Posted on 12/13/2011 11:46:43 AM PST by veritas3
Two top U.S. hurricane forecasters, revered like rock stars in Deep South hurricane country, are quitting the practice because it doesn’t work.
William Gray and Phil Klotzbach say a look back shows their past 20 years of forecasts had no value.
The two scientists from Colorado State University will still discuss different probabilities as hurricane seasons approach — a much more cautious approach. But the shift signals how far humans are, even with supercomputers, from truly knowing what our weather will do next.
Gray, recently joined by Klotzbach, has been known for decades for an annual forecast of how many hurricanes can be expected each official hurricane season (which runs from June to November.) Southerners hang on his words, as even a mid-sized hurricane can cause billions in damage.
Last week, the pair dropped this announcement out of a clear, blue sky:
“We are discontinuing our early December quantitative hurricane forecast for the next year ... Our early December Atlantic basin seasonal hurricane forecasts of the last 20 years have not shown real-time forecast skill even though the hindcast studies on which they were based had considerable skill.”
Dr Gray admits they can't predict hurricanes and he never has stated that hurricanes are related "global warming".
Glad that Gray admits what we have known all along, that no one can predict hurricanes months in advance.
The question then is: how can anyone predict global warming 50 years in advance.
Good to see Canada to pull out of Kyoto Protocol next month, announced yesterday. "Canada goes to Durban with a number of countries sharing the same objective, and that is to put Kyoto behind us." Go CANADA
Perhaps they can get jobs at the UN predicting Global Warming!
Dr. Gray is a good dude....a staunch ally against the silly AGW movement.
Things that make you go: “Hmmmm...”
Since this revelation, makes you wonder how many OTHER things are not predictable that so many people in positions of power that rely upon those predictions... fiscal much?
Actually Dr. Gray came out against global warming years ago (before any other serious climatologist) and said it was a bunch of hooey. Dr. Gray is a real scientist and did what good scientist do, they evaluate their own data / theories and tell the truth. I commend him for his science and his rigor. BTW, his studies on hurricanes were more accurate than anybody else’s, he found the correlation between rain in West Africa and tropical storms in the western-Atlantic. That part of his work is still huge. I think he is a conservative.
Wow, a scientist admitting he was wrong. Don’t see that very often.
I have listened to Dr Gray on several times on local radio and he is a good guy. He has been a leader on the low count of hurricanes and been closer than the global warming nuts. Several weather guys in this area are not supported by politics have spoken against global warming.
This kinda kicks the science let out of the global warming stool.
I saw him speak at an event with Michael Crichton a few years ago. Gray must be in his 80s.
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