Weekly magazine “Argumenty I Fakty” No. 22. Grandfather-hydromet? How to improve the accuracy of weather forecasts 02/06/2021
“The only peculiarity of the Muscovites, which has not yet been solved by me, is their constant, mysterious interest in the weather. Everyone listens to the program with bated breath, so that the next day they can catch it in the inaccuracies. Writer Fazil Iskander I was wrong only in one thing: everyone is interested in the weather. When will meteorologists stop upsetting us with inaccurate forecasts?
And the rain is still off the schedule!
For these people, there is no bad weather, only one that needs to be tracked, measured, and described.
Meteorologist Nina Malygina at work. Photo: AIF/Alexandra Mikhova
At the weather kitchen
Meteorological observations are made every three hours at the station in Murmansk. Temperature, pressure, humidity, and wind characteristics are measured automatically. But without the help of an observer, the summary will be incomplete.
If the computer suddenly fails, the summary will be compiled manually and transmitted to the Hydrometeorological Center by phone. And since the Soviet times, heliograph, pluvio-graph, and osadko-mer have been working. You can’t remove them, you never know what! The temperature and humidity of the air are continuously recorded by a thermograph and a hygrograph. Once a day, the tapes of the recorders are changed, the ink here is glycerine, it does not freeze, says the meteorologist Nina Malygina, worked at the hydrometeorological station for more than 50 years.The Pluvio Graph, for example, keeps a continuous record of rain. There was no precipitation today, so there is a flat line on the chart. In the weather booth, thermometers are used to determine extreme temperatures and air humidity.
Nina Ivanovna takes the usual route around all the equipment. To determine the amount of precipitation, the precipitation bucket is replaced 4 times a day. And here is the shape and the number of clouds here is determined by the eye.
Today, the clouds are layered-cumulus, 10 points with gaps, Nina Ivanovna quickly calculated.Their height is determined by a laser meter, and their shape, given the variety of their types, can only be determined by a specialist.
10 years ago, automated systems began to be installed at weather stations. For example, on Tsypnavolok, on the coast of the Barents Sea, reports are transmitted automatically, forecasters go there only for maintenance.
Many weather stations were closed back in the Soviet era. I think if they worked, there would be more information for making forecasts now. In Murmansk, for example, there were gradient altitude observations on the TV mast. At different altitudes, the temperature and wind were measured, and the weather forecasters needed this data very much. But the devices are outdated, they had to be changed to modern, more expensive ones, and that’s all the money, the meteorologist sighs.
The Arctic is often called the “kitchen of the weather”, which has become much warmer in recent years.
“In the half-century that I have been working, it has become much warmer in the North,” recalls Nina Ivanovna.In fact, it is very difficult to make forecasts in Murmansk. The weather changes quickly. In the morning you can come to work in sandals, and in the evening snow will fall! Such are the conditions – in the Arctic we live!
With a risk to life
In the Primorsky Territory, last summer was distinguished by numerous tropical storms, going strictly along the same trajectory from the south to the north.
“We see an approaching cyclone and calculate its approach for 10 days ahead,” explains the head of the Primhydromet Boris Kubai. & ndash; Every day the situation changes, the error increases. We can wait for the confidence to increase to 100%. But it is important for someone to have information for a few days in order to adjust their plans.
And the icy rain that hit Vladivostok on November 19 20 , 2020, entered the history of destructive meteorological phenomena. Researchers say that this has not been the case in these parts for several decades: fallen trees and poles, broken wires. Thousands of people were left without electricity, heat, or water.
On that day, Igor Subbotkin was on duty at the weather station located on the Busse Hill in the area of Golubina Padi, popularly called the Mountain. When the instruments recorded storm gusts exceeding 35 m/s, metal pillars fell down, showing the strength and direction of the wind.
“Power poles fell, telephone communication, Internet connection was lost,” the expert says.The ice layer on the holo-ice machine reached up to 28 mm! Automatic devices are out of order, there are duplicates, working in manual mode. Usually the windmasts help us outwith weather vents that transmit information over a cable to a computer in the Primhydromet center. But the miracle of technology broke down, and I had to take an anemometer, go outside and manually hold this device to take a reading. On the site was demolished! Something unimaginable was happening.
The most important observation posts in Vladivostok and Artyom Do are still undergoing restoration work.
