month seasonal forecasts and the real-time forecasts of an actual hurricane or other tropical system, which are called ``operational forecasts.''
Several researchers at the hurricane center worked with Gray and contribute to the data collected by Bell's team, but the center's real-time forecasters play no substantive role in the full-season predictions and are not responsible for them.
CONCERN OVER IMPACT
Many of them worry, however, that substantial errors in those full-season predictions can undermine faith in their generally accurate forecasts of actual storms.
They note that NOAA, parent agency of the hurricane center and Bell's team, often releases Bell's predictions during pre-season news conferences conducted at the hurricane center.
During other years, the hurricane center's director is ordered to participate in the pre-season news conference, wherever it might be held.
''NOAA has been using the good name of the National Hurricane Center, at least to some extent, to help promote the seasonal product and that's not the mission of operational hurricane forecasters,'' Mayfield said.
''In some areas, hurricane forecasters are losing credibility even though they are not the lead on this -- and that's always a concern,'' he said. ``We don't want the credit for the seasonal forecasts.''
Bell said the differences between the two groups should be clear to the public by now. He said South Floridians and other residents of the hurricane zone should never disregard real-time forecasts, especially based on a misconception about the full-season predictions.
''There's no basis for those kinds of comments,'' Bell said, ``especially if they're made by people who don't know what they're talking about.''
Another concern focuses on the hyperactivity of the Gray-Klotzbach team, which issues not one, not two, but six forecasts before and during the season.
The first arrives in early December, forecasting the outcome of a hurricane season that doesn't begin for six months. Maintaining the baseball comparison, that would be like predicting -- this past October -- the Marlins' precise win-loss record in 2008.
''If Gray were honest, he would say they have no skill in making predictions that far in advance,'' said Jeff Masters, a former NOAA hurricane researcher who now serves as chief meteorologist of the Weather Underground. ``It's just an interesting mental exercise.''
Nevertheless, Masters also favors the issuing of seasonal forecasts.
''If you put good science in the hands of people, that's always a benefit,'' he said.
''But they should do a better job of educating the public about the uncertainty involved,'' Masters added. ``And they have to keep underscoring that you have to be prepared in any given year, whatever the forecast.''
That raises another issue.
Virtually everyone involved in the system agrees that seasonal forecasts provide opportunities to remind the public that it must prepare for the worst -- and that certainly works during the current period of generally heightened hurricane activity.
But what happens the next time the data suggest a comparatively mild season? How will the scientists handle that and might that information encourage people to let down their guard?
WHEREVER IT LEADS
The leaders of both teams say they are scientists and will go where the science takes them, regardless of where that might be.
''We believe, and I'm sure NOAA would agree, that people should not relax or pay less attention if we forecast an inactive season,'' Klotzbach said. ``Obviously, storms can make landfall and do major damage in inactive years. Just look at Hurricane Andrew in 1992 as an example of this.''
NOAA does agree.
''People have the right to know if we think it will be an above normal or below normal season,'' Bell said.
''But we always, always, impress on people that we cannot, on seasonal time scales, predict if a given locality is going to get hit, so they have to be ready,'' he said.
And what about the recent tendency to over-predict seasonal activity?
''Forecast activity was too high,'' Bell said. ``But gosh darn it, that's a good thing. We'll take it.''
It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.George S. Patton
posted on November 26, 2007 06:32:14 PM new
Bear: My understanding of science is that you can have trends, with bumps and falls in them, but general trends tend to keep going. You can't judge something like global warming on the basis of a year with fewer hurricanes. Look at the last 10 years, and then watch out for the next 10 years. That shows you some sort of real trend.
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posted on November 26, 2007 07:28:55 PM new
It's really cold outside right now. I guess that global warming stuff is a big old myth. Probably invented by the Democrats.
posted on November 28, 2007 06:02:39 PM new
"Bear: My understanding of science is that you can have trends, with bumps and falls in them, but general trends tend to keep going. You can't judge something like global warming on the basis of a year with fewer hurricanes. Look at the last 10 years, and then watch out for the next 10 years. That shows you some sort of real trend."
That's correct, we must all remember the science. So when someone screams "Katrina" and "global warming", you can tell them we are in a VERY mild hurricane cycle of approx. 1500 hundred years which is ending. Based on core sample, not on the alignment of Al Gore's eyebrow hairs.
posted on November 28, 2007 08:54:36 PM new
Bear, you seem to br an intelligent individual. Forget for a minute that Gore sponsors global warming predictions. Aside from well-funded partisan groups, all experts agree that global warming is a real threat on our horizon. http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/world/ny-woclim185466246nov18,0,647466.story
[ edited by pixiamom on Nov 28, 2007 09:16 PM ]
posted on November 29, 2007 07:10:41 AM new
"all experts agree that global warming is a real threat on our horizon."
All experts agree that global warming exists. The debate is to what degree man's activities vs natural phenomenon is supplying the driving factor. Scientific methodology does not work on the "sounds good" method. Data has to exist to show cause and effect. One of your "partisan" groups has 17000 scientist signatories.
One wonders if the current trend will be as "bad" as when Leif Erikson was driving his SUV through "Greenland" a thousand years ago, or the advancement and recession of multiple "ice ages" through the eons. Then of course, you have the changes created throughout time when the Earth inexplicable has swapped its magnetic poles.
All of which is immaterial, because people, ESPECIALLY greenies, will never do anything which will cause a significant change in man's contribution. They like to chant "Ethanol" in lieu of even radical organizations like Consumer Reports publishing articles entitled "The Ethanol Myth". They love to bash SUVs even though vehicle contribute 1/32 of warming emissions (number 1, with nothing coming close, is the generation of electricity, but we cannot have the huge nuclear programs other countries do because we have a population which derives information from the latest and loudest sound bite.)
posted on November 29, 2007 01:29:30 PM new
Mingo: You and I tend to agree politically, but there's something you did in this thread, and sometimes do in others, that really works against you.
Pixi wrote a well-reasoned response not loaded with incendiary words, disagreeing with Bear but being gentle about it.
What you sometimes do is come into a thread and SECOND SOMEONE'S MOTION, so to speak, but kicking it up a notch or two, so that it lowers the discussion to junior-high-level playground arguments.
Pixi chose her words carefully, as she always does, and meant exactly what she said, but no more. Don't pick on her for being kind. And don't try to accelerate the discord, please. We have enough of that now.
Years ago when our kids were small and I needed to stop them from doing something, I chose the words I'd use. My husband, hearing it, would come in with a stronger statement before the kids had a chance to correct what they were doing. If I'd wanted a stronger statement, I'd have done that, and I talked with my husband about it, asking him not to second my motions any longer. (We've been married nearly 49 years now and are very happy together.)
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posted on November 29, 2007 01:58:16 PM new
There is a natural global warming but man is certainly hastening it. Trees are 50% carbon, deforestation releases 1.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide that felled or burned trees have stored each year - that's 25-30% of all greenhouse gases. Go ahead and drive your SUV, if you must, but leave the trees alone!
posted on November 29, 2007 03:45:07 PM new
roadsmith
posted on November 29, 2007 01:29:30 PM
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Mingo: You and I tend to agree politically, but there's something you did in this thread, and sometimes do in others, that really works against you."""
Roadsmith, you are not my mother nor board monitor. I shall post as I please. If you don't care for my posts ignore them just as I ignore the death wishes I receive from obviously violence prone posters who base their opinions on air.
[ edited by pixiamom on Nov 29, 2007 04:37 AM ]