Peter Webster on Predicting Tropical Cyclones
April 16th, 2008Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
Some wise words from Georgia Tech’s Peter Webster on our ability to predict the future incidence of tropical cyclones (or TCs, which includes hurricanes):
Unless we can explain physically the history of the number and intensity of TCs in the recent past, then determining the number and intensity of TCs in the future will be either an extrapolation of very poor data sets or a belief in incomplete and inexact models.
April 15th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Basically, I think that Webster is saying that until we understand what causes TCs, we are just drawing a random number when these predictions are made.