And a vegetable garden to boot
It is not easy for the meteorologists who work at the Lokshak weather station, in the upper reaches of the Zei River in the Amur region. Hard-to-reach posts are located on all major rivers. And the number of posts has been unchanged, at least since 2015, since I have been in charge of the observatory, says the director of the hydrometeorological observatory of the 2nd category, Zey Sergey Alekseev. Only all-terrain vehicles will pass through there. The shift works there for a whole year, then goes on vacation. Each post has a residential building. Communication goes through radio stations. Our working hours are continuous. Any break is already a skipping of observations, which will then affect the forecasts.
Sometimes there is a staff turnover at the posts-not everyone can cope psychologically. Six months-a year & ndash; and quit. I myself go to such posts once or twice a year. It’s quiet there, but the silence is just up to the ringing in your ears. Maybe that’s what gets on your nerves the most. From & nbsp; pluses here – fishing, wild plants, fresh air. And every post has a vegetable garden.
Hair – the most accurate
“The most reliable assistants to meteorologists are devices, the principles of which do not change for decades,” says the head of the department of hydrometeorological support of the Volgograd CGMS Natalia AlatyrtsevaThey are placed in a special psychrometric booth. In it, at a height of 2 m, 2 thermometers are installed: one is dry, the other is wet. To the latter is tied a cloth of cambric, constantly moistened with distilled water. The hygrometer is a unique device that uses human hair in its device. And only from a natural blonde, it is most sensitive to humidity fluctuations!
All information is promptly transmitted from Volgograd to the North Caucasus Center, and from there to the Obninsk Meteorological Data Bank. Here computers came to our aid, and 40 years ago our specialist tapped out information in Morse code.
The climate in the Rostov region is called “abominably continental” by local residents: in winter it is cold and biting wind, in summer it is 40-degree heat. For this reason, predicting the weather here is especially difficult.
“We are located in a flat area and are open to all possible weather events, except for the northern lights,” says Elena Nazarova, head of the Rostov Hydrometeorological Center. There are cyclones coming from the western part of the country, from which there is no natural protection in the form of mountains or forests. And in the summer, anticyclones are installed, which carry the very famous Rostov heat. What will be the effect of the merger of different phenomena, in the long term, it is difficult to predict. Therefore, we only give fairly accurate forecasts for the three days ahead.
There are 19 weather stations operating in the region. According to E. Nazarova, most of the meteorologists are residents of the Don cities and towns, many of them are people of the same age. And in the Rostov Hydrometeorological center there are also young people, this profession is very interesting.
“Our salaries are federal, not less than the minimum wage,” the expert says.
The forecast did not come out
“There are no reliable numerical methods for predicting natural hazards yet,” says the chief forecaster of the Ural Department of Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring.Galina Sheporenko.
And & nbsp; imagination in & nbsp; help
Galina Andriyanovna, today it is often said that in the Soviet times, the products were better, the houses were built better, and the weather was more accurately predicted. Is that true?
“You know, no. Now the forecasts have become much better. In the ‘ 70s, weather forecasting was more difficult and serious errors occurred. Then outraged people started calling. They can be understood: the mother took the child to the kindergarten light and suddenly it became very cold. This, admittedly, affected the psyche, so we were always afraid to miss the unfavorable state of the weather.
How much has forecasting technology changed since the Soviet era?
& ndash; Significantly. 30–50 & nbsp; years ago, numerical modeling was not so common. Our more reliable numerical models only appeared in the ‘ 80s. They were very modest, small-scale, but they still helped. And before their appearance, the forecast was a ” hellip; let’s say, the scientific imagination of the forecaster. That is, knowing certain laws, he imagined what would happen tomorrow. I did, of course, certain calculations: how will this or that object behave, what will the atmosphere look like tomorrow or tomorrow?on the second or third day. But the atmosphere is a very mobile environment, and any unrecorded nuance can upset the balance. Therefore, then it was extremely difficult for forecasters and the work of specialists was associated with great psychological and emotional stress. I even met publications in which the profession of a weather forecaster was one of the most stressful precisely because of the tension, because of the sense of responsibility.
Today, forecasters feel much more confident and the forecasts are well justified.
Click to enlarge.
On their synoptic view
How does the forecasting process work these days?
