QA：为什么科学无法预测极端天气？
Why did science fail to predict extreme weather?
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网友：是什么让你认为科学无法预测极端天气的？整个科学在过去40年里一直在预测越来越极端的天气事件。
正文翻译
Why did science fail to predict extreme weather?
为什么科学无法预测极端天气？
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What makes you think science DIDN’T? The whole science has been predicting ever-more extreme weather events for the past 40 years…
是什么让你认为科学无法预测极端天气的？整个科学在过去40年里一直在预测越来越极端的天气事件。
It didn’t. Climate scientists have been saying for decades that the Earth would experience extreme weather due to man-made climate change, although even they underestimated how bad it would get so quickly.
科学无法预测极端天气。几十年来，气候科学家一直在说，由于人为导致的气候变化，地球将经历极端天气，但是他们也没有想到气候会如此迅速地恶化。
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Science *did* predict extreme weather, and started predicting this decades ago.
In a geology class I took at UC Berkeley, our textbook from the late 1970s had a chapter about global warming. I recall even now the predictions in that chapter about extreme weather events.
科学确实预测到了极端天气，并且在几十年前就开始预测了。
在加州大学伯克利分校的地质学课上，我们70年代末的教科书有一章是关于全球变暖的。我现在还记得那一章是关于极端天气事件的预测。
When scientists found out, they immediately started sounding alarms, but they were ignored or gagged. But the ignorance of the problem cannot be blamed on stupid politicians. We all bear some blame for this, barring those who warned us.
当科学家发现极端天气后，他们会立即发出警报，但他们被忽视或被堵住了嘴。但是，对这个问题的无知不能仅仅归咎于愚蠢的政客。除了那些警告我们的人，我们自己都有责任。
My weather forecasters do pretty well. Stop getting your weather information from politicians.
我的天气预报员做得很好，不要再从政客那里获取天气信息了。
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Where did you come up with this ideologically laced question??
Science has been spot-on accurate in Projecting
1. Global Warming (the addition of energy to our atmosphere)
2. Which would cause threatening Climate Change.
3. These changes in Climate will produce tumultuous weather events, shifting currents, shifting snow/rain seasons, etc.
Scientists in the 60s projected that the Earth would warm,
2. by about how much it would warm,
3. by about how rapidly it would warm.
4. They projected that nighttime temps would warm faster than daytime temps.
5. They projected that warming would be more rapid/more apparent as you moved toward northern or/& southern latitudes.
6. They projected that these combined changes would stress our weather trends, creating tumultuous weather events. More Storms, More flooding rain/snow events in differing locales, etc.
你是怎么想到这个带有意识形态色彩的问题的？
科学一直是非常精确的
1.全球变暖(大气中能量的增加)
2.这将导致气候变化。
3.这些气候变化将产生严重的天气现象、洋流的变化、雪/雨季节的变化等。
60年代的科学家预测地球会变暖
2.温度会升高多少
3.温度升高的速度。
4.他们预测夜间温度会比日间温度上升得更快。
5.他们预测，当你向北纬或南纬移动时，气候变暖的速度会更快/更明显。
6.他们预测，这些综合变化将加剧天气的变化趋势，造成严重的天气现象。比如在不同的地方造成更多的风暴，更多的洪水，更多的雨/雪等等。
Science has been predicting for the last 50 years that extreme weather will happen now. People haven’t been paying attention to science because they didn’t want to believe it.
在过去的50年里，科学一直在预测现在将会发生极端天气。人们不关注科学是因为他们不愿相信科学。
The science I’ve lived the last 60 years has made repeated references to extreme weather patterns to come if nothing was done about CO2. And, nothing was done.
在过去的60年里，科学都反复提到，如果对二氧化碳不采取任何措施，将会出现极端的天气现象。但是我们什么也没做。
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We have been predicting extreme weather events as a result of global warming (hence the term ‘climate change’) for over 30 years. Apparently some people weren’t listening!
30多年来，我们一直在预测全球变暖(因此才有了“气候变化”这个词)导致的极端天气事件。显然有些人根本没有听进去！
“Why did science fail to predict extreme weather?”
I’m sorry, WHAT??? Science has been *warning* you about global warming and climate change for the last 30–40 years. Clearly you have not been listening.
Scientists and liberals have literally been “predicting” our current weather problems for my entire life.
“为什么科学无法预测极端天气？”
对不起，什么？？在过去的30-40年里，科学一直在“警告”全球变暖和气候变化。
在我的一生中，科学家和自由主义者一直在“预测”我们当前的天气问题。
I don't know about other parts of the world, but the climatologist for my home state of Iowa predicted a decade ago that storms here would become less frequent and more intense.
