Long term forecasting 'cracked'

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ourarka

Long term forecasting 'cracked'

Post by ourarka »

No link to the article, as The Times charge for reading it online, but they ran a cover story today that the Met Office have 'cracked' long term forecasting .... particularly for the winter.

They said that previously, computer models fared only slightly better than chance, but that their new modelling software is 63% accurate (but that they hope it will rise to 80% over the coming years). If we assign chance as 50/50, isn't 63% still only slightly better than chance? I just wanted to throw it out there to the guys who knew about this sort of thing as it seemed very dodgy to me. Following that appalling 'research' on 7-a-day fruit/veg (which had more holes than a slice of swiss cheese .... but the papers decided was groundbreaking) is this genuine advances in meteorology, or more dodgy reporting (from a paper that we might expect better)?
otorongo
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Re: Long term forecasting 'cracked'

Post by otorongo »

If chance is 50/50, then 63/37 sounds much better than chance!
That's almost 2 out of 3 times right.
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Adam D
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Re: Long term forecasting 'cracked'

Post by Adam D »

otorongo wrote:If chance is 50/50, then 63/37 sounds much better than chance!
That's almost 2 out of 3 times right.
otorongo is correct, they have essentially doubled their accuracy, which is pretty good going.
GoggleboxUK

Re: Long term forecasting 'cracked'

Post by GoggleboxUK »

So they've admitted it's all guesswork but now think they've got software that will make them guess right 13% more effectively?

In essence, they are guessing that their guesses will be better guesses.

I'll stick to my tried and tested method of looking out of the window.

:lol:
ourarka

Re: Long term forecasting 'cracked'

Post by ourarka »

GoggleboxUK wrote:will make them guess right 13% more
They will argue that they have improved by 26% on their previous accuracy.

Otorongo, you are right and if they can get to 80% then they'll really have something to shout about. However, at being right 2 in 3 times, I am not sure that is something that councils, retailers, power companies etc will want to make their plans based upon ........ however it's better than 50/50 .......... oh I give up!
flounder

Re: Long term forecasting 'cracked'

Post by flounder »

It's amazing what you can do with seaweed and pine cones these days :wink:
Conifers
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Re: Long term forecasting 'cracked'

Post by Conifers »

flounder wrote:It's amazing what you can do with seaweed and pine cones these days :wink:
Maybe they've got bigger and better pine cones? :lol:
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rentalcars1211
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Long term forecasting 'cracked'

Post by rentalcars1211 »

It's a lofty goal, the code to which hasn't really been cracked. So far, long-range forecasts have been modestly successful.
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