Post by Dr. Ryan N. Maue
The National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative “think-tank”, has again issued a press release asking if NOAA is Smarter than Fifth Graders (?) when forecasting the number of Atlantic tropical storms in 2011. However, in their lame satirical attempt at making serious points, they reveal how little they actually know about seasonal hurricane forecasting. Amy Ridenour, president of the outfit, falsely conflates seasonal hurricane forecasting with climate science methods relating human-caused global warming to changes in x, y, and z phenomena.
Ridenour and her Think-Tank should not mock the researchers who are legitimately trying to determine the ferocity of the upcoming hurricane season – as preparedness is the key to preventing loss of life. NOAA, including the National Weather Service and the many labs around the US including the Storm Prediction Center and National Hurricane Center perform admirably to warn the public of impending situations, and often explain the causes and implications of weather phenomena in professional manners.
If you read the NOAA Hurricane Outlook for 2011, you will find the scientific reasoning for the upcoming “above-normal” hurricane season. However, predicting the exact number of storms is indeed a crap-shoot, as many tropical cyclones develop from small-scale, seemingly opportunistic disturbances that are not necessarily characteristic of the prevailing large-scale climate. Looking to the tropical Pacific for the current and upcoming El Nino Southern Oscillation phase is well-established in the scientific literature to be a statistically significant and useful predictor of Atlantic and Pacific seasonal tropical storm activity.
“Washington, D.C. – The same organization that challenged NOAA to bragging rights for the best hurricane forecast last year using a trained chimp armed only with a pair of dice and a craps table is challenging the agency again: This time by putting two fifth graders up against the multi-billion dollar federal agency.
“Forecasts are just that: forecasts. All that matters is what actually happens,” said Amy Ridenour, president of the National Center for Public Policy Research. “We should keep this in mind as we consider whether to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Past forecasts of rising temperatures, sea levels, and droughts and other extreme weather events due to rising concentrations of carbon haven’t proven any more reliable that NOAA’s annual hurricane forecast. Until their reliability improves, it would be irresponsible to base policy on them.“
I ask Ridenour to retract her conclusions based upon her false logic, and issue an apology to the specific forecasters at NOAA, who are not invested in global warming prognostications, but legitimate public service in providing expert assessments of hurricane risk in 2011.
Instead ask this question: how much money has been spent on seasonal hurricane forecasting research instead of climate change modeling scenarios for the year 2100? If you are going to mock someone, then make sure you have the right target.
The trouble with NOAA senior mgt being so activist about AGW is that it taints all NOAA products. Having said that the NCPPR needs to be more thorough in its research or they too will be producing products that no one values.
I for one am not sure how forecasting either number or ferocity of storms, months in advance, is going to help unless you can also forecast where they will be at and at what time. You could have lots of storms and they all miss population centers – so the number of storms doesn’t necessarily translate to people impacted.
Everyone should already know they are at risk if they live on the coast. People should have already planed for what they will do. For those people living with their heads in the sand, I am not sure that better storm season forecasting will be any more effective.
Tornado warnings work because people can take action near the time of the event. They get projections of where the tornado will be and at what time. Knowing there is a 25% chance of more tornadoes this year is pretty useless to me.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not against furthering scientific knowledge on weather forecasting, but I just do not see the immediate link to bettering people’s lives (or saving lives) by statistically forecasting how many storms there will be.
Insurance, commodities, energy, agriculture, transportation, tourism, government, and others use the seasonal forecasts to assess and mitigate risk. The reason is $$$. For the amount of research dollars and manpower invested in the seasonal hurricane forecast, the economic impact is huge.
Making decisions based upon sea-level forecasts in the year 2100 is likely nonsense, but knowing in advance that an active hurricane season that favors Gulf of Mexico storms is on the way — is very useful information.
I really have to disagree with most of what you said. I have no problem with the NOAA studying how to predict hurricanes and refining their methods, but if they are not able to predict with more accuracy than just looking at past statistics would give you then there is no reason to base policy off of their predictions.
