Japan Plans 30-Year Supercomputer Forecasts 200
BaltikaTroika writes "According to a ministry representative, 'Japan is planning ultra long-range 30-year weather forecasts that will predict typhoons, storms, blizzards, droughts and other inclement weather.' Maybe they should tell their secret to my local weatherman, who usually can't even get tomorrow's weather right. Whatever happened to chaos?"
Chaos? (Score:5, Funny)
Pfft. Chaos is so predictable.
Re:Chaos? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now this would be total chaos. WTF are they thinking? Oh
Re:Chaos? (Score:2)
Pfft. Chaos is so predictable.
It is funny how predictable it is that every time there's a story about long-range forecasting, someone will bring up Chaos Theory...
Re:Chaos? (Score:3, Insightful)
Any predictive computer will ultimately fail, because you can't compress the universe into a computer smaller than that universe, and we are unable to figure out every equation that's being calculated anyway. You might get data that's "good enough" for 30 years, but the deviation will only increase with time. That's why weather predictions are generally only good 3
Re:Chaos? (Score:2)
This is a popularized version of an article that was probably originally written in Japanese. And I doubt that the translator was a climate modeling specialist.
(OTOH, this *could* just be pork-barrel politics.)
Re:Chaos? (Score:2)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,
Re:Chaos? (Score:2)
The predictions won't be at a fine grained level...even if they manage to get the modeled area down in size to an acre (and they'd like even finer) they won't be able to escape chaotic effects. But many chaotic effects can be "summarized", as temperature "summarizes" the speeds of atoms within a particular piece of material. So you may not be able to predict details (a typhoon will strike land n
Re:Chaos? (Score:2)
Not if the universe is infinitely complex!
Re:Chaos? (Score:2)
It's funny 'cause it's true.
Chaotic processes can be predicted with great accuracy for short time into the future, but can't be predicted a long time into the future.
Random processes cannot be predicted in the immediate future, but generally can be predicted a long time into the future.
Not only that, but chaotic processes can be controlled with minimal force and be predictable forever.
Re:Chaos? (Score:2, Insightful)
That entirely depends upon the process in question and the selection of initial variables.
Sensitivity to initial variables and deviation from the expected path are what makes chaotic functions fun.
For some equations and parameters the expected path can be estimated with great precision, however move a fraction to the left and they will spin wildly out of control.
Just look
Governmental "Chaos" (Score:2, Informative)
Probably there's a budget item
Rivers and seas boiling! (Score:2)
mass hysteria!
Re:Chaos? (Score:2)
But the last time I complained about bad grammar making a post unreadable it got modded as flamebait (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=191121&cid=1
-stormin
Re:Chaos? (Score:2)
I will quote from my post: I complained about bad grammar making a post unreadable
So the only dolt here is you. I could care less about proper rules of grammar for their own sake (which is pretty much the definition of a grammar nazi). What's important is being able to communicate. It's hard enough to get your meaning across using only typed words (no facial or voice cues), but mashing the words together in such a way that there's just no coherence severely compounds the problem.
So
Re:Chaos? (Score:2)
your weather[wo]man (Score:3, Insightful)
Forecasts okay now (Score:4, Funny)
Actually, those days are pretty much gone now. With all the latest computational models for weather, as opposed to what was essentially pattern matching before, I find that the weather forecasts on the whole are pretty accurate out to a few days. As for 30 years, I would be more than a little skeptical since you even have to account for things like solar flares and sunspots, or you get small inaccuracies that will grow more massive the further out you get. But, with the new Hello Kitty Supercomputer Center, perhaps they are able to account for this in their computations.
Re:Forecasts okay now (Score:5, Interesting)
In Michigan, sure, sometimes they get a week right.
On the other hand, sometimes they're so far off you can barely recognize the week. What seems to happen is a lot of storms stall that they don't expect, or they expect something to stall and it doesn't.
Probably the funniest was the recent "hurricane" over Michigan (about a month ago), which even made Fark. This storm complex stalled for a week and change, and basically every day of the week, the prediction was that it would move away by tomorrow.
Michigan seems to be at a meeting point for storm systems coming from the West, cold air coming from Canada, and wet, moist air coming from the Gulf. Predicting which will "win" for any given day seems to give the models fits. For example, the worst winter storms for us are when the cold Canadian air meets the warm, moist Gulf air, but predicting exactly where they will meet and drop all the snow seems to have an error bar of several hundred miles (i.e., for a prediction of hitting Lansing, smack dab in the middle of the lower peninsula, you're looking at it actually hitting anywhere from mid-Ohio to the top of the UP.) I've noticed that for predicting precipitation, you're almost better off just watching a couple of hours of the radar loop and making your own prediction.
