Letters to the Editor
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No Alden, that is not right.
"But the older modes of research are not suddenly irrelevant, and Dr. Gray's warning not to lean our whole weight on model-based research is worth heeding. "
Modeling is based on equations that are correct. Period. The problem is find out how much detail is necessary and steal enough computer time to make it work. If the model is inadequate, it will be improved next year. Since models use the basic physics, they can predict how overall behavior such as the climate changes. Dr. Gray's correlations are based on a partucular set of conditions. They cannot tell you what happens as things change.
"The world corresponds with mathematics in profound and wonderful ways, but mathematics is a human invention and nature has tricks we haven't dreamed of yet."
There is no philosiphical problem or deep undelying issue here. Predicting climate change is a purely practical problem.
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There's a butt storm at Salon!!
This is what a hurricane looks like--except it's buttocks, not wind and rain and tidal surge.
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Modeling
Well, we had a water-cooled sphere with a powerful heat source near the center. The sphere was a foot in diameter with water-cooled walls. Gas entered at one end and left at the other end. Couldn't model it for shit. Things might be better now five or so years later, but I doubt it. If the basic cell of your model is a kilometer on a side, you might be missing some critical detail on the order 10 or 20 meters in size. What size cell is required to get the needed detail? I believe that the hurricane modelers are using cells around a km. What if we had to go to cells a meter in size? The computer power would have to go up by a factor of a billion. What if the chaos guys are right and stuff at a mm is critical?
Do any real mathematicians read Salon?
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Modelling and Math
Curmudgeon, no one wants to be bothered with statistics and math when there are kewl new modeling programs out there!
Long range theories that take into account the millions of years our oceans have been churning out hurricanes are passe' when faced with the option plugging in data from the past 40 years and seeing neato keano graphics come up with speculations that remove the art and wisdom of prediction.
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Regardless
There is nothing to indicate anyone anywhere at anytime is doing a single thing to mitigate the problems associated with ever larger more frequent storm for whatever reason. All anyone is arguing about is who's blog is right and which talking head is a jerk. OK, that's fine.
But - people have short memories. NC hasn't been hit with a BIG storm in many years. And when it is, it will be consumed with dealing with that problem and not a single moment on the long run problems for anyone else. That's the nature of disasters. If you're looking for the victims of Katrina to lead your charge you're wrong. They have enough to deal with it, and, were they not - every argument ultimately comes down to money.
If abandoning the 34th largest metropolitan center in the US to alligators, snakes and mud isn't that cost effective to save then that defines the issue for everyone else. On the other hand, most places that are typically harmed by BIG storms are harmed by the storm itself and not the infrastructure deficiencies of the place. That is - if Myrtle Beach gets swamped then the problem is about the storm at that time not about anything anyone can do about Myrtle Beach. Or Charleston. Or Jacksonville. There is in fact nothing anyone could have done, really to change the outcome of Hugo or Andrew.
And that is why no one wants to do anything about it. No one is going to spend money on a theory or an estimate or a projection. They will spend money to fix something after the fact but nothing at all to speculatively fix something before the fact. Otherwise NASA would have the meteor and comet zapper up there in space to protect us from the killer object that may or may not kill us all some day.
So storms may very well get stronger and more frequent. So?
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"What if the chaos guys are right and stuff at a mm is critical?"
Part of the job of modeling is determining the validity of the model. And part of that is figuring out what can be predicted from a given cell size. The process is not totally blind as you are implying.
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Math and Modeling?
"Long range theories that take into account the millions of years our oceans have been churning out hurricanes are passe'...."
Passe'? There never were such theories. We do not have the necessary information about hurricanes over millions of years.
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Mike Sulzer
Didn't say it was blind. Just that we may not have anywhere near the computing power that we need. As Al Korzybski was fond of saying, "The map is not the territory".
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"The Forecasters Were Wrong"
Chris Mooney says "The forecasters were wrong" when questioned about the hurricane season of 2006. Forecasters predicted it would be a strong hurricane season and it wasn't.
I have been on the internet since 1998 and EVERY SINGLE YEAR I have read the internet headline "forecasters predict active hurricane season" and "Forecasters predict more frequent strong storms this year." Those forecasts have been wrong for the better part of a decade. The thing is, if you predict a strong year for hurricanes every year, then sometimes you'll be right and sometimes you'll be wrong.
Since Katrina in 2005, people are paying more attention to the forecasters' predictions about hurricanes. Don't be surprised in a few years to see interest fall off as the usual hurricane prediction "Forecasters predict this year will have a very active hurricane season with more frequent storms" is wrong. Don't be surprised to see global warming naysayers pointing to the National Hurricane Center and the NOAA and saying "These so-called scientists don't know what they're talking about."
I am not a global warming disbeliever. I am an ardent environmentalist (even if I do get routinely derided as a 'tree-hugger' by fat, drug-addled talk radio hosts)...I'm just sayin'.... you can't have the same prediction every year and expect legitimacy. I think these yearly predictions of a "strong hurricane season" for the past decade have been an annual fundraiser for government grant money. I wouldn't be so sure everyone doesn't catch on in these years after Katrina, the way they caught on to the CDC's predictions of AIDS being as easily contracted through strict heterosexual sex as it is through homosexual sex. People eventually caught onto that little doomsday scenario as a fundraiser for grant money; they'll catch on to the annual strong storm season as a fundraiser, too. How about the National Hurricane Center starts actually saying something besides "active hurricane season predicted. More, stronger storms than usual" so they don't ruin things for the rest of us by giving ammo to the people who run the corporate media?