我不知道世界上其他地方的情况，但我的家乡爱荷华州的气候学家十年前预测，这里的风暴将变得更加频繁，更强烈。
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Why did science fail to predict extreme weather?
“Science” has been predicting extreme weather for more than 30 years now, but conservatives and republicans refused to listen.
为什么科学无法预测极端天气？
30多年来，《科学》杂志一直在预测极端天气，但保守派和共和党人拒绝倾听。
Top climate scientists have admitted they failed to predict the intensity of the German floods and the North American heat dome.
They've correctly warned over decades that a fast-warming climate would bring worse bursts of rain and more damaging heatwaves.
But they say their computers are not powerful enough to accurately project the severity of those extremes.
They want governments to spend big on a shared climate super-computer.
But former Met Office chief scientist Prof Dame Julia Slingo told BBC News: "We should be alarmed because the IPCC (climate computer) models are just not good enough.
"(We need) an international centre to deliver the quantum leap to climate models that capture the fundamental physics that drive extremes.
"Unless we do that we will continue to underestimate the intensity/frequency of extremes and the increasingly unprecedented nature of them."
She said the costs of the computer, which would be in the hundreds of millions of pounds, would "pale into insignificance" compared with the costs of extreme events for which society is unprepared.
Dame Julia is striving to promote this initiative at the COP26 climate summit in November.
She, and other scientists, agree climate change is an emergency. But Oxford Prof Tim Palmer told me: "It’s is impossible to say how much of an emergency we are in because we don’t have the tools to answer the question.
"We need a commitment and vision with the magnitude of CERN (Europe's major physics research centre) if we are to build climate models that can accurately simulate the extremes of climate like the Canadian heatwave."
顶级气候科学家承认，他们未能预测德国洪水和北美热穹顶的强度。
几十年来，他们正确地警告说，快速变暖的气候将带来更严重的暴雨和更具破坏性的热浪。
但他们表示，他们的计算机不够强大，无法准确预测这些极端情况的严重性。
他们希望各国政府在共享的气候超级计算机上投入巨资。
但英国气象局前首席科学家Dame Julia Slingo教授告诉BBC新闻:“我们应该警惕，因为IPCC(气候计算机)模型不够好。”
“(我们需要)一个国际中心，为气候模型提供量子飞跃，捕捉驱动极端的基本物理因素。
“除非我们这样做，否则我们将继续低估极端天气的强度/频率，以及它们日益变化的前所未有的自然性质。”
她说，这台电脑的成本将达数亿英镑，但与整个社会措手不及的应对极端天气的成本相比，这将“显得微不足道”。
茱莉亚正努力在11月举行的COP26气候峰会上推动这一倡议。
她和其他科学家一致认为，气候变化是目前面临的一个紧急情况。但牛津大学教授蒂姆·帕尔默告诉我:“我们不可能说我们正处于多大的紧急状态，因为我们没有工具来计算并回答这个问题。”
“如果我们要建立能够准确模拟加拿大热浪等极端气候的气候模型，我们就需要欧洲核子研究中心(CERN，欧洲主要物理研究中心)的承诺和愿景。”
Climate scientists have been predicting that weather extremes would become more frequent and more severe for forty years or more. The better question is “why did people generally fail to listen?”
气候科学家一直在预测，极端天气将在40年或更长时间内变得更加频繁、更加严重。其实更好的问题是“为什么人们通常不去倾听科学家说的这些问题？”
science didn't fail. Weather is jus too random.
If you toss 100 pennies into the air, what is the chance they will all land heads up?
科学并不是无法预测天气，只是因为天气变化太随机了。
如果你把100枚硬币抛向空中，它们正面朝上落地的概率是多少？
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Why did science fail to predict extreme weather?
There are thousands of scientific papers warning that weather will become more extreme as the planet warms.
为什么科学无法预测极端天气？
数千篇科学论文警告称，随着地球变暖，天气现象将变得更加极端。
Climate scientists said that extreme weather would become more common due to climate change. No doubt some places currently supporting human habitation will be unable to do that all year round by the end of the century, with New York having the sea running through the streets at high tides
气候科学家表示，由于气候变化，极端天气将变得更加普遍。
毫无疑问，一些目前适合人类居住的地方将无法在本世纪末依然适合人类居住，因为纽约将在涨潮时被海水淹没
Science did predict the climate change impact more than 100 years ago.
早在100多年前，科学就预测到了气候变化的影响。
Weather is extremely difficult to predict, even a week ahead. That includes extreme weather.
