“Demons and Butterflies—Weather predictability and predictions” by Richard A. Anthes on February 21st, Albuquerque

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Lev Bely, 20.02.2013 19:45

“Demons and Butterflies—Weather predictability and predictions” public lecture by Richard A. Anthes will be held on February 21st at the UNM Conference Center, Albuquerque (US). Dr. Richard A. Anthes is a distinguished atmospheric scientist, author, educator, and administrator, served as fifth president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) from 1988 to January 2012.

From the science talk's abstract:

“The concept of predictability of complex systems has fascinated scientists for centuries. In the 17th century Gottfried Leibnitz speculated that everything proceeds mathematically, and so someone who had sufficient understanding and could take into account everything, “would be a prophet and see the future in the present as in a mirror.” About a hundred years later the Marquis de Laplace dreamed of an intelligent being (an intellect, later dubbed Laplace’s Demon) who knew the positions and velocities of every single atom and used Newton’s equations of motion to predict the future of the entire universe. In 1972 Edward Lorenz gave a talk on atmospheric predictability with the title “Does the flap of a butterfly’s wing in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?” This rhetorical and provocative question has intrigued scientists and the public ever sense, and “the butterfly effect” has come to mean chaos and lack of predictability of chaotic nonlinear systems. Examples of successful numerical weather forecasts suggest that in some cases there is useful predictability of high-impact weather systems far beyond what classical predictability theory might suggest. In this talk I show examples that provide optimism for continuing to increase the forecast lead time of significant weather and indicate how this progress can continue.”

“Demons and Butterflies—Weather predictability and predictions” public lecture by Richard A. Anthes: February 21st, 5:30 PM at the UNM Conference Center, 1634 University Blvd. NE., Albuquerque (US).

The Albuquerque Journal, http://www.abqjournal.com, UCAR, http://www2.ucar.edu

Photo: Episteme adulatrix

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