The primacy of doubt: evolution of numerical weather prediction from determinism to probability

Over the last 25 years, the focus of operational numerical weather prediction has evolved from that of estimating the most likely evolution of weather to that of estimating probability distributions of future weather associated with inevitable uncertainties in both initial conditions and model equat...

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Main Author: Palmer, T
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: American Geophysical Union 2017
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author Palmer, T
author_facet Palmer, T
author_sort Palmer, T
collection OXFORD
description Over the last 25 years, the focus of operational numerical weather prediction has evolved from that of estimating the most likely evolution of weather to that of estimating probability distributions of future weather associated with inevitable uncertainties in both initial conditions and model equations. This evolution from determinism to uncertainty has not only increased the scientific rigor of weather prediction, it has also increased the value of weather forecasts for users. In addition, it has opened up a new approach to solving the equations of motion, likely to be of importance for both weather and climate prediction in an age where high-performance computing is limited by power consumption. However, despite all this, the numerical weather prediction community has yet to embrace fully the concept of the primacy of doubt. It is now time to take the final step in this direction.
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spelling oxford-uuid:e1c23329-dd6e-43c9-b968-bf64a43151622022-03-27T09:56:32ZThe primacy of doubt: evolution of numerical weather prediction from determinism to probabilityJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:e1c23329-dd6e-43c9-b968-bf64a4315162EnglishSymplectic Elements at OxfordAmerican Geophysical Union2017Palmer, TOver the last 25 years, the focus of operational numerical weather prediction has evolved from that of estimating the most likely evolution of weather to that of estimating probability distributions of future weather associated with inevitable uncertainties in both initial conditions and model equations. This evolution from determinism to uncertainty has not only increased the scientific rigor of weather prediction, it has also increased the value of weather forecasts for users. In addition, it has opened up a new approach to solving the equations of motion, likely to be of importance for both weather and climate prediction in an age where high-performance computing is limited by power consumption. However, despite all this, the numerical weather prediction community has yet to embrace fully the concept of the primacy of doubt. It is now time to take the final step in this direction.
spellingShingle Palmer, T
The primacy of doubt: evolution of numerical weather prediction from determinism to probability
title The primacy of doubt: evolution of numerical weather prediction from determinism to probability
title_full The primacy of doubt: evolution of numerical weather prediction from determinism to probability
title_fullStr The primacy of doubt: evolution of numerical weather prediction from determinism to probability
title_full_unstemmed The primacy of doubt: evolution of numerical weather prediction from determinism to probability
title_short The primacy of doubt: evolution of numerical weather prediction from determinism to probability
title_sort primacy of doubt evolution of numerical weather prediction from determinism to probability
work_keys_str_mv AT palmert theprimacyofdoubtevolutionofnumericalweatherpredictionfromdeterminismtoprobability
AT palmert primacyofdoubtevolutionofnumericalweatherpredictionfromdeterminismtoprobability