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Why do you want to a horde of “non-professional[s] with a pair of eyes and a smartphone” to contribute if literally hundreds of professionals with high-end equi
by qubex 7y ago
Why do you want to a horde of “non-professional[s] with a pair of eyes and a smartphone” to contribute if literally hundreds of professionals with high-end equipment, meteorological observation satellites, and oodles of computational firepower are already on the task?
The main problem has never been a lack of science, the problem has always been (and alas, continues to be) a lack of political wherewithal to actually rapidly implement the drastic steps necessary to avoid the worst outcomes.
Maybe we’re finally getting what we collectively deserve?
- bumby 7y agoI think what precedes the problem you mention (and one of the main points in the article) is the problem of generating reduced uncertainty in the model. Maybe there’s a chance for more granular data to enhance that?
- qubex 7y agoThe problem isn’t the granularity of observations, it’s the granularity of the grid with which the simulations are run. As I understand it (by analogy with my own field of macroeconomics) the current limit is the fact that the grid is coarser than the average size of a cloud, and that therefore cloud cover needs to be approximated. That is the real source of uncertainty.
- bumby 7y agoInteresting. So is the grid limited due to computational complexity, like the mesh in finite element analysis?
- qubex 7y agoPrecisely. But don’t take my word for it. If you’re into a light introduction, consider watching Sabine Hossenfelder’s interview of Tim Palmer (a theoretical physicist’s interview of a leading climatologist is a thing of beauty in its own right).
- Angostura 7y ago> The problem isn’t the granularity of observations Perhaps you should tell the people who are running the "big observational campaign happening right now" that they can pack up and go home.
- qubex 7y agoI don’t know why you are being down-voted but IMHO you certainly don’t deserve to be.
- bumby 7y agoI don’t know since they aren’t accompanied with comments but my hunch is they may be conflating scientific consensus with model uncertainty. I.e., if I bring up model uncertainty, then I’m casting doubt on the scientific consensus (which isn’t the case). It’s more about our confidence in the models which is the point of the article. Nate Silver’s “The Signal and the Noise” gives a much better description than I could do
- allovernow 7y ago>Why do you want to a horde of “non-professional[s] with a pair of eyes and a smartphone” to contribute if literally hundreds of professionals with high-end equipment, meteorological observation satellites, and oodles of computational firepower are already on the task? Because the Earth is huge, data collection is expensive, and funds are limited. There is a lot of [literal] ground to cover and it's perfectly feasible to augment professional work with amateur data, now that pressure, temperature, and location sensors are relatively cheap and ubiquitous.
- qubex 7y agoSatellites view half the globe at once. But you know that just as well as I do.
- colejohnson66 7y agoNot true. How much is seen depends on the focal length and lens
- qubex 7y agoI suppose that’s true, abstractly speaking. But does it make sense to assume that the world’s meteorological community would put satellites into geosynchronous orbit that are not suited for the purpose of observing the Earth’s atmosphere from geosynchronous orbit? I think we can safely discount that assumption.
- majewsky 7y agoYou're assuming that "observing the Earth's atmosphere" is a yes/no question when it's actually a spectrum. I'm not familiar with the matter, but I can imagine a scenario like "We need to record a very particular part of the EM spectrum and all those existing satellites happen not to have suitable equipment for that."
- jobigoud 7y agoAnd distance. A satellite in polar orbit at 850km above the surface will only see a small part of the globe at once, even with a wide lens.