WEBVTT - The Future of Weather Forecasts 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.160 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:15.360 Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:18.479 podcast that looks at the future and says, it's like 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:22.640 rain on your wedding day. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm La, 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:25.919 and I'm Joe McCormick. And today you don't need a 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:28.760 weatherman to know which way the wind sucks, because we 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:32.800 are going to be talking about predictive modeling of weather, 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:37.480 weather forecasting. Yeah, we've talked in the past a lot 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:41.159 about weather and sometimes when I wasn't here. Yes, we 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:43.800 had a two parter about the potential future of weather 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:48.560 control with special guest Julie Douglas back in February. Yeah, 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:50.879 And one of the interesting things about that episode is 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:53.239 I think in the end we decided, after all of 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:57.440 our research that really the best avenue for humans to 0:00:57.520 --> 0:00:59.800 sort of get a grip on the weather is not 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:02.120 to try to control it, because in many ways that 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:05.240 is a fool's are end, it's physically impossible, Yeah, but 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:09.240 to instead try to understand it, just to have a 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:13.440 better better idea of what's coming your way and win right. 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:16.640 The further out and the more accurately you can forecast 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:19.600 the weather, the better prepared you are for the various 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:23.600 eventualities that will unfold, things like flooding. Like if you 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:27.000 know ahead of time that flooding is is almost certainly 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:29.120 going to affect a certain region, you can start to 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:32.559 take steps to protect people and property in that area. 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:36.039 Sandbags are an amazingly effective low tech solution to things 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:39.080 or maybe out there. They don't do much good if 0:01:39.080 --> 0:01:41.720 they're not there, Yes that's true. If they're they're somewhere else. 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:45.160 If they're in a warehouse, that warehouse maybe nice and dry, 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:47.400 but the area that you were hoping to say, will 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:50.800 be rather squishy. Uh same same sort of thing that 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:53.080 if you're talking about, like you're looking ahead at a 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:56.000 very long term forecast and you were to say, oh, 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:58.000 it looks like there's not going to be any rainfall 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:00.920 for quite some time, you can start to make plans 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:04.560 for that so that you're not stuck in a situation 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:08.280 where it happened but you weren't aware that that was 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:10.240 going to you know that was going to be the case. 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:13.560 Uh So, in other words, we don't necessarily try and 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:16.640 control it. We just get a better idea of what 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:19.880 is going to happen, so we're more prepared for that. Yeah, 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:22.359 And we glanced across that topic in those Future of 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:25.679 Weather Control episodes. But uh yeah, so we wanted to 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:28.480 talk about that today. And we were also inspired by 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:31.960 a video episode that you did, Jonathan about Bubble Yeah, 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:35.839 the Bay of Bengal Boundary Layer Experiment or Bubble Yes. 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:39.280 I I said in the video that I consider myself 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:42.400 a bubblehead because I'm a huge fan of this project. 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:44.840 The video and that just came out this week. You 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:47.160 can check it out on YouTube this very day if 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:50.160 you would like to, or on fw thinking dot com. 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:58.440 But specifically, Bobble is a very particular regional weather predicting project. Yeah. 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:01.760 It's a study of how a number of complex factors 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:04.440 in the Bay of Bengal come together to create a 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:07.560 monsoon season of heavy rains in northern India every year. 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:11.480 And it's a particular interest to researchers because that monsoon 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:14.480 season drives the agriculture and the water supply and the 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:18.160 energy supply for about a billion people, so seven of 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:22.880 the world's population, no big uh, And and clearly variations 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:25.640 in the seasonal norm of rainfall either too wet or 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:29.639 too dry reek havoc on this region. So what if 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:33.239 we could predict those variations before they happen, disaster could 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:39.240 hypothetically be if not prevented, then then perhaps mitigated. Uh Okay. 