Granted the think tank has shown this to be the case in a way that appeals to the media, but this does not mean they are wrong. And as for mocking who needs to be mocked, we do enough global warming bashing on this blog. It is good to know others are mocking those who may feel neglected by our narrow-mindedness.
well fire all the actuaries, then, cuz we have the noaa ‘camping’ in the name of science
From the NCPPR press release:
Actually, chimpanzees have opposable thumbs too…
What is NOAA’s annual hurricane forecast accuracy. Since I have started paying attention (3ish years) they have been very bad. It would almost seem that the forcasts are an attempt to further the AGW advocate’s case. I think that this is what sparked Ridenour’s statment.
The pioneering work of William Gray in identifying reliable indicators of annual hurricane activity are largely unknown to the general public. Dr. Gray’s work and his methods turned what used to be an activity that was rightfully compared to throwing darts or entrail reading into one with a reasonably successful record of accurately forecasting annual hurricane activity. Dr. Gray’s work deserves both recognition and commendation.
Ms. Ridenour and the National Center for Public Policy Research are, obviously, unaware of the advances that have occurred in forecasting annual hurricane activity over the last twenty-odd years.
Being a Democrat or Republican; liberal, independent, or conservative; black, yellow, or white; highly educated or barely educated–none of these make you a better scientist, logical thinker, or immune to propaganda, lazy conjecture, and the global warming cult. The AGW disease cuts across all demographics.
Ryan,
I agree with your basic points. Your last paragraph could also become a starting point for a list of issues on which research could bring some considerable benefits, in this sense: We should be doing X, rather than Y.
One of the Xs would be energy storage, the lack of which makes wind and solar part of a problem and less of a solution (1). The cash-for-clunkers thing was poorly conceived and poorly done. Likewise, etting up charging stations along long distance routes at public expense makes no sense — exchangeable batteries (refueling in minutes) does. There could be a long list of such ideas.
(1). By Ed Caryl on P. Gosselin’s site: http://notrickszone.com/2011/05/27/a-grid-manager%E2%80%99s-nightmare/
What is the success rate of the NOAA is regarding storm prediction numbers?
Do we have a comparison with private weather companies?
If NOAA wants to be treated as credible and scientific, they must loudly, firmly and publicly disown the entire Carbon Crime. As long as they are going along with it, they deserve to be tainted by the stain of Wall Street Pseudoscience.
Ryan: “Making decisions based upon sea-level forecasts in the year 2100 is likely nonsense, but knowing in advance that an active hurricane season that favors Gulf of Mexico storms is on the way — is very useful information.”
So, Ryan, do you have a chart that plots predicted hurricanes against actual hurricanes. You seem to be trying to make a point that your work is important. I will agree that it can be if your predictions are accurate. If you can provide such a chart, maybe we can make an informed judgement.
[ryanm: i am not saying anything about my work at all. i am only discussing the NOAA seasonal hurricane forecasts which are based on sound science.]
I’m not saying I agree with the think tank but I suspect their thinking goes like this:
If fifth graders perform better than the NOAA then the NOAA is either guessing or their tools / methods are inadequate. If I lived on the US coast I certainly would want further research into hurricane prediction (with the co2 element left out). ;>)
All i know is from following the forecasts the last 3 years and the real amount of storms hitting the us coast that a chimpansee rolling dices with 80% security would have produced better numbers than NOAA . Last they arrived at some number by counting all possible low pressure activities that never came near to any coast in the middle of the ocean . Only the temperature of the surface-water is the driving force of all hurricanes . And what do you notice in the mid-atlantic ? That again this season the sea-surface temperatures are relatively falling , whilst the sst in the gulf is getting further and further off from the increased temperatures measured a couple of months of ago . Again this season a no-hit event , like i forecasted for the last season and which actually came true apart from a small mexican incident in the gulf , may again astonish our bewildered scientists .
