2013 / 2014 record stretch for low activity in Atlantic. Reasons why?

It is sad that you don't give humans enough credit to imagine that we could one day understand our own planetary weather patterns. It isn't arrogance, it is a simple prediction based on progression of science and technology. By the way you talk, it sounds like you would prefer if we just gave up all together. How many lives are saved thanks to the advances in weather prediction? If that ain't worth the research and time, then I don't know what is.

As for being in control of the weather, that has nothing to do with what I wrote. I am talking about understanding nature, not modifying and controlling it. Control is easy, understanding takes work. Hell, mankind can eliminate all life on this planet with the press of a button. That doesn't make us advanced or intelligent. I do believe in the power of the human mind. We can and will thoroughly understand our planet one day. Nature, while representative of a chaotic system, still follows patterns.

 

Is this forum full of climate change deniers? If so, I really gave surfers too much credit.

 

Not sure. I do know it's full of armchair politicians.

FLY A BANNER FOR FISH OILZ

 

Got to agree with you ..moco nj has had good waves all summer ... and Friday , Saturday and Sunday look really promising ..I feel for you folks down south ..and no sense braggin' but dirty Jersey has been tubes a plenty ,for what ever reason..and summers often suck here...so far fall is loooooking good too .

 

Brew, I know you're a smart dude, but don't let your education get in the way of commons sense. Believe me, if we were able to figure out mother nature, don't you think we would have done it by now? Thousands of years have gone by and billions of people have tried. It's just not for us to understand. Some things don't need an explanation.

Sure, we can observe patterns and use them to forecast the weather but there are always going to be pattern interrupts that don't add up, that will throw the forecast off. The day you have it all figured out you should start playing the lottery and make millions upon millions.

I'm not suggesting you give up, I think it's great watching youse guys trying to figure out the impossible. HAHA, keep it up, gives you something to do.

 

I think the whole point here is that with better methods of monitoring these patterns and what is actually going on in the skies and on the ground, we will be able to take the information from these "pattern interrupts" to develop a completely accurate forecast. Its what we don't see right now that we aren't accounting for and is producing inaccurate forecasts. We, as humans, have a hard time seeing things, or even believing things, that aren't there but we still, and have, managed to figure them out. Electricity for example, or quantum physics. Technology expands at an exponential rate, and I am with Brewengineer on this one, and I think with the resources we have, and the will to learn, we will get this down to such a science where we don't have the same number of variables in prediction that we do now.

 

The earth is like a big equation, so a simple way to think about it is: more active Pacific Tropics = less active Atlantic Tropics. We're in one of those phases right now apparently.

I don't want to hijack this thread, but one thing that concerns me as an east coast surfer is the apparent shift in local weather trends during fall/winter/spring in the last decade.

I remember back in 2000~2007 many more coastal weather events that resulted in E-NE wind fetch, resulting in many good "day after a N'easter" sessions in South Jersey with easterly swell and NNW winds. It seems to me that almost every local windswell event we've had in the last 5 years of so has been from SSW winds from a frontal boundary approaching the coast and sweeping northeastward.

I'm interested to hear if anyone else has noticed this pattern and if anyone can further illuminate the topic with useful info.

 

Why would we have figured it out by now? We have only been able to model weather systems for 30 years, give or take a few. We have a long ways to go, and technology is rapidly increasing. The only thing that will stop us from fully understanding the weather someday is ourselves. If we kill ourselves off, then you will be right. However, if mankind lives on, I have full confidence in our our abilities.

 

vote for me, I promise to leave you alone!

 

I gotta agree with brew, our weather prediction capacity is only growing, as we dial in the systems and put those inputs into larger and larger computers, our predictions will become better and better.

need more input and processing power for the prediction models

 

theres no such thing as bad weather or waves, just got to have the right equipment to ride them. no one really knows. just have to adapt and move along.

 

Very true. This sort of thing will be the doorway to better weather prediction: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141012134851.htm

What better way to predict a chaotic system than to use a computer that gives multiple answers to the same question all at once.

 

I applaud your tenacity, let us know when the earth gives in to your demands.

 

Why look at it that way?? Its not like some sort of battle between man and earth. Like if man gets better at weather prediction, the earth is somehow worse off or has been defeated in some way?

 

I'm not so sure we will ever have this planet fully figured out. Not to be pessimistic but, each time we open something up, we are given a new host of challenges. If anything, I think that is the beautiful part of discovery. It's perpetual. Moore's law has been proven to be true yet, we have very little information on earthquakes (as far as prediction and cause), Earth's magnetic polarity shift, etc. Most of which can very easily be another factor in weather, swell height, and long term planetary effects. Technology has been opening far more doors then it has been closing.

There are few laws in science and even then, those concepts are still not fully understood. Gravity affects more than just an apple falling from a tree, it has the ability to manipulate time. Matter takes many shapes, a lot of which may not even be matter at all. We don't even fully understand our own bodies yet.

Perhaps I am just subscribing too harshly to some ideology that preaches infinity as the only end but, god damn am I having a hard time proving it wrong. Our world can never achieve anything 100% consistently. Perhaps down to some infinitesimal level are but, never truly. If you don't believe me, ask a few scientist in different fields how long a piece of string is. You might measure 7 inches on a ruler but, a mathematician would say that it is infinite. A physicist would say it's 7inches and 7.1inches and 0inches.

 

I'm not getting into any pi$$ing contests on this, but I tend to lean towards this^ school of thought. Seems like the more we learn, the weirder it gets. Which is good imo.

 

our capacity for understanding is infinite, earth is finite
as long as we survive this 'technological adolescence' as Carl Sagan put it, we will be in good shape to unlock secrets we had no idea, from the subtle to the grandiose

Also, gotta get to Space, surfaces of planets are volatile in long run, gotta get to space, AND HOW!

burning plant matter wont do it, need new type of drive

 

Not at all Mitchell, I just think it's a waste of time trying to pinpoint everything to a T. Like I said, you can look at patterns, but that doesn't mean that it will always work out that way. Just when you think you've got it figured out, the pattern will change. Just when you think you have the pattern interrupts figured out, a new one comes along and changes what you once thought to be correct. I'm not trying to be a jerk about it, just saying it's a futile endeavor to seek an ultimate answer to the future of our weather.

As humans we always seek out answers for things we don't understand, it's in our nature. Nothing wrong with it. Just saving myself the time of worrying about something I can't control or predict. I'll look at forecasts and hope for the best, but I never expect it to be an exact science, and I think it would be a bit unreasonable to suggest it could ever be exact. Again, I applaud all those who relentlessly pursue this, but I can tell you all right now that it won't happen in our lifetime, or even your kids lifetimes.

For that reason, I spend zero time or energy worrying about it. I'll just go surf when I have the time, if the conditions are good, then that's awesome, if the conditions are not so good, then I make the most of it and go again and hope for better conditions next time. It's really simple to me, just go surf when you can, let the world worry about everything else. While i'm surfing and having a great time, there will be some genius in a room somewhere trying to figure out the weather.

 

DP,I got the toad brains, you bring the gypsy tears, we can pour it into my kettle and we will see the future!

DP, our predictions will get spot on....because we will control aspects of the weather, just join my team of witches, bring your own poison apple