It is based on the synoptic view. We have 36 weather stations on the territory of the region, and if you also take the Perm Region, Chelyabinsk and Kurgan regions, then you will get all 100. We collect meteorological information: rain, wind, what clouds and what their height is, the temperature of the soil surface,humidity of the air. We send our data from the Ural Bush in code format to the International Meteorological Center of Roshydromet in Moscow. The international exchange of information takes place every 3 hours. This is very important, because the weather is changeable, the atmosphere is mobile, it is necessary to monitor it over a large area.
The results of numerical simulations are transmitted here from the international center. To do this, you need very large computers that can process global information, which is exactly what the Russian Hydrometeorological Center has. And now, when this computer counts everything, it gives out a map of the state of the atmo-sphere, thanks to which we see what is happening.it will be tomorrow: what the atmospheric spherical field will look like, where the cyclone will occur, what intensity it will be, and so on. On the basis of these models, computational schemes are built that give directly the weather parameters: temperature, precipitation, wind, cloud cover.
& ndash; An ordinary weather forecast is preceded by such a huge amount of work!
Yes, this is a very large, knowledge-intensive and, I note, not cheap work. Now entire countries are joining together in creative scientific teams, which in addition to weather forecasters include physicists and mathematicians, to create their own numerical model, because it is difficult, expensive and time-consuming.
And, of course, we are engaged in tracking dangerous natural phenomena-they are still difficult to predict. There is probably no reliable numerical method.
Like hail from the sky
What do you mean by dangerous phenomena of nature?
There is a certain list. Let’s say it’s a wind with a speed of 25 m/s and higher. Now, there are no methods that can predict this wind more or less accurately. Or hail. This is a local phenomenon. For example, no weather station recorded it, and people call and say: “There was hail”.
It is not yet possible to develop the necessary methods, for which there are many reasons, including an insufficient observation network. The lack of knowledge of some atmospheric objects also plays a role. For example, it is very difficult to study the processes in the clouds, what happens there at the microphysical level.
Insufficient computing power also matters.
But any, let’s say, controversial case that has caused significant damage, the commission examines. I remember in May of 1984, snow fell on my knees and everything stood up. Then came the commission of the Federal Hydrometeorological Service, which came to the conclusion that it was almost impossible to predict this problem temporarily.
Almost all industries have experienced optimizations to some extent. Did it touch you?”
In the ‘ 90s, the number of observation posts was reduced by 30%. Until now, it is still not possible to expand their network. In general, the networks of weather stations on land are unevenly distributed, somewhere dense, somewhere empty. And the accuracy of the forecast depends on how far away the observation point is from you. The further away from each other these stations are, the worse the forecast will be.
Don’t you have a staff shortage?
There is, of course! The frames don’t hold up very well, because we don’t have a lot of fees. This is a shame, because the observation network needs to be protected – it is the basis of everything. There will be no observation network (weather stations, posts on atmospheric pollution, agrometeorological, hydrological).)& nbsp; & ndash; it will be bad. No forecasts, nothing will happen!
Who do the weather fairies serve?
In Europe, they pride themselves on the accuracy of their forecasts, but even there, the words “sometimes”, “probably” are present in any weather forecast.
“With each additional day beyond the next day, the quality of the weather forecast decreases,” the German Meteorological Service warns. In the weather reports for 24 hours, the match is 90%, and for the next three days, it is already 75%. But at the same time, in our time, the forecast for next week is as accurate as it was 40 years ago for tomorrow.
The German Meteorological Service is a state organization with the status of a federal agency, which belongs to the Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure. The budget for 2021 is 361 million euros, of which 150 million go to contributions to international organizations (the European Satellite Organization).meteorology, etc.). Revenue & nbsp;19.5 & nbsp; million in & nbsp; year. In the Offenbach weather and climate monitoring system, 6 regional centers, 2,200 full-time employees, a monitoring network of 181 base weather stations (of which 164 are automated), 10 radiosonding stations, and 2 radiosonding stations.; observatories.
1737 weather stations are served by volunteers. The ad “Looking for volunteer weather observers” can often be found in different regions of Germany. What is required? A suitable plot of land where the meteorological service specialists will install their measuring instruments, the availability of the Internet and readiness for manual measurements of the precipitation level (data must be transmitted in the morning every day) and the maintenance of the station in order. For this, an annual compensation of 660 euros is due. In addition, Germany has a number of private weather services and serious competition.