There are many factors involved in weather, all interacting with each other, and all operating under non-linear rules. In other words, to an observer - even to an observer with a supercomputer - a lot of it looks almost random. In general, only when a weather event is actually forming can anyone predict with any accuracy what it will do and when.
天气是非常难以预测的，即使是提前一周预测。这其中包括极端天气。
天气与许多因素有关，所有的因素都相互作用，并在非线性的规则下运作。换句话说，对一个观察者来说，甚至对一个拥有超级计算机的观察者来说，它看起来几乎是随机的。一般来说，只有当天气现象真正形成时，人们才能准确地预测它将会发生什么以及何时会发生。
weather forecasting is limited by the fact that weather is mathematically chaotic. That is, beyond a limited horizon it is not predictable in any certain fashion. If you consider California rainfall for example, over the last 125 years, there is no predictable pattern to whether the next year will be dry or wet. There is no cyclicity. Just a random pattern of normal, wet, and dry (drought) years. There are no trends. Random patterns are inherently unpredictable. That is science. Now weather is to a degree “self-similar” - that is on average tomorrow is likely to resemble today. Most weather prediction relies on that self-similarity for any success it can boast. With more advanced sources of information like satellite imagery and a global network of stations observing the weather, the horizon of predictability can be pushed out to somewhere around two weeks. The ultimate limit would be the life span of weather patterns. Can they be predicted to emerge? Where? How long do/will they persist? Hurricane tracks are a good example of taking advantage of the predictable “life span” and motion of such storms, but their appearance is still unforecastable.
If you differentiate climate from weather as the average of weather over time, then to a vague degree you might be able to predict climate to the same relative degree you can predict weather. Because averages are what you see as climate - a tendency for annual weather patterns to be self-similar as well. But … and this is the fly in the ointment. you cannot forecast “extremes” from averages. If you have a data set covering enough time, it seems probable that a certain estimate of extremes is possible. But there is no way to estimate just precisely when an extreme will occur.
But, just to confuse matters more, extreme weather such as the pulse of extreme cold weather that killed 700 Texans this year, it WAS predicted. The trouble was that no serious steps were taken to harden the vulnerable systems. And that was a policy and business decision, not a scientific one. Texas officials knew that extreme weather of the sort that hit was possible for decades.
天气预报受到天气在数学上的混乱规律这一事实的限制。也就是说，在一个有限的范围之外，它是无法以任何特定的方式预测的。以加州的降雨量为例，在过去125年里，没有可预测的模式来预测下一年是干季还是湿季。没有什么周期性。这只是正常、潮湿和干旱年份的随机模式。没有什么特定的趋势，随机模式本质上是不可预测的。这就是科学。现在的天气在某种程度上是“自相似的”——也就是说，明天的天气很可能与今天的天气相似。多数天气预报都依赖于这种自相似性，才能获得预测的成功。有了卫星图像和全球观测天气的观测站网络等更先进的信息来源，可预测的范围可以延长到两周左右。最终的极限是天气模式的持续时间。它们能被预测出来吗？在哪里？他们会持续多久？飓风轨迹就是一个很好的例子，它利用了这种风暴可预测的“持续时间”和移动轨迹，但它们何时出现仍然是不可预测的。
如果你把气候和天气区分为一段时间内的平均天气，然后在某种程度上，你也许可以预测气候，就像你预测天气一样。因为你所看到的就是平均气候——每年的天气模式也有自相似的趋势。但是，这也是美中不足的地方。你不能以平均天气预测“极端”天气。如果你有一个覆盖足够时间的数据集，那么对极端天气的某种估计似乎也是能够实现的。但仍然没有办法精确估计极端天气何时会发生。但更让人困惑的是，据预测，今年极端寒冷天气导致700名德克萨斯州人死亡。问题是没有采取严肃的措施来加强脆弱的天气预测系统。这是一个政策和商业决策，而不是科学决策。
Computers are fundamental to weather forecasting and climate change, and computing will underpin the new climate science.
We need an international centre to deliver the quantum leap to climate models that capture the fundamental physics that drive extremes.
We need a commitment and vision with the magnitude of CERN (Europe's major physics research centre) if we are to build climate models that can accurately simulate the extremes of climate like the Canadian heatwave
"Unless we do that we will continue to underestimate the intensity/frequency of extremes and the increasingly unprecedented nature of them."
Top climate scientists have admitted they failed to predict the intensity of the German floods and the North American heat dome.
They've correctly warned over decades that a fast-warming climate would bring worse bursts of rain and more damaging heatwaves.
