Weather Banter - View Single Post - Climate models [Was: Real beef! [Was: Agriculture's Bullied Market]]

Torsten Brinch · May 21st 04, 07:19 PM posted to sci.agriculture,sci.geo.meteorology

On Fri, 21 May 2004 13:31:55 GMT, (Phred)
wrote:
In article H69rc.35326$bS1.7614@okepread02,
"Gordon Couger" wrote:

"Phred" wrote in message
...
..
A fairly serious problem with a model based on past weather is that,
if we assume climate is changing, then the basis of the model is
largely irrelevant. Mind you, that mightn't matter so much in terms
of "averages" in the short term future, but when it comes to
predicting extremes (e.g. "100-year events" etc.) all bets are off.

Having been involved in 4 100 year events in my 60 years of life I question
the system of clasifiction.

Thank you for that observation, Gordon. Proves my point nicely.

I think 'prove' is a tad strong, Phred, but assuming Gordon's
observation is correct, it would seem to indicate some climate
change. A back of the envelope calculation gives me that the
probability of four or more 100 year events within 60 years is only
about 1 %. However, before jumping to conclusion we'd better ask:
what is Gordon's event-type and can he show us the data?