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:42.960 And so besides being a project that could hypothetically change 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:45.680 the lives of a billion people, Bobble is really cool 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:48.600 because it's kind of a microcosm of weather prediction research 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:51.200 in general, because it's it's so multi disciplinary. You've got 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:54.440 ships and satellites making classic observations in the bay. You've 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:57.240 got robotic submarines that are checking out the situation under 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:00.960 the surface. You've got researchers designing did little simulations to 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:04.400 crunch the data, and they'll compare their models to the 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:07.360 actual season's results to see where they went right and 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:09.560 where they need to make improvements. Right. So we're going 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:12.800 to talk more about Bubble in detail a little bit later, 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:16.200 But first, as per our usual m O, we like 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:18.359 to go back and look at how we got to 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:22.200 where we are now. Like, like, obviously, when you look 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:26.279 back to the ways humans tried to forecast the weather 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:34.599 centuries ago, they're supercomputers were sorely underperforming. Yeah, so those 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:39.359 advocacies didn't process it quite the same thing exactly. You 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:42.839 have all of your little scribes working in parallel, attempting 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:46.840 in vain to simulate weather well, and the thing they 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:49.440 were trying to calculate was how angry the god was. 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:54.000 So there were several steps along they were going, going 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:56.400 off the path in a few different ways. So let's 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:59.080 let's talk about let's talk about you know, kind of 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:03.600 the a shoudn't approach to forecasting weather and work our 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:06.640 way up to what we tend to do today. Okay, well, 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:10.560 joking aside, there were of course lots of just straight 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:14.320 up magical thoughts about how to control the weather or 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:16.800 predict the weather originally, and so that's you know, that 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:19.160 goes that's a tradition that goes way way back into 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:20.880 the ancient world. Has to do a lot with that 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:25.120 with astrology, um and as kind of an offshoot of astronomy, 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:29.960 but mostly it was astrological yeah, um, But those those 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:35.120 sort of magical predictive interpretations. Aside, there were actually throughout 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:40.000 history plenty of weather superstitions and sort of rules of 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:45.000 thumb that actually do have grains of truth to them. Yeah, 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:48.360 there's a really great article on how stuff works Dot 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:50.040 com about this, and I did a what the Stuff 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:53.400 video about it once and and it's it's interesting, how 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:56.720 many of them really do hold water? Yeah? Yeah, Well 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:01.360 it makes sense because you figure people are paying attention 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:04.560 to what has happened, and they realize that there's a 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:10.280 pattern where when once a circumstances happened, then typically you 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:12.480 might get a lot of rain. And so you start 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:14.400 to make a rule about that, and you know it's 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:17.480 in some cases it can be you can be completely 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.359 off base. It's just coincidence, or you do what I 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:22.520 like to call you. It's it's called, you know, a 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:24.760 confirmation bias, but I would call it. I would say 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:27.520 the van is always at the corner, which is where 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:29.880 whenever there's a van parked at the corner, you notice it. 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:32.320 Whenever there's not a van parked at the corner, you 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:35.440 don't register it. So to you, the van is always 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:39.000 at the corner. Uh. In those cases, obviously it may 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:42.360 be that you've made an observation, but it's a faulty one. However, 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:46.520 there's some that are at least somewhat you know, reliable. Yeah, 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:50.200 here's one. You've probably heard some version of this weather 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:54.280 prediction before and often in couplet form about red sky 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:59.320 at morning, sailor take warning, red sky at night, sailor's delight. 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:01.880 I feel this. I feel badly for that one sailor 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:05.159 right like it's just like like, oh man is going 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:10.600 to be awful because it says sailor was singular, so 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:12.720 it's one guy. Well, that's the way I always heard that. 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:16.520 There are other versions. But this is old, old, old, 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:19.000 It goes way back. People have been using this forecasting 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:21.520 rule for at least a couple of thousand years. We 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:24.800 know because it shows up in the Bible, shows up 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:28.400 in the Gospel of Matthew chapter sixteen, where uh it 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:32.280 says quote the in RSV, the Pharisees and sad Juicees 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:35.000 came and to test Jesus. They asked him to show 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:38.080 them a sign from heaven, and he answered them, when 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:40.880 it is evening, you say it will be fair weather, 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.600 for the sky is red, and in the morning it 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:46.680 will be stormy today for the sky is red and threatening. 