Yesterday I posted an announcement about this odd press release:
Think-Tank Says Trained Chimp Can Predict Hurricanes Better Than NOAA… And Puts it to the Test
Today, in a strange twist of timing, NOAA makes this press release about their hurricane announcement:
Contact: Chris Vaccaro
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
202-482-6090 May 19, 2010
NOAA’s Atlantic hurricane outlook postponed
NOAA’s Atlantic hurricane outlook announcement originally scheduled for tomorrow is now scheduled to take place next Thursday in Washington, D.C.
A new media advisory with full details will be issued shortly.
– 30 –
=========================
Hmmm. Makes me wonder if the numbers the chimp came up with were the same as what NOAA came up with. NOAA sent this via email, which I’ve verified…
Received: from mmp3.nems.noaa.gov ([140.90.121.158])
…but it hasn’t shown up in the press release archive yet. It will be interesting to see what they come up with in the delayed release and what the explanation will be (if any) on why the delay occurred.
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Where can we find past forecasts/real numbers ?
Jane Goodal would be proud of her chimps accomplishments. I guess she raised ’em right. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we engaged in warfare the way chimpanzees do? Flinging feces and all. Bullets are much, much harder to clean off. Also their predictive capabilities appear to be astounding. 8^D
The monkey’s predictive capabilities, not the bullets predictive capabilities, to clarify.
Don’t underestimate the intelligence of a Chimp!
I wonder if James Lovelock was including NOAA when he said in this Guardian interview
“The great climate science centres around the world are more than well aware how weak their science is. If you talk to them privately they’re scared stiff of the fact that they don’t really know what the clouds and the aerosols are doing. They could be absolutely running the show. We haven’t got the physics worked out yet.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock
And I thought the climate stuff was so simple a caveman, or a chimp, could do it.
Cold sea surface temperatures in the gulf area (BTW partially covered with oil) will make impossible for hurricanes to survive.
Obviously the chimp didn’t return the dice on time.
In the NOAA situtation room: “We have got to get a good prediction, just this once, but how?! Someone has got to pull a monkey out of a hat – I mean, rabbit!”
This chimp idea is a great idea!
Ecotretas
Prediction is a fool’s game. It has a nasty habit of showing the world how little you know.
The problem for expert bodies is the groupthink and self flattery – maybe sometimes even arrogance. Outsiders can spot lack of capability before experts face up to their own shortcomings. Kinda like emperor’s new clothes.
The release is innacurate I think, even an untrained chimp that died two weeks ago of dementia could make a better job of predictions than NOAA, in the UK we have the met office which has deteriorated into a sad joke and pathetic shadow of its former self staffed with ignorant, lazy and wholly incompetent political stooges.
If an organisation bases its predictions primarily on political considerations then mistakes are inevitable and cannot be avoided, if these political considerations are immune from amendement then the predictions will always degenerate from the innacurate to the stab in the dark.
In the days of the USSR national institutions would be so afraid of critisism and the feared camps that they would make up statistics and other officials so afraid to question high party officials would rubber stamp the figures and statistics, it got so bad that production figures and yields were wildly innacurate and bore no resemblance to reality.
Never in our wildest dreams did we think that the USSRs methods would survive and thrive in the land of the free.
We live in a time of lies and deceit and fraud, national institutions are being used to spread political lies as truth and political deceit as reality, a shame that will destroy them and us together and that destruction is nearer than any of us care to imagine.
Western civilisation depends trust, we trust those in positions of influence and power to tell us the truth regardless of how it may change entrenched beliefs and damage political reputations, once that implicit trust has died then there is no hope for any of us.
Last year I predicted zero hurricanes hitting the US and told everybody I knew in Florida it is due to the 2 year solar minimum. My last year’s prediction was 100% accurate. This year I’m being a little more cautious in my hurricane prediction. I predict zero to two minimal hurricanes hitting the US in 2010. I’m even going naked on hurricane insurance for my home. I’ll put up the hurricane shutters if one of those minimal hurricanes comes close to my home in SW Florida but will probably not have to do that this year.
Sunspot number: 0
Updated 18 May 2010
Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 10 days
2010 total: 31 days (22%)
2009 total: 260 days (71%)
Since 2004: 799 days
Typical Solar Min: 486 days
http://www.spaceweather.com/
Weather forecasting for your government should be outsourced.
@Benjaman
I believe what your looking for is here:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/outlooks/hurricane-archive.shtml
NOAA’s May and Aug Seasonal Outlooks back to 1999. There’s not a good page I can find with verification statistics. It might be embeded in the seasonal climate summaries on the same page.
Overall, I’m not down as much as most here on these predictions. Yes, there is little skill in these forecasts at the moment and an argument could probably be made that they shouldn’t be operational. Still, they don’t hurt anyone. The only way to potentially gain skill in the 3-6 month range is to use our best knowledge of the factors that do or do not favor hurricane formation and make a prediction. Then see where things went wrong after the season and use that knowledge to improve. It might turn out that it’s simply not possible, but I think it is worth a try.
Its not just NOAA worried about a chimp: chimp in Russia picks stocks:
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Dispatch/market-dispatches.aspx?post=1548081&vv=800
A Walk Down “Hurricane Alley”?
Knowing how Jane Lubchenco operates I have little doubt that the reason is the evolving politicization of the outlook announcement.
In Oregon Jane learned long ago to politicize and manipulate everything.
So I suspect that when released, the “outlook” will be some generalized and open ended version that’s heavily overshadowed by an alarming concern for the effect of a hurricane on the oil slick.
The hurricane announcement will be more of an activist’s flier on the vast harm from anticipated AGW generated hurricanes pushing the oil into marshes and estuaries.
Leaving the “outlook” (not projection, prediction or forecast) of hurricane numbers and strength of little import.
Chimps are far better than us on short term memory…
the lottery numbers for saturday will be 1,3,19,20,21,22
How big a grant did the Chimp get?
They’re out recruiting (orangutans perhaps?).
Their chimp died at the last minute, right before the final throw.
If you look at the last 5 years …
Look, we’re talking about “Trained Chimp”s.
That takes time…..Period! (“next Thursday”)
Regarding the chimp memory video. If I put a suit on a chimp, can I take him to Vegas as a “Rainman” standin?
“YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP! OH, DAMN YOU! GODDAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!” – Planet of the Apes (1968)
A note on the chimp short term memory… I think in the memory test above, the fact that we give meaning to the numbers would apparently hinder our ability to remember as quickly as a chimp. For the chimp, numbers are just drawings that he learned to push in a certain order. I would think, given the same time that a human with no knowledge of numbers would do better.