Re:Forecasts okay now (Score:4, Interesting)
Probably someone has already done this though.
Re:Forecasts okay now (Score:2)
I'm on malta for now and the dudes over here can't predict anything
Due to the strike at the weather station, there will be no weather tomorrow.
Chaos is chaos and weather is weather (Score:3, Insightful)
What we have here is the 'bullet-train syndrome' at work, where they don't just move from weeks to months, or months to years...they jump to decades. Hubris aside, this is very typical of the Japanese culture and a natural 'next step', actually.
RTFA, submitter (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:RTFA, submitter (Score:3, Insightful)
This is nothing new either. Earth Simulator has been used for these things for many years, and was the worlds fastest supercomputer for several years.
Re:RTFA, submitter (Score:2)
Whaaat? I was gonna vacation in Tokyo that August. Oh well, Fiji it is.
Re:RTFA, submitter (Score:2)
Try Majorca instead. No tsunami there until March 13, 2047.
Re:RTFA, submitter (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm guessing by the statement "The machine tracks global sea temperatures, rainfall and crustal movement to predict natural disasters over the next centuries." that they are already doing this.
Re:RTFA, submitter (Score:2)
Aren't they usually caused by crust-movement-type activity?
As in (from the article):
My (limited) understanding is that attempting to predict seismic activity has always been a major part of the purpose of the machine, and that this 30-year weather thing is an additional (part of the) project.
RTFA (Score:2)
Actually Useful (Score:5, Interesting)
But never, in no way, will someone be able to tell you if it will rain in 3 weeks, let alone 30 years. I've studied the accuracy of forecasts quite a bit (as an energy analyst), and you can't get much better than climatology once you go 2 weeks out.
Re:Actually Useful (Score:2, Interesting)
So here's something I'm honestly curious about that maybe you could answer: Why did weather forecasting recently go from 5-day or 7-day forecasts to 10-day? Did we get better at prediction, or did we just get more tolerant of error? This change just happened in the past couple of years
Re:Actually Useful (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Actually Useful (Score:4, Insightful)
I heard a great quote somewhere along the line: "It isn't decided that far in advance".
Re:Actually Useful (Score:2)
Re:Actually Useful (Score:2)
Re:Actually Useful (Score:2)
It's just climate research and bad reporting. Nothing new there.
Re:Actually Useful (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Actually Useful (Score:2)
Re:Actually Useful (Score:2)
Disclaimer: IANAM.
I believe the reason this would "work" is because they're looking at general models. Current methods of weather forecasting let us predict small pockets of weather with acceptable accuracy. What these researchers seem to be trying to do is try and generalize over a larger period of time. Although weather forecasts aren't able to determine "City X will have scattered showers and a temperature of X degrees Fahrenheit" past a two-week threshold (or so), extending the time to decades may sti
Re: Butterfly Effect (Score:2)
If they're doing this correctly, they aren't looking for individual points or even individual curves. They're (hopefully) trying to see the whole butterfly [google.com].
Any particular chaotic equation with a stable set of forcing constants [usgs.gov] will end up with a semi-predictable structure. The problem is that the weather's input forces are changing. Even so, you should be able to solve how those changes distort the overall shape, with sufficient computing power.
Re:Actually Useful (Score:2)
It's possible that someday it'll be possible to tell that it'll rain in three weeks. What won't be possible is to tell you *how much* and on *what days*. It's generally much easier to predict the rough sequence of events t
Yeah, but... (Score:2, Funny)
Too many different theories (Score:2)
Take just for example the world's temperature: are we going to have another Ice Age or a Hot Age? Just choosing one of them changes drastically the results of such experiment.
The data they are using for such experiment is, I believe, reliable (since it is mostly historical data), but the question here is not which dataset to use as input but rather to which function should this input be applied.
Tomorrow vs 30 years (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Tomorrow vs 30 years (Score:2)
Yet if you play the right machines (the ones programmed to pay out more often) and you only play progressive machines, you're right that over a 12-hour period you're likely to end up broke. But over several lifetimes, you're likely to end up positive. The hard part is the discipline -- only playing the good machines, and sitting tight
Yes another person (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yes another person (Score:2, Funny)
http://www.worldjumpday.org/ [worldjumpday.org]
Local weatherman accuracy (Score:3, Informative)
accuracy tends to extend very well out to the 3-day period and acceptably well to the 7-day
They must have a crystal ball... (Score:2)
What the hell? (Score:3, Insightful)
The results will help establish predictable routes for typhoons and identify areas that are recurring targets for heavy rains, abundant snow, high waves, heavy winds, scorching heat or crop-threatening droughts.
