Synoptic charts, GRIB, stuff you should know...

[mixmaster]

Second the Dashews. Got lots of fun made of me as I read it on a beach holiday.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

As someone who provides topographic input data for some climate models (in Antarctica...), there is something else that people need to be aware of in hilly areas. Simply put, it is that the mountains and hills are poorly represented in the forecast models, because of the relatively coarse resolution of these models. In such areas, for example, the West Coast of Scotland, the interpolation technique will not provide a good result; topographic effects below the resolution of the model will usually dominate the local conditions. The model will give a good idea of the average conditions in the area, but the local conditions will potentially change rapidly from place to place. As happened last Thursday when we were sailing is a brisk breeze up the West Kyle of Bute, at the edge of reefing, only to be practically becalmed on reaching Burnt Island. The forecast was somewhere between the two extremes.

This is not the fault of the models; we just need much more powerful computing facilities to include realistic topographic models! But the computing power required goes up as the inverse of the square of the resolution; to halve the grid spacing would take 4 times the power; to get it to a point where topography was properly taken into account would require perhaps tens of thousands times the computing resources!

 

[simonjk]

Absolutely, a very improtant point. The mountains and hills of the UK are seen as nothing more than large cubes by the models.

 

[graham]

[ QUOTE ]
It's a bit like how my boat goes consistently faster when the autohelm is on, than when somebody is helming manually

[/ QUOTE ]

Except of course when dead down wind in a lumpy cross sea and it couldnt cope then one other occasion when it was broke. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Re the book Simon good luck where can I get it?

 

[ShipsWoofy]

I too would like a copy of your book regardless of the rather ridiculous contrary for the point of it postings by our resident attention seeking know all troll.

Will you be signing copies if we ask really nicely /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[simonjk]

Thanks Dogwatch. Yep, of course I'll sign it for you. Let me know when you have it and I can then either sign it for you (by post, please send the postage too!) OR I can send you a dedication card?

Simon

 

[timbartlett]

Sounds to me like someone is trying to show off -- referring to a book by the name of the author alone, as though it were a standard reference work that *everyone but everyone* should be familiar with -- when the reality is that it's a 600-page tome that sells for about forty quid (if you can find it), that's ten years old and written in American, instead of in English
Writing a slimmer, cheaper, lighter book, in English, and taking advantage of the publishing advances of the past decade is hardly "reinventing the wheel".
Good on you.
Best regards
Tim