Sept 29, 6-7:15pm, Annapolis Cafe Scientifique (Science Café): Weather Forecast Innovation, by Dr. Hendrik Tolman, with NOAA’s National Weather Service. The science café is a place where people can gather to learn about and discuss a wide variety of science topics! The Annapolis Cafe Scientifique meets on the last Thursday of the month, 6:00-7:15pm ET Jan-Oct, currently via Zoom and in person at 49 West Coffeehouse, Winebar and Gallery. Contact: [email protected]. FREE but must buy something while at the talk.
Abstract: Weather forecasting has a long history. The running joke of being a weather forecaster used to be that you could be wrong half the time, and still have job security. Those days are long gone with progress made in forecast accuracy over the last few decades. For instance, our Hurricane forecasts out to days 3-5, are now as accurate as our 6–12-hour forecasts from only 20 years ago. This accuracy in forecast products based on improved science and engineering has been going on along the same development track since the 1950s, when we started using computer models. However, in the last few years there have been some structural changes in how we innovate in weather forecasting, as I outlined in a TED talk nearly two years ago, on which this presentation will be based. The three structural changes that we have seen recently are using a much larger community to develop our computer models, by making our models available to anyone who wants to work with them, being much more focused on what people do with our forecast than on just the forecast itself, and the shift to using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in building the forecast tools we have.