Predictability of Weather & Climate

I bought Tim Palmer’s book “predictability of Weather & Climate”, to find out how climate scientists dealt with noise. This is it:

Essentially there are three reasons why forecasts are uncertain: uncertainty in the observations used to define initial state, uncertainty in the model used to assimilate the observations and to make forecasts, and uncertainty in ‘external’ parameters.
we will not deal further with such uncertainties of the ‘third kind’ but rather concentrate on the first two.

Climate science “does not deal” with natural variation. There is almost no reference (except the above sentence) in this £126 book about natural variation. They simply do not believe it exists and that this why there is no term within the climate models for natural variation.
So, unlike the real world, where natural variation is predominant, in the world of climate modellers … there is no (significant) natural variation.
Instead, their models have variation which is like a bunch of children at a party … it is hyper-active at the start, but within a few hours (years), it is largely exhausted and about to fall asleep … but unlike children, their initial condition variation, doesn’t wake up again.
Well the author Tim Palmer may be one of the best, but even the best have got it wrong, because … in the real world kids wake up! They don’t become more and more predictable, the longer the party goes on …
This explains why the Met Office think they can predict the climate in 100 years, when they have been proven unable to do it in one year.
Gotcha!
Best Xmas present I’ve had so far.
Merry Xmas & a cool New Year!!

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2 Responses to Predictability of Weather & Climate

  1. catweazle666 says:

    Anyone who believes they can predict the state of an effectively infinitely large non-linear system dependent on an effectively infinite number of feedbacks, of which we are aware of pitifully few – and even then we are unaware of the signs, which in the case of clouds change twice in 24 hours, over any period of more than a few days is either a liar or a charlatan or both.
    And then there’s that damn butterfly…

  2. weather is climate – GLOBAL warming is crap.
    It’s difficult to predict the weather past next Monday – impossible to predict for more than a month. Anybody ”predicting” for longer periods is phony / con! Marry Christmas to everybody!!! … and happy global warming!!!

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