the misadventures of weather boy

Graphically speaking -- What NHC graphic to use?

"We're in the business of saving lives."
A certain movie

In the May 2007 Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Broad et al. (2007) served up an article entitled "Misinterpretations in the 'Cone of Uncertainty' in Florida during the 2004 Hurricane Season" (88 BAMS 651; article available for free). The article concerns the current National Hurricane Center graphic to use for public hurricane forecasts. To be clear, this isn't about what kinds of forecasts the NHC produces, but rather the form in which they are displayed in a publicly-consumable graphic. I highly encourage everyone to take a look at that article (it isn't very technical at all, so it is quite easy to follow).

The currently used graphic displays on a map the current storm position, its forecast track (with projected intensities), hurricane/tropical storm watches/warnings, and the 10 year forecast track error (the so-called "cone of uncertainty"). The authors claim (and I will not dispute their claim) that people pay too much attention to the forecast track of the storm without realizing that the effects of the storm are larger than just a dimensionless line and that the storm may deviate widely from the forecast track. Thus, these people do not prepare adequately (or at all!) for a potential or real threat. The authors suggest that the best way to alleviate this problem is to remove the track line, although the exact graphic they would endorse is unclear. Front line meteorologists have varying opinions about whether they think the track line should be included or not (some use it, some will remove it completely)--and this is very important since they have the job of communicating the NHC forecast (while TV meteorologists will deviate somewhat from the NHC forecast when there is significant evidence, especially in time-critical situations like landfall, they will generally stick to it to maintain uniformity so the public is not confused).

Generally speaking, my position would be that the public deserves all of the information they need to make an informed decision. But that's not really the correct viewpoint to take. The NHC's primary job is in saving lives (thus the opening quote), and doing what is necessary to get people who need to evacuate or take precautions to do so. If that means portraying information differently, than so be it. For example, the NHC will often shade the intensities of storms to a certain extent to maintain consistency, in order to keep the public from becoming confused (for example, if at 06Z the maximum winds are 75kt, then at 12Z the winds are 50kt, and then 75kt again at 18Z, it makes no sense to bounce from 75 to 50 to 75 again, which would simply confuse people). So the issue is which graphic will do the job of getting people to evacuate when necessary?

I don't disagree that people pay too much attention to the track line; in fact, I often pay too much attention to it. And in some ways, the 10 year forecast error also is abused too--the authors indicate that one storm out of three has direct impacts out of the error range (p. 654). At first blush, removing the line may be a good idea.

There is one problem though with removing the line. The idea of having the track line is to indicate the most likely track of the storm. Some storm forecasts have a much greater confidence than others in that track forecast (in many situations, it can often be a guess as to exactly where the storm will go). But removing the line and just having the error range almost makes it look like there's an equal probability that it could be anywhere in that zone. Sure, it would be reasonable to deduce that it would be in the middle, but people don't always make the most reasonable inference. So the people who are at the highest risk may not clearly perceive that. That's a serious problem--although this whole process is riddled with problems (overwarning versus underwarning is a concern--it's next to impossible to do things "just right", but that is what the public demands).

The question really should be not what the public wants to see, but what will most likely communicate the threat to them. I don't know the answer to this question, and unfortunately, the paper doesn't really tounch on this issue (beyond what isn't working). For example, I like some of the features of the new wind speed probabilities graphics (see last year's Alberto archive for examples), but I don't think that graphic is the answer. It only portrays one wind level per graphic, is underinclusive (it's good for shorter term, but doesn't really show longer term threats so well), and is ineffective at showing the strongest winds (the highest graph is a 64kt/74mph graph, so a hurricane with 135mph winds isn't going to be very clear, except in its large radius. But the current graphic doesn't really communicate this well either). The important question is how to make this issue clear to people--a question that doesn't seem to have an easy answer thus far.

Labels: meteorology

posted by weather boy @ 3:01 AM 0 comments

Note to Vermont: It's probably a bad idea to try to secede

An AP article (Yahoo|Time) notes that a growing (well 8-13%) of people support secession in Vermont. Now, it is possible to get 8% of almost any group of people to say almost anything, but some of the supporters are very serious in their desire to secede for corruption, war, militarism, unresponsiveness, etc. In a sense, it's similar to the movement of "some" people to emigrate to Canada after the 2000 election, although the last time I checked, the population flux in that movement wasn't that large.

The supporters also feel that there are ways to make secession economically feasible. Realize of course that the federal government spends billions of dollars on the States that would have to be replaced, and the government would have to pay for things it hadn't had to pay for before that any state (differentiate from a State of the United States) would have to provide. But let's set those issues to the side.

Now I will admit that the text of the Constitution makes it an open question as to whether a State may secede and whether the federal government can compel them to rejoin. But my reaction upon reading the first paragraph or so was almost identical to the reaction of Russell Walker of the Brookings Institute: "I always thought the Civil War settled that." The key is that the Union, being the winners of the Civil War, settled the answer to this question per the military conflict. Walker goes on to say that maybe Vermont would have a case if they defeated the United States but "that's not going to happen." Sections 3 and 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment skirt this issue very lightly, and they could be construed (you'd have to do this very broadly!) to mean that the Union can settle insurrections.

So here's the gist: It doesn't matter how pissed off you are about national policy--you can't secede from the Union. Trust me--a bunch of other States have thought about this and tried (for reasons on both ends of the political spectrum). With a few exceptions (and the exceptions themselves are immaterial), the States bought into this Union thing willingly, and once they've bought in, they can't get out. No, you can't declare independence or repeal the ordinance of ratification (Vermont in this case actually directly ratified the Constitution, and was admitted as the fourteenth State, so they would most likely repeal their ordinance of ratification). If you want out, you have to choose one of the following options:

• The United States consents to secession (it's a little unusual, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be possible).
• Repeal or replacement of the Constitution pursuant to Article V or some other means (this is more or less the mechanism by which the Articles of Confederation were replaced).
• Require recognition by military conflict. Just a little hint: this typically doesn't work well without some serious forethought, and Presidents, irregardless of political affiliation, get a little pissed off when States threaten to secede. They generally respond by threatening to march the federal troops in and putting you in the gallows.

Now while I'm sure that some people are serious about this, this kind of movement is the overall effect of frustration with progress. And in the short term, it doesn't look very good. But in the long term, these things have tended to take care of themselves, and taking steps such as "nullification" to emphasize (or distort, depending on your perspective) federalism, are counterproductive.

Labels: law, other

posted by weather boy @ 6:54 PM 0 comments

SutePri #4 Delayed!

Tokyopop's pushed back to the release date of SutePri Volume 4 to August 10 (from July 10). Volume 5 is slated to be released on October 9...although I'm not sure that's going to hold up.

Labels: anime

posted by weather boy @ 2:28 AM 1 comments