But they say their computers are not powerful enough to accurately project the severity of those extremes.
They want governments to spend big on a shared climate super-computer.
We can improve upon our predictions based on current models or revise our models to make more accurate predictions.
Still,nature may keep a few surprises up its sleeve in an area like weather and climate events
计算机是天气预报和预测气候变化的基础，计算将支撑新的气候科学。
我们需要一个国际中心，为气候模型提供量子飞跃，以捕捉驱动极端情况的基本物理因素。
如果我们要建立能准确模拟加拿大热浪等极端气候的气候模型，我们就需要欧洲核子研究中心(CERN，欧洲主要物理研究中心)那样的承诺和愿景
“除非我们这样做，否则我们将继续低估极端天气的强度/频率，以及它们日益变化的前所未有的自然性质。”
顶级气候科学家承认，他们未能预测德国洪水和北美热穹顶的强度。
几十年来，他们正确地警告说，快速变暖的气候将带来更严重的暴雨和更具破坏性的热浪。
但他们表示，他们的计算机不够强大，无法准确预测这些极端天气的严重性。
他们希望各国政府在共享的气候超级计算机上投入巨资。
我们可以在现有模型的基础上改进我们的预测，或者修改我们的模型以做出更准确的预测。
然而，大自然可能会在天气和气候现象等方面保留一些惊喜
First of all, you need to define “extreme weather”. What does that mean? If you are talking about hurricanes, floods and things like that, then they are normal occurrences. Even the ancient Chinese and Egyptians wrote about these thousands of years ago. So not much new there.
首先，你需要定义“极端天气”。这个是什么意思？如果你说的是飓风、洪水和类似的事情，那么它们是正常的。几千年前，就连古代的中国和埃及人也记录过这些东西。所以这并不是什么新鲜事。
We’ve had “extreme weather” since the dawn of time. Science has predicted this since weather science began.
自古以来，我们就有过“极端天气”。自从气象科学开始，科学就预测到了这一点。
they made it quite clear that as a result of global warming weather patterns would change. The problem is people don't believe them till there house gets flooded or burned.
他们（科学家）明确表示，由于全球变暖，气候模式将发生变化。问题是直到房子被淹或烧毁人们才相信他们说的话。
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Extreme weather events happen all the time. It all depends on where you are and what you call extreme. One day there is sunshine, the next it pours. There can be a cold spell and sometime later there is a heat wave. It all happens cyclically. As timescales expand so do the differences, well, sort of. Over 100,000 years, the global mean temperatures vary by about 5–6 C from sea levels varying by 125–135 metres. That’s 25 m per degree C. Apart from the twice daily tides caused by the gravity of the sun and the moon, I have not seen anything close to that.
Local weather forecasters usually do a reasonable job giving upxes that get better as time shortens. However, the atmosphere is quite chaotic and sometimes very hard to make accurate predictions. Failing to understand the effects of solar system cycles and incorporating these in computer models is part of that.
极端天气现象一直在发生。这完全取决于你所处的位置以及你所谓的极端天气指的是什么。今天阳光明媚，明天就倾盆大雨。可能会有一股寒潮，但过会儿就有一股热浪。这一切都是周期性的。随着时间跨度的扩大，差异也在扩大。在10万多年的时间里，全球平均气温的变化幅度约为5-6摄氏度，而海平面的变化幅度为125-135米。那就是每摄氏度25米。除了由太阳和月亮的引力引起的每天两次的潮汐外，我还没有见过类似的变化。
当地的天气预报员通常会做一些合理的工作，随着时间的缩短，他们会提供更好的最新的天气情况。然而，大气相当混乱，有时很难做出准确的预测。无法理解太阳系周期的影响，也无法将这些整合到计算机模型中。
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We have not seen really extreme weather for a really long time. Things like hurricanes are not extreme weather, they are quite normal.
我们已经很长时间没有遇到真正的极端天气了。飓风之类的现象并不是极端天气，它们很正常。
Because it is unpredictable. It is unpredictable in two different ways. First, at this point in human history and our level of scientific understanding there is no way to collect sufficient detail data and analyze it — which is necessary for accurate prediction — before the event has already occurred. I call this the ‘complicated’ problem. The second way is that in extremely complex systems, like the weather, some things happen that ‘emerge’ within the system that mathematics has no way to predict. I call this the ‘complexity’ problem.
