The global models - upon which all official predictions are based - have a resolution on the order of 100 kilometers (km) per grid-point. Scientists isolate the factors that influence the weather (heat, radiation, the rotation of the Earth), transform them into mathematical formulae, and use supercomputers to forecast the atmosphere in all its multifarious complexity.Īnd yet, these forecasts are still painted with a fairly large brush.

The rise of powerful high performance computers has been a large part of these improvements. But if you want to know how the wind will blow tomorrow, odds are you’re going to check the forecast.Ītmospheric prediction has improved immeasurably in the 45 years since Dylan sang 'Subterranean Homesick Blues.' Whether you’re interested in tomorrow’s high or the global heat index a decade from now, forecasters can now predict the climate with far greater accuracy. “You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,' Bob Dylan famously sang. The right figure is the regional scale analysis performed by National Weather Service, which utilized local observations. This eddy is famous in Southern California due to the very cloudy and cold weather during the May-June period. The left figure is the output from Kanamitsu's downscaling which produces an eddy. The center figure is the coarse resolution analysis used to force the high resolution model. Scripps researcher adapts global climate model to improve regional predictionsĪ demonstration of what the dynamical downscaling can achieve.

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