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Re: Laws and Theories



On Sat, 8 Apr 2000, Richard W. Tarara wrote:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert A Cohen" <bbq@ESU.EDU>

Ouch! Just a minute there...Weather prediction has come a long way in the
past 100 years. Most of modern meteorology is a science as far as I am
concerned.

You must have better meteorologists in your area than here. I watch the 5
day forecasts published in the paper with some amusement. Say I look at
Friday's forecast on Monday. By Thursday that forecast will have changed
significantly at least twice and usually the Thursday forecast for Friday is
still wrong. It seems to be the case that long term forecasting has gotten
better, but as far as I can tell, the short range forecasting is just as bad
as it has been for the past 50 years. ;-(

Ouch, again! Show me the data. I'd bet today's 5-day forecasts are as
good as yesteryear's 2-day forecasts. Regardless, computer forecasts (and
those made by meteorologists interpreting the computer forecasts) are
based on applying F=ma to the atmosphere (if anyone wants a better
description, let me know). Unfortunately, there is uncertainty in the
initial conditions (and boundary conditions) and this uncertainty limits
the precision of the forecast.

Just because someone is using a hand-held timer to determine the
acceleration of a falling object over a distance of 1 meter doesn't mean
that they aren't involved in science. Yeh, they'll be wrong, but one
needs to consider the uncertainty. Consider what they have to work with.

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| Robert Cohen Department of Physics |
| East Stroudsburg University |
| bbq@esu.edu East Stroudsburg, PA 18301 |
| http://www.esu.edu/~bbq/ (570) 422-3428 |
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