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:49.360 You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:52.680 but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. So 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:56.360 obviously that they're trying to make a spiritual or religious 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:59.520 point there, but but just incidentally in the narrative, at 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:02.160 least we know that some people back then we're saying 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:06.800 this rule. Um so, so the author of this passage 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:09.520 had heard of this before, and crazily enough, it is 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:13.280 partially true. So what's the scientific basis for this? Why 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:16.600 would the color of the sky at sunset or sunrise 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:20.800 have anything to do with the weather? Well, strongly tinted 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:25.400 red light at sunrise and sunset actually tells you something 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:29.720 about the contents of the atmosphere between you and the sun. 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:33.800 So specifically, it tends to indicate dry air filled with 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:37.880 dust and solid particles which we would call aerosols. So 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:40.720 these particles in the air are the cause of the 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:43.040 reddening of the light because dust and aerosols in the 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:45.880 atmosphere scatter visible light in a way that makes the 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:49.559 light turn red. Uh And in turn, this dry, dusty 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:53.319 air tends to indicate that you're in a high pressure region, 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:57.400 which means less cloud formation and less likelihood of a storm. 0:08:57.440 --> 0:08:59.439 A low pressure region, on the other hand, would mean 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:02.760 that that they're tended to be more cloud formation and 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:07.160 more storms. So if you are looking through red tinted 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:10.960 atmosphere to see the sun you're looking through a high 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:14.840 pressure region that's less likely to rain on you. Uh 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:17.040 And and the thing about the atmosphere is that it 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:21.040 travels in in the same direction. Well yeah, and that's 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:23.720 what this rule doesn't work everywhere, because while the Sun's 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:27.319 path is unidirectional around the Earth, of course it's actually 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:31.360 the Earth's rotation, but metaphorically, the Sun's path is unidirectional. 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:34.000 I'm gonna need to see a site for that. The 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:38.079 weather tends to travel in different directions depending on where 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:40.960 you live. So if you're in the Arctic or the Antarctic, 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:43.920 or in the tropics, the sort of three extreme bands, 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:48.000 weather patterns more often move east to west, and this 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:50.520 rule doesn't apply, or in fact, actually I guess the 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:54.000 opposite would apply, right, But for the mid latitudes, you know, 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:56.760 sort of the temperate zones between the tropics and the 0:09:56.880 --> 0:10:00.679 Arctic or the Antarctic, this is actually more often true 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:04.600 because the weather patterns more often moved from west to east. 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:07.840 And what that means is, if you look towards the sunset, 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:12.400 you're looking west at the weather that's probably coming your way. 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:15.720 And if a red light scattering patch is to the 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:18.720 west of you, that's a high pressure area. Probably that's 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:22.520 probably headed your way, meaning the weather will probably be fine. Uh. 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:24.440 And of course why would red sky at morning be 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:26.240 a problem. Well, that's because if you're in the mid 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:30.360 latitudes again looking east toward a sunrise, you're seeing the 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:33.679 weather that has probably already passed by you. And high 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:36.560 and low pressure systems often do trade off in cycles. 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:39.000 But you may have noticed that I kept saying the 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:42.640 word probably over and over again there, And that's because 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:46.720 like all weather prediction, this is probabilistic. Using the system, 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:50.680 you can predict the weather better than random guessing, meaning 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:54.160 better than with fifty percent accuracy, but still not anywhere 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:57.840 near ad accuracy. Right, So there could be some mornings 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:00.520 where you see a red sky and every it's perfectly fine, 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:03.160 it's beautiful weather. And there might be some evenings where 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:05.679 you see red sky and the next morning you're soaking 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:08.120 in it. Yeah, So the weather, the weather is just 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:12.000 very complex. It's it's difficult to it's difficult to protict 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:16.680 with accuracy even now using the supercomputers and everything that 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:19.600 we have involved in all the data we have, but 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:24.000 this one piece of folk science and weather forecasting, it's 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:26.040 not the only one that turns out to have some 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:29.040 basis in truth. Right. Yeah, a few others that I 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:31.800 wanted to touch on because they're they're kind of a favorite. Uh. 