3 ms·
Lewis Fry Richardson was the person who first attempted numerical modelling of the weather. He spent his free time on the front line of WWI as an ambulance driv
by timthorn 7y ago
Lewis Fry Richardson was the person who first attempted numerical modelling of the weather. He spent his free time on the front line of WWI as an ambulance driver trying to complete a single 6 hour forecast. Unfortunately his source data was noisy and ruined the result, but it was his efforts that enabled computer generated weather forecasts - he wasn't a bit player.
- hyperpallium 7y agoI believe the problem was his numerical method was unstable, and blew up. Somewhere in this talk by Philip Roe https://youtube.com/watch?v=uaH91P665PI https://youtube.com/watch?v=uaH91P665PI
- timthorn 7y agoI understand that his method was rerun by the Met Office and when they excluded the bad source data they got the correct answer. https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/who/our-history/celebrating-100-years-of-scientific-forecasting https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/who/our-history/celebr...
- hyperpallium 7y agolimitations with the data method was eventually... proved correct Does sound like they're blaming the data; though his "method" could well refer to his general method, not to every exact detail. Philip Roe is himself a famous pioneer in CFD, so I lean towards trusting his version more... he said the forecast was of extraordinary 100mph winds, pretty specific. The bad data would have to be wildly bad to yield that! OTOH it inevitably happens with instability. However, I really don't know. Maybe it's become a folktale, to illustrate instability, since it's a big deal in CFD!