Meteorologists can accuratly predict the weather for next weekend, why should I believe that they can predict the climate in 50 years? If climate is the overall weather trend, shouldn't we make sure we can measure and predict weather before we go off saying that we know how the climate is going to change?
2007-03-28 04:04:44 · 6 answers · asked by Doc E 5 in Environment
Weather and climate are very different things. Weather is what happens day to day, while climate is more of an average. We don't fully understand how all the parts of weather or climate work together, we have a lot more data on climate. Because we can look at the frequency of extreme climate events in the past we can predict things like ice ages so successfully they are used to date past rocks. Some of the top modeling techniques are being used to make this even more accurate. I have seen that data they use and you can to. Look up the latest IPCC reports and you can see the graphs of the results from all the major climate models world wide.
2007-03-28 04:25:23 · answer #1 · answered by Cap10 4 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Climate is actually a lot more predictable than small scale weather predictions.
There are bazillions of variables that can have an influence on what happens on small scale, local levels.
But the variables and range of variation tend to even out over long term, making certain factors (i.e. angle of incidence to the sun) more influential.
It's like the difference between trying to predict whether it will be warmer on the weekend than it is today, or predicting whether the average temperature in July is going to higher or lower than the average temperature in December.
That said, climate modelling is still hardly an exact science, and over much longer time frames, a slight shift in any of the variables can have huge effects farther down the prediction scale - which can easily turn out to be wrong if the degree of the variation is even a few decimal points different than the one in the model, or if some of the other variables also change.
2007-03-28 04:20:28 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Very correct . In Texas it is said that a person that is trying to predict the weather is either a newcomer or a FOOL. They have missed it and refuse to look at new data that this past winter was pretty cold . That doesn't sound like there is global warming. Look at the weather or data u can't close out all new data and hope to get it right.
2007-03-28 08:35:07 · answer #3 · answered by JOHNNIE B 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Not necessarily. Weather occurs in the short term and is somewhat random. Climate, a measure of long term weather trends, can be graphed etc.... This allows climatologists to predict whether average global temperatures are rising or cooling. If you look at long term climate data you will be able to see trends of warming and cooling, especially around periods of glacial advance and retreat.
2007-03-28 04:20:15 · answer #4 · answered by dirtjeeprider 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋
As Haysoos2 has pointed out, climatology is not an exact science. The international panel on climate change is, for that very reason, very conservative in its estimations and recommendations. It uses 1500 scientists to analyze years worth of data and only puts out a report every four years. This latest report the increased their estimation of the liklihood that global warming is happening and is caused by humans from 60% to 90%. And that says a lot.
There have been periods in the earth's history where the temperature has fluctuated as much as 20° C in a decade. But for the time that humans have been on the earth the temperature has been relatively cool and very stable. This is a good thing because human societies, sustained primarily through agriculture, couldn't survive under vast fluctuations in the earth's temperature.
The worry is that we are exiting this nice stable period of the earth's climate which has allowed humans to successfully inhabit the earth. We are not 100% certain that this is happening, nor are we certain that we can stop it. But the chance of catastrophe and the possibility that we might be able to avoid it justifies us spending good money today for the possibility of improving our lives 100 years from now.
Interesting, the economic modeling of our future wealth is about as certain as our modeling of the future climate. These models will recommend various portions of our GDP be spent to mitigate global warming depending on how much we value the well being of our children compared to ourselves. Or how much we value the well being of the poor compared to the well being of the wealthy.
The issue of global warming is wrought with uncertainties, but on balance, I think efforts to limit our CO2 emissions through a carbon tax will be a prudent use of resources.
emeka
Work hard. Be nice.
2007-03-28 06:57:56 · answer #5 · answered by emeka 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
meteorologists are not climatologists...they are completely different professions. You're not going to turn on the 6 oclock news and find a climatologist giving you the weather. The weather from day to day is extremely variable from day to day, but these day to day patterns set a trend that climatologists use to make predictions of the future of our climate.
2007-03-28 06:24:54 · answer #6 · answered by cthomp99 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
There are a lot of problems of using a computer model to predicts future temperatures. For starters you have to make a lot of assumptions, and if one of them is wrong, the predictions are wrong. And if so desired, one can tweak the assumptions to match your desired conclusion.
2007-03-28 05:00:33 · answer #7 · answered by eric c 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