因为它是不可预测的。这在两方面都是不可预测的。首先，在人类历史和我们的科学理解水平上，目前还没有办法收集足够详细的数据并进行分析——这些数据对准确的预测是必要的——在极端天气已经发生之前。我称之为“复杂”问题。其次是在极端复杂的系统中，比如天气，在这个系统中，有些现象是无法用数学方式进行预测的。我称之为“复杂性”问题。
Extreme weather events have been going on since long before weather records started. The present-day science of meteorology is very good at predicting events to a certain point. However, as history has shown, the weather is a dynamic thing and can change rapidly.
早在有气象记录之前，极端天气现象就一直在发生。当今的气象学非常善于在一定程度上预测极端天气。然而，历史表明，天气是动态，可以迅速的变化。
“Why did science fail to predict extreme weather?”
Because its so unpredictable. You’d need divination to predict it beyond generalities.
Earth has been existing for 4.5 billion years. Universe even longer than that. Given that much time almost anything could happen. We just don’t know when…
“为什么科学无法预测极端天气？”
因为极端天气很难被预测。你需要做出超乎一般的预测。
地球已经存在了45亿年。宇宙甚至更长。在这么长的时间里，几乎任何事情都可能发生。我们只是不知道什么时候发生………
Because “if prediction is wrong, the science is wrong".
Meteorology is doing its best, but because of sheer number and complexity of the factors affecting the weather ( some of them still unknown) the accurate prediction is not possible.
For example hurricanes are predictable and observable in advance. Science knows about them, but still cannot predict where exactly will they land and what will be the damage to particular location.
So we know a hurricane is coming, we know general area that will be affected but we don't know where exactly it will land until it happens.
因为“如果预测错了，科学也就错了”。
气象学正在尽其所能，但由于影响天气的因素的数量之多以及其复杂性(其中一些仍然未知)，准确的预测极端天气是不可能的。
例如，飓风是可以提前预测和观测的。科学知道它们的存在，但仍然无法预测它们究竟会在哪里着陆，以及对特定位置造成什么样的损害。
因此，我们知道飓风即将来临，我们知道会受到影响的大致区域，但在它发生之前，我们不知道它具体会在哪里登陆。
Because Low-carbon Innovation Strategists use ideology to predict the weather, not meteorology which is a very difficult and complex subject. Of course professional weather forecasters can predict extreme weather events - and mostly do, but silly climatologists and Low-carbon Innovation Strategists haven’t got a clue. That’s why their predictions are always wrong.
因为低碳创新的战略家们用意识形态来预测天气，而不是通过气象学，这是一个非常困难和复杂的学科。当然，专业的天气预报员可以预测极端天气事件——而且大多数情况下都是这样的，但愚蠢的气候学家和低碳创新战略家们对此一无所知。这就是为什么他们的预测总是错的。
There hasn’t been any extreme weather. Weather has followed a rather constant pattern of variation since the beginning of time.
Weather has anomalies, within a cycle, within a greater cycle, within a still larger cycle. On a daily, or even yearly scale, it’s impossible to predict.
没有任何极端天气。从一开始，天气就遵循着一种相当恒定的变化模式。
在一个周期内，在一个更大的周期内，在一个更大更大的周期内，天气都会有异常。以日为单位，甚至以年为单位，这是不可能预测的。
Weather forecasts have become very accurate over the last few decades. Not 100%, but generally the broad strokes are correct and the details are largely accurate within a reasonable tolerance for error.
I’m actually quite skeptical of climate change forecasting, but no reasonable person should doubt that CO2 can cause warming of the Earth’s atmosphere and ANY change to a chaotic system has the potential to alter its equilibrium state. Those changes may not result in a climate that’s inhospitable to humans but it will be different in some ways.
在过去的几十年里，天气预报变得非常准确。虽然不是100%，但总体来说，大致是正确的，一些细节在合理的误差范围内大致是准确的。
事实上，我对气候变化预测相当怀疑，但任何理性的人都不应该怀疑二氧化碳会导致地球大气变暖，任何混乱系统的变化都有可能改变其平衡状态。这些变化可能不会导致不适合人类居住的气候，但在某些方面会有所不同。
We can predict the weather fairly accurately, however it’s a chaotic system and tiny variations in the initial conditions lead to different outcomes over time.
Climate is the average weather over the year, and much more stable than the day to day weather - it’s not prone to wild fluctuations based on small variations in the initial input. So we can model what climate will be like with much greater accuracy.
我们可以相当准确地预测天气，但它是一个混乱的系统，初始条件的微小变化会随着时间的推移导致不同的结果。气候是一年中的平均天气，比每天的天气要稳定得多——它不容易因初始的微小变化而出现剧烈波动。所以我们可以更准确地模拟气候。