Inspired by the Work of Edward S. Epstein: A Model for Predictive Hurricane Climatology (Invited Presentation)

"The goal is to produce useful predictions that are consistent with one's best judgements, and to allow consistent revisions of such judgements as data...become available."---Epward S. Epstein

Information about past hurricanes is available from instruments and written accounts. Written accounts are generally less precise than instrumental observations, which tend to become even more precise as technology advances. Here we show you how to build a Bayesian model that make use of the available information while accounting for differences in levels of precision.

The approach, inspired by Edward S. Epstein, is a rational and coherent foundation for incorporating all available information about hurricane occurrences, while accounting for the differences in the precision as it varies over the years. It could be used to account for the influence of climate change by discounting the older information. Records influenced by recent changes can be given more weight than records from earlier decades. The methodology is originally presented in Elsner and Bossak (2001) based on the formalism given by Epstein (1985).