MaPSS: Mathematical Postgraduate Seminar Series: Brent Giggins (Sydney University) -- How to Predict the Weather - An introduction to Chaos, Data Assimilation and Ensemble Forecasting

Dear All, 

We are delighted to present the MaPSS Seminar topic of Monday 01/05; please see the
abstract below.  

**This Semester the Seminar will always run on Monday, at 5:00pm in 535A** 

Following the talk, there will be pizza on offer.  

Speaker: Brent Giggins (Sydney University) 

Title: How to Predict the Weather - An introduction to Chaos, Data Assimilation and
Ensemble Forecasting 

Abstract: In 1961, Edward Lorenz discovered that the atmosphere has a finite limit of
predictability, even if we have a perfect model of the atmosphere and the initial
conditions are known almost perfectly.  This was a catalyst for the fields of numerical
weather prediction and chaos theory, which is the study of dynamical systems that
exhibit sensitive dependence to small perturbations in the initial conditions - often
referred to in popular culture as the "butterfly effect".  In this talk, we will examine
what it means for a dynamical system to be "chaotic" and look at ways to characterise
chaotic behaviour both globally and locally.  We will look at this through the context
of weather and climate forecasting - the main example of chaotic behaviour in natural
systems - and summarise the basic components needed for numerical weather prediction.
In particular, we will examine the topics of Data Assimilation and Ensemble Forecasting
in generating optimal initial conditions for a weather or climate model and consider the
practical problems that arise.  Finally, we will look multi-scale dynamical systems and
illustrate the challenges of forecasting over multiple time and length scales.  

Supervisors, please encourage your students to attend.  

Thanks,
MaPSS Organizers