84th AMS Annual Meeting

Wednesday, 14 January 2004: 2:00 PM
The Role of Human Forecasters During the 21st Century
Room 6A
Clifford Mass, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
The next decade will be one in which major changes will occur regarding the role of human forecasters. Higher resolution model predictions, mesoscale ensembles, IFPS and gridded forecast dissemination, improved dissemination capabilities, new model post-processing techniques, and other changes will radically change the way forecasts are made and communicated. This presentation will examine implications of these changes and will describe a vision of the future role of human forecasters. It will be suggested that probabilistic forecasts based on calibrated ensemble prediction systems will be very difficult for humans to enhance, with the greatest human contribution coming during the first 12-h, where our superior image interpretation capabilities come into play. As they give up some of the actual prediction, forecasters will spend increasing time in communicating and interpreting forecasts for an increasing array of users.

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