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:34.600 Ring around the moon rain real soon. Have you guys 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:37.120 ever heard this? This is the thing that you've heard. No, no, 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:40.079 not at all, but I believe you. Yeah. Uh, there's 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:42.360 there's another kind of version of it that goes when 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:44.920 a halo rings the moon or sun rains approach and 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:50.640 on the run. I love that sounds like something from 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:52.720 one of their songs, and and and the thing that's 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:56.480 going on here it is it does hold true more 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:58.480 than fifty percent at the time. I think it's it's 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:02.840 a similar probabilistic concept to to the red red sky 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:05.360 at night Sailor's Delight sort of thing. But so, so 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:08.320 what's going on here is that, um, when you've got 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:12.480 a halo that frames the moon or the sun, it's 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:17.120 produced by by moonlight or sunlight refracting through high whispy 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:20.680 clouds that are made of ice crystals, and uh and 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:23.640 those those ice crystals. That type of weather pattern typically 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:27.760 occurs in siro stratus clouds that often move in ahead 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:31.200 of weather fronts, where where temperature differentials are going to 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:35.280 cause warm air to move upward, deensing moisture and potentially 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:41.880 forming rain clouds potentially, So science science thumbs up on 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:45.920 that one. And still not the only Moon related weather, 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:50.640 you know, kind of folklore, right, sure, Sure there's also 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:55.160 clear moon frost soon, Yeah, which which makes perfect sense 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:59.680 because because clear nights do often mean that cold weather 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:02.200 is on the way, Because as far as the planet 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:05.640 is concerned, a cloudless sky is sort of like having 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:09.080 a bed without blankets. Uh. You know, During the day, 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:12.840 the Earth absorbs sunlight and and can converts it into 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:16.800 into heat that we all appreciate to certain degrees um. 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:20.040 When when the sun sets, the surface begins radiating that 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:24.080 heat back out, and lacking clouds to capture the heat 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:26.880 and snuggle it in all all tight and close, the 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:29.920 surface and the lower atmosphere grow increasingly cold. In fact, 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:32.800 I think in a tech stuff episode I talked about 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:36.760 this as a means of creating ice in certain regions, 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:39.000 where you'd leave out a pan a shallow pan of 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:42.840 water outside because the heat radiates out and it actually 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:45.440 becomes ice that way in certain regions of the world. 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:49.000 That's how it was done before refrigeration reached those areas, 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:51.760 so it's kind of neat. Yeah. My favorite one though, 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:56.080 has to do with cows. Of course, there is there's 0:13:56.160 --> 0:14:01.240 folklore about uh or not, like a folk saying, but yeah, 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:04.920 that cows will lie down when it's about to rain, 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:09.560 mm hmm. And and I will, I will admit that 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:13.560 cows lie down for probably many reasons, like they're tired. 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:17.960 But um, but but this one, but this one might 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:22.080 be due to to body heat. Okay, cows tend to 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:25.920 stand more often when they're overheating, you know, in order 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:29.600 to breathe everything out right. Sure, yeah, so so as 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:34.440 seated cow could arguably I mean that the weather is 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:38.800 cooling down and therefore a storm is a bruin. I 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:40.480 also like in the notes you have, this one may 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:42.720 have a leg to stand on. There. There are so 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:46.440 many puns in this in this house stuff works article. 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:52.240 And I yeah, I didn't write it, no, oddly enough, 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:57.320 Yeah it was not it was not, I but but there. 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:00.600 But there are definitely some some more systematic approaches that 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:03.000 people have come up with over the years, sure, apart 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:06.400 from just sayings in folk wisdom. One big one through 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:12.760 in history is Aristotle's Meteorologica. That's Aristotle's hugely influential treatise 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:16.280 on winds, water, weather, and some other stuff like earthquakes. 