Models, Methods, Software

The journal of Computational Physics has a special issue that might be of interest to many here, Predicting weather, climate and extreme events.

This is a review article.

And Elsevier, aka Big Science Publishing, has kindly provided links to 8244 related articles.

of equation systems that do not possess chaotic response.

Executive Summary
The original PDEs that describe the Rayleigh-Benard convection problem do not posses chaotic behavior. The chaotic response observed with Lorenz-like low-order models (LOM) obtained via mode expansions disappears whenever sufficient resolution is used in the numerical solution methods applied to the original PDEs.

The low order model of the Lorenz equations omits the terms that are responsible for interaction between smaller scales and the large scales. The very interactions that form the basis for invoking the turbulence analogy.

GCMs are consistent with the chaotic response obtained from incorrect low-order models (LOM) expansions of PDEs.

GCMs are consistent with the chaotic response obtained from incorrect solutions to ODEs and PDEs.

GCMs are consistent with the chaotic response observed whenever insufficient resolution is used with numerical solution methods.

Read the rest of this entry »

Introduction
I’ve decided to modify this post and put an example here. Examples have the potential to provide more understanding of the important technical issues.

So, let’s say it’s Saturday January 5, 2008, at 4:30 am and a Butterfly is sitting on the railing of the deck outside the house. Actually, the railing is snow-covered and the Butterfly is sitting on the snow. The air is still, the sky is crystal-clear, there is significant radiative cooling underway and the temperature is dropping like a rock; it’s well below zero in both C and F. The Butterfly uses one wing to stifle a yawn and that wing moves slowly toward its mouth and then back to its resting place; the Butterfly needs the cover for warmth.

Here’s the question. What effect will that flap of the Butterfly’s wing have on the potential for a hurricane to form in the Gulf of Mexico in July 2008.

Some of the technical issues behind this question are the subjects of this post and possibly one or two others in future.

Read the rest of this entry »