This seems very reasonable. They're not trying to predict the weather on the third Tuesday in March, 2025, they're trying to establish long-term trends.Re:What the hell? (Score:2)
Re:What the hell? (Score:2)
Re:What the hell? (Score:2)
Re:What the hell? (Score:2)
It all depends on your assumptions (Score:4, Funny)
It all depends on your assumptions. Look at Venus. The weather there is dead simple to predict. Heavily overcast, highs in the mid 900's, with poisonous smog in low lying areas through the weekend.
The only reason the Earth's weather seems hard to predict now is that we haven't (yet) experienced a run-away feedback loop. If you posit that we're starting into one, making accurate daily forecasts thirty years out will be much easier than sticking around to see how well you did.
--MarkusQ
Re:It all depends on your assumptions (Score:2)
So just like LA in August...
Re:It all depends on your assumptions (Score:2)
You mean like building a supercomputer that heats the earth that raises a need for yet hotter supercomputer?
A Few Things (Score:5, Informative)
2) Higher precision does help you model chaotic systems longer, but... If you run your model until the difference between your prediction and the actual system is larger than a tolerance, the time when this happens is called the horizon time. If you improve your accuracy (let's say your computer system is perfect and errors only occur in getting the initial state right), you only improve the horizon time as the LOG of your improvement. In an age where quadratic methods are just adequate in scientific computing, this is unbearable.
3) Another weather (not climate) prediction option is to use a statistical cohort model. Such a model just takes in data and tries to predict what will happen next based on past trends. It doesn't know any physics, and can take a while to train. This means that the cohort you train in London is useless in Paris. Such "models" often beat physical models in predictive ability, but don't give any insight into why. If you want to fly a plane, they're fine. If you want to do science, see (1) or (2).
Also, this computer is way, way cooler than the one predicting nuclear bomb blasts. But that's, just like, my opinion, man.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:A Few Things (Score:3, Funny)
Re:A Few Things (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:A Few Things (Score:2)
Long period weather oscillations... (Score:4, Interesting)
the El Niño -Southern Oscillation (ENSO) [noaa.gov] - 6 to 18 months,
the Pacific Decadal Oscillation [washington.edu] (PDO) - 20 to 30 years
the Pacific-North American Oscillation [noaa.gov] (PNA) - 3 to 10 years
the The North Atlantic Oscillation [columbia.edu] NAO - 5 to 10 years
the Artic Oscillation [colostate.edu] (AO)- 5 to 10 years
the Antartic Oscillation [washington.edu] (AAO) - 5 to 10 years
Paleoclimatologists have the records of weather condifions going back thousands of years using information such as tree rings [sonic.net], snow, lava, and seed deposits.
If the researchers could develop a long timescale atmospheric simulator that could replicate this data, then maybe they could predict general trends 30 years into the
future. Although unpredictable events such as earthquakes and volcanos) make things
bit harder, although they will probably run a large number of possible scenarios
before making any conclusions.
Re:Long period weather oscillations... (Score:2)
Don't forget the gold standard of past atmospheres, ice cores [wikipedia.org].
Re:Long period weather oscillations... (Score:2)
Climate forecast != whether forecast (Score:2)
Climate forecasts try to accurately predict the probability that something will happen.
For those of you that don't understand the butterfly effect, it is an ustable element in an overall stable system. Sahara isn't going to become a rain forest just because a butterfly start flapping. So what are climate forecasts for? Obviously not planning your 50th birthday party a few decades in advance.
Examples:
Hydro power: More rain, less rain, more unstable
30-year WEATHER predictions. (Score:2)
You have to understand, though, that weather prediction is different than climate prediction.
You should also realize that my computer is a little slower than the Earth Simulator.
So, contingent on funding, I'll need a little time.
I think I can have one ready in about 35 years.
what? (Score:2)
30 year forecast? (Score:2)
year 16: bleak
year 17: bleak
year 18...
Seriously though, more and more scientists and even politicians are waking up to the fact that humankind is constantly changing its environment. Some are saying that the small rises in global temperatures these past couple years may have triggered the increase in hurricane activity and strength we are seeing. Makes sense to me - from a laymans point of view higher temperature = more energy = stronger storm.
As we co
Actually (Score:2)
I don't understand you guys sometimes with all your griping about weather predicitions and TV news and all.
The factors that affect weather predicitions on a small time scale are different from those that affect weather on long time scales. In fact, 0-48 hours is relatively easy to forecast based on extrapolating local conditions and observations. Long-term trends (on the order of magnitude of years) are also relatively easy to forecast (see The Farmer's Almanac, El Nino and Typhoon cycles etc. for evide
Bad journalism (Score:2)
Chaos has not gone away, but the objective of the project is not to perdict specific weather events.