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:20.360 Like much of Aristotle, it is both startling lye intelligent 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:25.280 and hilariously wrong about lots of things. I enjoyed the 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:28.680 section on how earthquakes are caused by evaporation of rains 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:32.000 that have soaked into the earth and exhalations of breath 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:35.480 from the ground. But until a few hundred years ago, 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:38.360 I think the Aristotle's works were sort of the Western 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:41.920 world's gold standard for knowledge about the causes of weather. 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:46.800 And it wasn't until you know, fairly recent times that 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:49.560 we started being able to do much better. Yeah. I 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:54.800 mean generally speaking, you started getting into like the mid 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:57.600 to late Renaissance, and you start seeing some other thinkers 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:03.680 propose alternatives to some Aristotle's ideas. But yeah, his his 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:08.520 approach or his his observations and his his uh writings 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:11.520 held sway for centuries. Yeah yeah, um, And and some 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:16.360 of those new ideas came about alongside changes in concepts 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:20.080 about physics and also about astronomy, like like greater knowledge 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:24.160 of astronomy um up to and including the publication of almanacs, 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:27.360 which were very very popular publications back in the day. 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:30.440 Apparently the only thing that outsold almanacs in the seventeenth 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:33.840 century in England was the Bible, so lots of people 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:37.120 were purchasing these things. Um. And back in the late 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:41.240 seventeen hundreds and early eighteen hundreds, a couple different mathematicians 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:46.680 slash astronomers started publishing yearly farmers almanacs here in the 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:48.440 in the States and what would be the United States 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:55.080 later on the North America continent. Yes. Um. The formulae, 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:57.560 the formulas that they use in order to make these 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:02.840 predictions are to this day guarded as family or company secrets. 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:05.520 It turns out like it it could be something like 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:09.959 consulting the family cat. We don't know, Yeah, and like 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:14.000 intensely guarded. I love I I love stories about old 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:18.040 farmers are almanac and UH and the Farmers Almanac, both 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:20.280 of which are punctuated slightly differently in terms of the 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.240 possessive s, but just the lower around all of this 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:25.719 is is delightful. In the case of one of the 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:30.000 two almanacs, I forget which one. UH, there is a 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:34.199 Caleb Weatherbe who's sort of like the James Bond of 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:37.080 of this of this company. Because Caleb Weatherby is not 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:39.920 his real name, I'm not sure if it's a dude. 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:44.680 Uh I there have been this series of Caleb Weatherby's 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:47.960 who have been the one entrusted with the knowledge of 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:50.120 how the of how the almanac does it stuff. It's 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:53.120 like cecil atoms, yes, of straight of the straight dope. Yeah, 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:57.040 there have been many cecil atoms. Yeah so, but so 0:17:57.119 --> 0:17:59.280 no one. No one knows exactly how they make their predictions, 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:04.160 but supposedly take stuff like planetary positions and sun spots 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:08.000 and lunar cycles and title patterns all into account, and 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:11.040 I get the distinct idea reading stories about this that 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:16.560 meteorologists find find almanax like this rather quaint. Uh what 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:18.679 One researcher who looked into the accuracy of these kind 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:21.200 of things found that they get their long ranging predictions 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:24.720 because they make predictions a year or two out correct 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:28.920 about of the time. Is that a high number or alone? 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:31.920 Like how much variability is there and what they could 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:35.119 be predicting? You can't because you wouldn't say, like is 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:37.520 that better than chance? Because it's hard to say without 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:40.240 knowing all the variables. Oh, sure, I'm not sure. They 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:42.320 claim to get it right about eight percent of the time, 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:47.480 and and that is that is sore a gap. Yes, 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:51.200 but luckily we didn't. We we haven't had to continue 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:57.080 relying just on stuff like this forever because eventually, UH physics, Yeah, 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:02.200 people started figuring out how hydro dynamics therm thermodynamics both work, 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:06.600 and once humanity got a really good grip on these concepts. 