Bad day in Oklahoma

Does the name George Carlin ring a familiar note?

It sure does, but I think I remember this from a Monty Python sketch.

I could be wrong. It has happened before. (once)

Jose
--
Money: what you need when you run out of brains.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Hmm, around here, there has been very little to forcast. A few minor rain
events, a couple of temperature dips.

It has just been a mild, nothing of a winter.

We've had three very distinct winters on three months.

December was unbelievable -- like something out of the 1970s. Snow every
day, day after day, and bone-chilling cold. I shoveled something like 17
days in a row. Almost no good flying weather.

January was very warm. Lots of low clouds, ice, not a lot of measurable
snow, but cloud and poor vis nearly every day.
Almost no good flying weather.

February gradually grew colder, and more winter-like. Near the end of the
month, we had a solid 10 days of good flying weather. We actually had a few
fly-in guests during this time.

March? It's sucked, so far. Never got off the ground yesterday or today.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" writes:

btw - back in 1984, NASA was estimating that it would need several orders
of magnitude more computing power to run better wx models (they had a
so-so
model that took 48 hours to run in order to generate a 24 hour forecast!).

Well, they've still got a long ways to go, that's for sure.

I haven't been able to rely on ANY weather forecasts this winter. It's my
impression that the NWS is having a very hard time of it, this year.

One reason the predictions aren't improving as much as hoped/expected
is probably climate change; the data the models are based on aren't so
valid any more. (Which doesn't do *one little thing* to reduce the
force of your point that 10-year general climate forecasts don't seem
all that convincing when they can't bat better than 500 on 24-hour
forecasts.)
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
RKBA: http://noguns-nomoney.com/ http://www.dd-b.net/carry/
Pics: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/ http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/
Dragaera/Steven Brust: http://dragaera.info/

On 2006-03-02, Jay Honeck wrote:
Weather forecasting computer models are so incredibly flawed that they can't
reliably predict the weather 12 hours in advance -- yet, for some unknown
reason, many people trust computer models that purport to show what the
climate will be like in the year 2100.

Weather is not equal to climate.

Here's an analogy - take a large pan of water, switch on the gas stove
at a medium setting.

The equivalent of weather forecasting is predicting where exactly each
convection will appear in the next X minutes, and how the water will
flow with the gas heating it (probably unevenly, no burners are
perfect), and what temperatures will be found at different points inside
that volume of water.

The equivalent of climatology in this pan analogy is predicting the rate
of temperature change in the entire pan if, say, I turn the burner from
medium to full power.

The person predicting where all the eddies and temperature variances
within the pan will be pretty accurate for what will happen in the next
few seconds, but fairly inaccurate if you ask him to predict where the
eddies, temperature variances and convections will be in five minutes
time.
However, the person predicting what happens when you go from half burner
to full burner can give you a much more accurate general prediction of
what the heat will be in 30 minutes.

It's the same with climatology versus meterology. If you add a certain
chemical to the atmosphere which has a known effect, you can say with a
reasonable degree of confidence what it will do to the total energy
state of the atmosphere as a whole over a period of decades.
However, you can't say what it will do to an individual eddy current
in the atmosphere from one day to the next.

Dismissing climate change because the NWS 5-day forecasts isn't always
accurate is a complete and utter misunderstanding of the difference
between climatology and meterology (in fact it's so wrong it's not even
wrong).

--
Dylan Smith, Port St Mary, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Oolite-Linux: an Elite tribute: http://oolite-linux.berlios.de
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net

http://orangecow.org/pythonet/sketches/
GREAT SITE!! (Most of the skits)

Thanks. You're right - it is a great site!

Jose
--
Money: what you need when you run out of brains.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Do you think that if you read more than two of these posts you will need to
report it to the AME on your next medical?

Dismissing climate change because the NWS 5-day forecasts isn't always
accurate is a complete and utter misunderstanding of the difference
between climatology and meterology (in fact it's so wrong it's not even
wrong).

It's merely an example of how far off weather computer models are at
predicting ANYTHING over time -- nothing more. Your over-simplified example
of how climate works casts some heat -- but little light -- on the subject.

See http://www.crichton-official.com/spe...s_quote05.html for
Michael Crichton's excellent discourse on where the "science" of
environmentalism has led us.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

("LWG" wrote)
Do you think that if you read more than two of these posts you will need
to report it to the AME on your next medical?


For Bp reasons or because of those 2 or 3 "crazy" questions on the exam?

(The 9/11 goofballs have mostly gone away - for now.)


Montblack
I Ballfart'd your Subject line - filters.

On 2006-03-04, Jay Honeck wrote:
See http://www.crichton-official.com/spe...s_quote05.html for
Michael Crichton's excellent discourse on where the "science" of
environmentalism has led us.

Crichton is a fiction writer. I would accept the arguments of one
climatologist over the arguments of ten thousand Crichtons.

--
Dylan Smith, Port St Mary, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Oolite-Linux: an Elite tribute: http://oolite-linux.berlios.de
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net

Michael Crichton's excellent discourse on where the "science" of
environmentalism has led us.

Crichton is a fiction writer. I would accept the arguments of one
climatologist over the arguments of ten thousand Crichtons.

Crichton is a medical doctor, a very successful author (of both fiction and
non-fiction work), and one helluva a smart guy.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"