The satire was aimed against nonsense claims by leftist activists like Hansen that claim that hurricanes are going to increase because of global warming. Maybe you should direct you attention at the people who claim to be scientists and spread misinformation rather than going after people who find that sort political opportunism and obvious distortion of science obnoxious. If I were given a choice between something that Hansen predicted and a chimp, I would go with the chimp every time because the chimp is not driven by political agendas and bogus assumptions.
Call it as you see it. And call out the politically driven lockers too. Good on you.
40 shades
Good for you, Dr. Maue. This kind of helpful self-criticism is what is needed in climate studies. However, your follow through is lacking. Will you be self-critical? Will you swear never to use the word ‘prediction’ unless you have some physical hypotheses which can explain the phenomenon that you claim to predict? That would mean that no one in climate science can use the word. Will you agree that neither NOAA nor anyone else can do better than look at old charts and graphs and extrapolate from them? Notice that extrapolation does not fall into the realm of science.
You are quite willing to accept my requests as regards landfall for individual hurricanes, so what is it exactly that you claim to understand scientifically? Does the average citizen care about this information that you can provide on good scientific grounds?
Global Warming hysteria was launched in part because meteorologists and other “weathermen” have hyped themselves as having a scientific understanding of various phenomena when they have no such thing. To wrestle AGW hysteria to the floor, we must squeeze our weather forecasters (not predictors) until there is not one drop of illusion remaining in them.
Ryan Maue says:
May 27, 2011 at 11:58 am
“Insurance, commodities, energy, agriculture, transportation, tourism, government, and others use the seasonal forecasts to assess and mitigate risk. The reason is $$$. For the amount of research dollars and manpower invested in the seasonal hurricane forecast, the economic impact is huge.”
But it is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of money that pours into lotteries. Worse reasoning I cannot imagine.
“Making decisions based upon sea-level forecasts in the year 2100 is likely nonsense, but knowing in advance that an active hurricane season that favors Gulf of Mexico storms is on the way — is very useful information.”
To whom? To the residents of Florida? No. Now, having predictions of landfall at particular time and places would be of immense value, but you cannot do that. To investors? Well, sure, but they pay for this information. They would not rely on NOAA if NOAA gave door prizes.
Can anyone point me to demonstrated benefits of accurate hurricane season predictions? Since the predictions are in a very real sense vague, meaning they can’t predict the when or where, they provide very little benefit. It’s not like cities or governments must prepare in some unusual way if the predictions calls for a slightly more active season versus a slightly less active season.
I really don’t see much benefit from these predictions.
People that live in areas susceptible to hurricanes must be prepared during the hurricane season regardless of whether it’s a busy or quiet hurricane season.
“If I were given a choice between something that Hansen predicted and a chimp, I would go with the chimp every time because the chimp is not driven by political agendas and bogus assumptions.”
NOAA’s seasonal hurricane forecasts aren’t based upon political agendas and bogus assumptions. Neither are Gray and Klotzbach from CSU or any other outfit that puts out forecasts. These forecasts have nothing to do with climate change — that’s the point of my posting.
This video from the Offshore Marine Service Association appeared for me as Google Ad under this post; and it might be worth a watch for everyone interested in Gulf Of Mexico drilling vs. Salazar/Obama.
http://www.youtube.com/user/OMSAssociation?feature=pyv&ad=9179509061&kw=obama#p/u/0/2xE2YVK6rKU
What you’re seeing is the damage done to climate science by Mann, East Anglia, politicians and the rest of CAGW mafia. Congratulations to Dr. Maue for trying to bring science back into good repute.
I prefer Madam Zelda and her crystal ball to NOAA guesses.
Don’t piss on my leg and try to tell me it’s raining.
You stand to lose nothing by these laughably meaningless assertions. Make a solid, unqualified prediction &
ifwhen you’re wrong, quit the prediction business and go wash dishes somewhere. Otherwise you’re just another quacksalver defending his ointment business.