Fractal Weather Prediction

Judebert writes "Benoit Mandelbrot, the man responsible for much of the interest in fractals, spoke last month at the American Giophysical Union meeting. He explained how he has been using fractals to find order within complex systems in nature, such as coastlines and weather. (I thought he was dead, but apparently he's just been teaching at Yale.) Earth scientists have taken his fractal work to the point of forecasting the size, location, and windspeed of hurricanes at landfall. Their predictions are being made available to FEMA and other government agencies."

Comments

I wonder if there's a real independent assessment

[SIGFPE]

to see how well this technique actually works. Dr. Mandelbrot is, above all, a very good seller of himself.

does anyone else find this funny?

[delorean]

I thought he was dead, but apparently he's just been teaching at Yale.
To me, that is just too funny.

Prolly' not to any Yale w/men in the audience, though.

Re:I wonder if there's a real independent assessme

[Dancin_Santa]

Personally, I'd like to see the results of applying his technique to earthquake prediction. Above all else (hurricanes, tornados, snow storms, volcanic eruptions, etc.) earthquakes have the possibility of doing the most damage to a large area in the shortest amount of time. Being able to predict the location, time, and magnitude of them would be a boon to human existence.

As for myself, I have no need for weather prediction. Cold today, cold tomorrow. The five day forecast: cold cold cold cold cold.

Dancin Santa

Red Spot

[Perdo]

This could be applied to Jupiter's red spot during the upcoming collision with the white spot. That would certainly give insight into Earth's hurricane formation zones and perhaps predict how global warming could aggrevate storm strength.

Re:Dead? Or Worse?

[Negadecimal]

Of course, he wishes he were dead. }:-> .

Perhaps he *is* dead. Imagine it: this "Dr." Barton figures he has more credibility if Mandelbrot backs his work. So he stages his own little Weekend at Mandelbrot's.

Anyone ever wonder if Stephen Hawking has just been incredibly well-preserved, and all the while, some junior physicist remotely hijacks his wheelchair and voice synthesizer?

Talk about morbid paranoia ;)

Chaos Weather

[cmpalmer]

Of course, the only problem is that you have to have accurate census and location information for every butterfly on the face of the planet in order for the forecast to be accurate.