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:09.200 Strangely enough, around the same time that the American farmers 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:13.720 almanacs started publication, the science of meteorology could take off, 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:17.240 and by the early nineteen hundreds, a Norwegian physicist by 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:21.879 the name Wilhelm Erknus devised the first known seven equation 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:26.840 formula for for using observations of existing weather conditions to 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:31.280 solve for future conditions. Taking taking into consideration like like 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:35.000 pressure and temperature and humidity and then three aspects of 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:38.080 atmospheric motion. That forms the foundation. Definitely, I mean, the 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:41.439 more information we have, obviously, the better picture picture we 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:45.600 have what's going on right now, and the more um 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:48.679 the more accurate we can make a forecast for the future. 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:52.800 Of course, the further out you go from the current 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:57.639 UH scenario, the current the current condition. Small differences in 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:02.080 in what you've predicted versus what actually happened add up tremendous. Yes, yeah, well, 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:04.240 I mean it's a it's a sort of principle of 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:06.760 physics that you can extrapolate on a very simple scale 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:10.000 or on a very huge scale. On the simple scale, 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:13.159 imagine aiming an arrow at a target. If you shift 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:15.720 your aim a millimeter over and the targets a foot 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:17.439 of way a foot away, it's not gonna make much 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:20.159 of difference. If the targets a hundred feet away, it 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:23.560 will make a difference, right, So, same sort of idea 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:26.439 is that you know the the temporal distance as opposed 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:29.800 to physical distance, it does make a big difference. But 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:32.600 of course, once you get into the modern history of 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:37.760 our technological and scientific capabilities for predicting whether one big difference, 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:39.840 of course is just going to be the scale of 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:45.160 of observation, increasing the number and accuracy of observational platforms 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:47.680 to collect data about the weather, so we have more 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:52.080 information to work with, uh, And that's pretty easy. But 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:54.720 another thing is that we can sometimes overlook the simple 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:59.320 ways that common technological innovations help us in specific ways, 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:03.000 And one would be communication technology such as the telegraph 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:06.280 originally and then like the telephone facts and uh and 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:09.320 the Internet, and these have allowed people to better understand 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:12.600 global weather patterns in real time by rapidly sharing and 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:18.680 comparing information about local weather. Yeah. Computer science also allowed 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:21.159 prediction to to greatly advanced, starting in the fifties and 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:23.720 sixties and really ramping up over the past say like 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:27.200 twenty to thirty years, along with the rate of our 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:31.520 processing power. So I mean, perhaps obviously, as our computational 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:35.439 ability and our observational ability have increased, so has our 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:38.399 forecast accuracy. There was an analysis that was published in 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:42.840 Nature in and according to that, the forecast accuracy for 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:45.680 the next three to ten days of weather has improved 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:49.760 by about a day per decade um, meaning that right 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:53.240 now our ten day forecasts are as accurate as nine 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:57.119 day forecasts were in the early odts. So, in other words, 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:01.040 every decade we go by, we're getting one day better. Yeah. 0:22:01.480 --> 0:22:03.680 I like it. So if I can figure out whether 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:05.520 or not I need to carry an umbrella with me 0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:10.760 on Friday when it's Monday, and and be reasonably certain 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:14.080 that that is in fact the right answer, the better 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:17.800 because I'm not carrying it. If I don't have to write. 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:19.879 In a decade from now, you'll you'll be able to 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:23.160 know pretty well on Tuesday. I'm looking forward to that. 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:26.720 So my suggestion, Jonathan, is that you need to get 0:22:26.720 --> 0:22:29.680 a cooler umbrella that you feel better about carrying all 0:22:29.720 --> 0:22:32.479 the time, Like maybe like a penguin's umbrella, you know 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:35.840 that shoots machine machine gun fire or has a big 0:22:35.840 --> 0:22:39.159 sword that comes out the end of it. I have 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:45.359 a blade runner umbrella that's great glowing. Yeah, I've got 0:22:45.440 --> 0:22:50.400 one of those. Um So, who is really in charge 0:22:50.440 --> 0:22:53.600 of gathering and crunching all this data? I mean, I'm 0:22:53.600 --> 0:22:56.840 assuming when I turn on the local news and I 0:22:56.880 --> 0:23:01.919 see the local weather corresponded on the news, that person 0:23:02.000 --> 0:23:06.600 hasn't personally been responsible for gathering and analyzing all that information. 0:23:06.920 --> 0:23:13.119 He has no, no, no, no. The guy I'm imagine 0:23:13.640 --> 0:23:18.000 very specific, that guy launched the satellite uh and has 0:23:18.000 --> 0:23:20.679 collected the data. He built all of the computers himself. 0:23:20.880 --> 0:23:24.919 Uh No. Modernly, weather prediction is a joint public like 0:23:25.040 --> 0:23:30.480 governmental and private industry type of business because that the satellites, 0:23:30.480 --> 0:23:34.000 the computers, the software, and the the human compilation of 0:23:34.000 --> 0:23:37.960 all of this data that go into it is each 0:23:38.040 --> 0:23:42.359