3 ms·

If weather is chaotic, how will sampling initial conditions help?

• sp332 15y ago
  A change in the initial conditions might make a change in the result, but it isn't guaranteed to. At least not any noticeable change in the next few days, weeks, even months. So if you find that, for most of the possible current conditions, the end result is mostly the same, you can have a good probability of being right.
• queensnake 15y ago
  ... you can get 'attractors', basins in the dynamics. If either several different models, or slightly tweaked starts with the same model give you the same or similar-enough answers, then you know you've stumbled into a basin by luck. Small errors aren't going to change much. If your outcomes are different though, then you know that the weather from that starting state is very sensitive and unpredictable.