EVALUATING OCEANOGRAPHIC HYPOTHESES: THREE METHODS FOR TESTING IDEAS ...

The disciplines of meteorology and oceanography are both vital to understanding the earth system. Throughout most of the last half century, meteorology has largely been a prognostic discipline. Forecasts made by meteorologists have been widely used and scrutinized, allowing for countless opportuniti...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Johnson, Benjamin K
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Digital Repository at the University of Maryland 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://dx.doi.org/10.13016/iheh-pj9f
https://drum.lib.umd.edu/handle/1903/26426
Description
Summary:The disciplines of meteorology and oceanography are both vital to understanding the earth system. Throughout most of the last half century, meteorology has largely been a prognostic discipline. Forecasts made by meteorologists have been widely used and scrutinized, allowing for countless opportunities to test and improve ideas about atmospheric circulation and physics. Since weather forecasts involve integrating numerical models and updating the model state via data assimilation, forecasting demands frequent use of the principles of Bayesian inference. This requirement essentially confronts the physics contained within numerical models at recurring intervals and can reveal systematic model bias. In contrast, prognostic applications have been less prevalent in oceanography. Oceanographic forecasts are much rarer than atmospheric forecasts and, perhaps as a consequence of this disparity, many ideas concerning oceanic circulation have not been tested to the same degree as ideas concerning atmospheric ...