Climate is the aggregate statistics of weather. The fact that we have a word "climate" indicates that such statistics are predictable to some extent. The Japanese are planning to try to get as far as is possible in predicting climate. This is not a thirty year weather prediction, and they know it.
The fact that there is a language barrier and probably an incompetent journal
*Climatological* research (Score:2, Informative)
> that are recurring targets for heavy rains, abundant snow, high waves, heavy winds,
> scorching heat or crop-threatening droughts.
In other words: What are probable areas where these phenomena occur and what are the most probable paths for those phenomena that are moving.
The reason they take a 30 year period is not that they want to predict the weather 30 years in advance (that's ridiculous), but that they want real
Ultra long 30 year weather forecasts... (Score:2)
Time to screw with the Japanese (Score:2)
They have something to worry about (Score:2)
I took a look at a map of sea currents and noticed that the Japanese Current is a w
Chaos? (Score:2)
Chaos was defeated in FF1, eesh.
Re:Useless indeed (Score:2)
Re:Useless indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Useless indeed (Score:2)
Re:Useless indeed (Score:2)
Peter: Well, I got the idea to build a panic room after I saw that movie The Butterfly Effect. I thought, wow, this is terrible. I wish I could escape to a place where this movie couldn't find me.
(Sorry, it had to be posted, and FWIW I actually like that movie)
Re:Useless indeed (Score:3, Funny)
Don't panic. The 30-Year weather predicting supercomputer predicted this and is designing supercomputer that is powerful enough and specifically built for predicting volcanic activity.
However, it will take 30 years to do so... Much to relief of weather who were protesting that their livelihoods were at stake.
Re:Useless indeed (Score:5, Interesting)
You won't be able to "predict" anything; weather is driven by a complex set of forces, of which we have a very incomplete understanding. It isn't just a matter of temperature, pressure, moisture content, UV radiation, and infrared radiation, which are the main variables your local forecaster uses to try and predict weather trends. Solar wind, ground cover, cloud formation, cosmic rays, vulcanism, atmospheric electrodynamics: these are extra variables that influence the weather in ways we can't understand. And just to screw up the mixture a bit more, add global warming.
You can build more and more sophisticated models and run them on faster and faster hardware, but in the end, you can't really account for all the possible variables to any degree of accuracy. The more variables you add, each with its own degree of accuracy, the more soupy the predictions become. We know in general terms how systems work, but we have no idea how all these forces interact to create weather. I think the Japanese should stick to trying to determine what actually drives the weather and stay out of the prediction business.
Re:Useless indeed (Score:5, Funny)
That's true. Do you think they're going to install GPS trackers on all the butterflies in the world?
Re:Useless indeed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Useless indeed (Score:2)
Quit pissin' on their Cheerios.
The local weatherman? You mean NOAA (Score:2)
Um, yeah...I'm pretty sure your local forecaster just looks at the temperature, pressure, and humidity maps provided by NOAA and says, "gee, that's high pressure and it's warm and wet. There's low pressure over here so I think that's going to move onshore and it'll be 54 and cloudy with a 62.7% chance of rain." Or depending where you actually get your weather, he just goes to NOAA.gov, types in the zip code, then spen
Re:Useless indeed (Score:2, Funny)
OK, here it goes:
Rain followed by Sun
Cooling trends with possible snow in the upper elevations
Warming weather after winter followed by hot summer weather
Godzilla attack
Occasional typhoon
Small chance of a tsunami followed by death and destruction
So either I'm a supercomputer, or this is easier than we thought...
Already exists! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Already exists! (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.farmersalmanac.com/weather/weather.html [farmersalmanac.com]
Re:Useless indeed (Score:2)
So that's it then, we just stop trying?
I'm rather presuming this model will be constantly revised with new data and new techniques, and that it's predictions will be altered accordingly. Something has to try and do this, then the state of the art can be improved by building on its strengths and working on its weaknesses.
Cheers,
I
Re:Useless indeed (Score:2)
The problem is not computing power, it's the lack of raw data to feed the computer. There aren't enough sensors collecting data to feed the system to make an accurate calculation. Their effort should be spent on increasing the amount of data collected over the globe to have a significant number of datapoints to analyze. That's the key.
http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]Re:Useless indeed (Score:2)
That is certainly a very important key.
A much better understanding water vapor's effect upon weather is also crucial factor.
Re:Useless indeed (Score:2)
Re:Useless indeed (Score:2)
Re:Investors (Score:2)
Re:Oh really? (Score:2)
Re:Supercomputer (Score:2)
Re:Read between the lines (Score:2)
Deep Thought helped design the Earth, not simulate it after the fact.