In the 19th century. in Germany and Russia, they trusted the weather forecasts from frogs: “The tree frog screams” rain on the roof knocks”. Perhaps that is why the weather forecasters and weather forecasters on TV and radio are still called “the weather fairy” (if it is a lady) and “the weather frog” (in German, it is masculine).By the way, the Wetterpate campaign (“godfathers of the weather”) was invented in 2002 by students of the Institute of Meteorology of the Free UniversityBerlin, when the training weather station ran into financial problems. The names for the high and low pressure fronts are given out in October of the previous year. In even – numbered years, cyclones are given female names, anticyclones are given male names, and in odd – numbered years, the opposite is true. Those who want to give their name to the elements will cost 240 euros. The anticyclone is more expensive (its duration is longer) – 360 euros. All funds are used to provide meteorological research and weather observations.
How to improve the accuracy of weather forecasts?
The idea that something was wrong with the climate occurred to everyone. And scientists have been talking about this for decades.
So, maybe the meteorologists are wrong in their forecasts because the weather has become more unpredictable?
Vladimir Semenov, Deputy Director of the Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Head of the Climatology Laboratory of the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences:
– Everyone knows that global climate change is taking place on the planet. Since the beginning of the XX century. the temperature in the & nbsp; average increased by & nbsp; 1 & ndash;1.2 & deg; C. For Russia, this indicator is 2 times higher: on the territory of our country, it has warmed on average by 2.2-2.4 C.
Somewhere the warming is faster, somewhere slower, and somewhere there are also cold spells. Therefore, it is sometimes said that the climate has become more “nervous”, although scientists do not use such a word. Q: How does “nervousness” manifest itself? Warming is accompanied by an increase in humidity and an increase in the number of extreme weather events: squalls, heavy rains, tornadoes. Over the entire land area, the intensity of precipitation is increasing.
Russia is a huge country. The climate changes in the regions are different. For example, in Russia as a whole, such an indicator as temperature variability (from day to day, from week to week) is now decreasing. This is understandable: the temperature gradient between the northern and southern latitudes has decreased. But for the Moscow region, for example, the severity of weather anomalies in the spring has increased. We feel this contrast for ourselves when in May a sudden invasion of cold air masses occurs and we have to take out the winter clothes that have already been removed from the cabinets again.
It may seem that an increase in the number of extreme events should worsen the quality of weather forecasts, make them less accurate, because the weather becomes so unpredictable. But in fact, their accuracy depends entirely on other things, on the initial data, on how well we take into account the features of numerous processes that we cannot yet model and for which we use approximate models.equations. What are these processes? For example, what happens in the clouds, the formation of drops, precipitation. Or evaporation from the land and ocean surfaces, heat fluxes, radiation transport-often these processes occur at the molecular level, and they cannot be modeled explicitly, but only with the use of approximate formulas. But science continues to move in this direction and is constantly improving its description.
In general, despite the opinion that weather forecasts are wrong, their accuracy is growing due to the development of computer technologies.
The accuracy of forecasts is related to the spatial resolution of the models used by meteorologists. The higher the resolution, the more accurate the forecast. And just to accurately predict such extreme events as squalls, tornadoes, and heavy downpours (what happens when contrasting air masses touch), a higher spatial resolution of the models is required than it is now. The Hydrometeorological Center is now predicting these phenomena, but the accuracy of the forecast still leaves much to be desired.
And with more accurate modeling, it will be possible to predict that in a particular area in a certain period of time there will be a very high probability, for example, of a squall. Unfortunately, it is now impossible to provide the entire territory of Russia with such accurate forecasts. To do this, you need a model with a spatial resolution of 300 m. To create it, you need supercomputers of much greater power than we have now. We are significantly behind in this area.
Accurate forecasts are based on a huge amount of calculations. Their speed is unthinkable-about a thousand trillion calculations per second. Imagine: almost one-time, in increments of minutes, and then in seconds, differential equations with hundreds of variables are solved. The entire territory of the country is covered by a grid with a resolution of 1 km, and solutions of such equations are constantly occurring at each point. Without a powerful super – computer, it is impossible to do this. Its presence is a necessary condition for the development of accurate weather forecasts.
A few years ago, Hydro-Metcenter acquired a new super-computer and uses it. But its performance is inferior to European and American computing systems. And the Academy of Sciences does not have such a thing. The lack of computing resources, including for climate research, is the most acute problem of our science.