Gary, the dangerous infidel says:

Fortunately, Dr. Hansimian was able to make this hurricane forecast before being rushed away to the Gulf of Mexico to begin round-the-clock work on a solution to the latest oil spill. His first idea was to use a pipe plug that looked suspiciously like a banana, but after he was fed, he expanded his range of potential solutions to include ideas unrelated to his favorite foods.

BP was especially pleased by Dr. Hansimian’s modest salary demands.

bobbo, the third eye knows all says:

The experimental prediction are RIGGED! You go to the mean of events when you have no predictive model.

You know what else goes to the mean of the distribution?

Thats right. Dice.

I guess it doesn’t hold much water when NOAA says we are just at the start at being able to predict these complex systems. Until they get better, I’d stick with the averages too.

Average: guaranteed to miss the extremes.

Three witches with one eye says:

Easier to predict a Republican thumper to resign for some “sin against God” sex scandal.

I feel something coming

bobbo, are we Men of Science or Skeptical says:

Now, Skeptic you really are throwing sand up in the air. Short term = long term = very different.

I ran across this last night. I was expecting my souffle to be done after 35 minutes, but it took 40. I don’t know why. Some variable at play.

How about this analogy since you don’t understand it clearly stated: we know that a coin flip over time will come up head or tails 50% of the time. We can’t tell you what the next flip will produce. Would you call the facts of statistical analysis faulty because it can’t do this short term calculation?

Evolution is similar. We know speciation takes place, but can’t give the time or place.

Or earthquakes. Same thing. Long term vs short term.

Taking your own confusion as deeper insight. Silly boy.

deowll says:

I’m sticking with the old farmers almanac for long range forecasting for local conditions. They miss it less.

When your long range forecasts for the next six months don’t work your modal is wrong. If their modal is wrong in the short run, the next six months, how can I believe them when they try to predict climate and hurricane seasons a century out and tell me we should spend trillions?

Nugget Coombs says:

Dr. Hansimian has a very strong resemblance to George W. Bush! Probably a close relative I suppose.

The0ne says:

You don’t need a chimp!

http://www.tom-phillips.info/images/weather.forecasting/image.01.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Rock

Skeptic says:

Re Bobbo “Would you call the facts of statistical analysis faulty because it can’t do this short term calculation?”

No. What I was implying was neither short or long term predictions have been done with any accuracy. Like all other long term climate predictions to date, they are proving to be wrong. So they adjust their models until the right answer to current data pops out. It’s actually a joke that is losing it’s punch, that models are pushing their predictions farther away so that by the time the date of reckoning rolls around, the prediction will be meaningless and forgotten. So why do it? Well, they have to keep fueling the express train of alarm don’t they.

Skeptic says:

TheOne, I didn’t say to stop trying did i? Instead of wasting their time trying to predict minor changes 100 years in the future, they should be working on understanding weather… the here and now, predictions of 1 or 2 years. When they can get some reasonable accuracy in that, the longer term speculation will become more accurate and meaningful. But they don’t do that do they. The most important thing these days is to raise an unverifiable alarm. More money wasted.

Skeptic says:

TheOne, no problem. I just expanded on my initial post to make it clearer. I get a little snarky in my replies sometimes… sorry about that. Old age.