Here are some Climate Modeling concepts from the Soundprint documentary Water is Gold that you may not be familiar with.

The Ensemble Model

From Water is Gold Script
TRX: EVERY SIX HOURS A COMPUTER WITH THE POWER OF A THOUSAND OF THE FASTEST PC’S PROCESSES THESE READINGS THROUGH A SET OF MATHEMATICAL EQUATIONS that make up the model. They are looking for relationships, how for example does a shift in humidity change wind direction. So how do they figure out the relationships?

STEPHEN LORD: Dat #10 29:50 “…Have you ever seen this game that’s composed of horizontal groups of nails and you drop a ball bearing from the top, and it goes clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk?.

TRX: Think says Stephen Lord that the ball is a set of mathematical equations. The ball bounces around and rests in a group of nails.

STEPHEN LORD Well, a model is a bit like doing that. Because we’re really trying to assess the possibility of any type of weather event happening. Now, every time the ball goes from the top to the bottom, that could be a model run. And theoretically, you’re supposed to give a nice distribution across

TRX: BY RUNNING THE MODEL MANY TIMES WITH A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT SET OF INITIAL WEATHER CONDITIONS, THE RESULTS PROVIDE A RANGE OF ALL POSSIBLE OUTCOMES.

STEPHEN LORD So when we run an ensemble model, it’s like dropping that ball bearing 20 times or 30 times or 100 times.

TRX: But the balls don’t land evenly spread out.

STEPHEN LORD: And of course in the meterological sense when we make a model, it’s not going to be even along the bottom, it’s going to be grouped in one area.

TRX: This grouping or CLUSTER REPRESENT THE PROBABILITY OF A PARTICULAR CLIMATE PHENOMENA OCCURRING.

STEPHEN LORD, that sort of represents the weather. Whether it’s going to be a cloudy day, or a rainy day, or what have you…” (1:00)

SFX: Dat #5 1:02:03 cattle moos – sneak up under above axx and post in clear

TRX: SO IT COULD BE A 20% OR 30% CHANCE OF RAIN. BUT THEY CAN ONLY MAKE THESE ESTIMATES A WEEK IN ADVANCE

Resources:
Understanding the NCEP Ensemble Model

Here's a question "How does a swarm of locusts in West Asia impact the snowfall in the Rockies? Here's something easier with the benefit of hindsight" How does the assassination of a minor prince in Sarajevo plunge the world powers into World War I? Chaos Theory relates to how small seemingly insignificant events go on to influence major events. Its application is not only in Climate modeling but in other disciplines as well. For climate modelers, the application of chaos theory relates to whether or not it is possible to make accurate long-term predictions if the initial weather conditions are known.

Resources
Edward Lorenz & Chaos Theory
The Lorenz Butterfly

Parameterization

It is an averaging technique used by climatologists and economists to understand large complex scenarios. A simple example of this could be say; you are trying to determine the exact temperature in your home. To do this we would have to make a number of observations, requiring detailed readings across each room of the house, measurements near the windows, shady corners, unheated attics, humid basements, near doors…you get the idea. But by using parameters we can take one temperature reading in the house and that would represent the temperature in the building. Similarly, for a bigger space such as the atmosphere, climatologist use numbers that represent the average behavior of the entities they are considering, for example: cloud cover, wind speed, moisture content, sunlight, etc

From Water is Gold Script
TRX: NOW IF CLIMATOLOGISTS COULD JUST GATHER ALL THE DATA IN THE ATMOSPHERE THE ACCURACY OF THEIR PREDICTIONS WOULD DRAMATICALLY INCREASE. BUT THAT OF COURSE IS IMPOSSIBLE. SO THEU CREATE APPROXIMATIONS. THEY BREAK DOWN THE ATMOSPHERE INTO MANAGEABLE BITS. ACTUALLY THEY DIVIDE THE ATMOSPHERE INTO A 3-DIMENSUONAL GRID OF THOUSANDS OF CUBES. THEY INVENTORY ALL THE INFORMATION THEY KNOW ABOUT THAT AREA, THINGS LIKE WIND DIRECTION, TEMPERATURE, CLOUD COVER. BUT THERE’S A LOT OF OTHER INFORMATION THAT THEY DON’T KNOW ABOUT THE BOX, SO THEY HAVE TO EXTRAPOLATE.

STEPHEN LORD: Dat #12 20:44 “…And a good example there is clouds. Because most clouds, if you look at the fluffy white ones, the cumulous clouds, they may only be a kilometer or two on a side. And the smallest box we can represent in our model may be 10 or 12 kilometers. So we have to figure out what this cloud is doing and represent this cloud, the effects of this cloud, on the average temperature and moisture on that 12 kilometer box…”

TRX: THIS TECHNIQUE IS CALLED ‘PARAMATERIZATION.’ CLIMATOLOGISTS LOOK AT WHAT’S HAPPENING WITHIN CERTAIN PARAMETERS AND THEY AREN’T ALONE IN USING IT. SOCIAL SCIENTISTS ALSO EMPLOY PARAMATERIZION TO MAKE ECONOMIC PREDICTIONS.

STEPHEN LORD: Dat #12 22:33 “…You can’t predict what everyone individually is going to spend, but you can predict somewhat about what a whole group or large collection of people will spend. And so that’s essentially the analog of the clouds. You can’t predict what every single cloud is going to do, but statistically you can say what a group of clouds will do. And so you have to take the statistical behavior rather than the individual behavior…”

Resources
Climate Change and Parameterization

The El Nino – La Nina Cycle and the Pacific Ocean

From Water is Gold Script
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA’S INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF PLANET EARTH, SCIENTISTS TAKE THIS INFORMATION ALONG WITH REGIONAL DATA TO PREDICT THE IMPACT OF SEASONALWEATHER PATTERNS, ON THE SOUTHWEST. THE KEY TO UNDERSTANDING HOW THIS WORKS LIES IS ANALYZING THE CIRCULATION PATTERNS OF THE EQUATORIAL AND TROPICAL PACIFIC OCEAN. THIS IS WHERE THE EL NINO AND LA NINA HAVE THEIR BEGINNINGS. STAFF SCIENTIST GREGG GARFIN SAYS IMAGINE THE PACIFIC OCEAN IS ONE GIANT BATHTUB.

GREG GARFIN: Dat #8 1:21:45 index 12 (2nd half of Dat) “…and we imagine water sloshing back and forth across the Pacific every two to seven years, in a certain phase of that sloshing, there’ll be warm water in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean // we tend to call that El Nino. Then // when the warm water sloshes back to the western Pacific over by Indonesia, and Taiwan and China, and there’s cool water in the eastern Pacific, then we tend to call that La Nina…”

TRX: LA NINA PRODUCES DRY CONDITIONS IN THE SOUTHERN TIER OF THE United States. WHILE THE IMPACTS OF EL NINO IN THE SOUTHWEST TEND TO BE MORE ERRATIC. SOMETIMES IT BRINGS MORE RAIN, AND SOMETIMES IT DOESN’T.

GREG GARFIN: Dat #8 57:00 “…So there is a great variability in El Nino, we like to say no two El Ninos are created equal. But the tendency is that the highest precip years in the Southwest have been El Nino years. Now, if we look at La Nina, which you know, is kind of the dark evil twin of El Nino, as far as the Southwest is concerned, they’re mostly low precipitation years, but no high precipitation years…”

Resources:
El Nino-la Nina Cycle -- A Tutorial
NOAA- El Nino Page