Interview with Klaus Wyrtki
225
Then they say they have made a forecast nine months in advance. The question
is what did they forecast? Did they forecast the beginning of El Ni˜ no or the peak of
El Ni˜ no? You will find out that they forecasted the peak of El Ni˜ no, which was, say,
in August. The El Ni˜ no started in March and they made the forecast in December.
December to August is nine months so they claim they made a nine-month forecast,
when actually they made only a three-month forecast.
When you make a forecast, you have to be awfully specific what you are forecasting, and not just make a press release that something will happen. Therefore, I
am quite skeptical about these forecasts. I had a nice email exchange with my friend
Glantz in Boulder—he is an expert on social-economic impacts of El Ni˜ no and he
would like to use forecasts to tell the farmers what they have to do, to seed rice or
cotton, for example. He asked whether the last El Ni˜ no has been forecast and he came
to the conclusion “not really”. When El Ni˜ no started, when the first indications came
up, people started to claim that they had forecasted it.
There should be a better control about what El Ni˜ no forecasts are made. And
scientists should be a lot more honest.
Is it time for one big international center, such as the European Center of Medium
Range Weather Forecast, for El Ni˜ no forecasting?
Yes, it may be necessary and economical to have a center that collects all the data
because the data collecting effort would be common to all. Making a forecast is the
use of the data. That comes one step afterwards, and can be made on the same data
by many different people.
The success of the European Center of Medium Range Weather Forecast is based on
their data collection and data analysis processes.
And then you give the data to the forecaster in Moscow, Frankfurt, or elsewhere. And
the forecaster makes his particular forecast for a region that he knows better than the
others. Of course the computer models may spit out the same information. In the end
one best model may develop. We are at the beginning of the era of models. There are
great things to come.
IV
The role of your colleagues, of the working team, of schools. Did you experience during
your scientific career that there are existing schools, groups which have certain minds,
certain theories, is this important in oceanography?
The exchange of ideas, opinions, plans, and so on is most important for a scientist.
Otherwise you become very soon sterile. It happens on large scales, through conferences in an objective way, through personal friendships most consistently, and most
scientists participate in this interaction.
225
Then they say they have made a forecast nine months in advance. The question
is what did they forecast? Did they forecast the beginning of El Ni˜ no or the peak of
El Ni˜ no? You will find out that they forecasted the peak of El Ni˜ no, which was, say,
in August. The El Ni˜ no started in March and they made the forecast in December.
December to August is nine months so they claim they made a nine-month forecast,
when actually they made only a three-month forecast.
When you make a forecast, you have to be awfully specific what you are forecasting, and not just make a press release that something will happen. Therefore, I
am quite skeptical about these forecasts. I had a nice email exchange with my friend
Glantz in Boulder—he is an expert on social-economic impacts of El Ni˜ no and he
would like to use forecasts to tell the farmers what they have to do, to seed rice or
cotton, for example. He asked whether the last El Ni˜ no has been forecast and he came
to the conclusion “not really”. When El Ni˜ no started, when the first indications came
up, people started to claim that they had forecasted it.
There should be a better control about what El Ni˜ no forecasts are made. And
scientists should be a lot more honest.
Is it time for one big international center, such as the European Center of Medium
Range Weather Forecast, for El Ni˜ no forecasting?
Yes, it may be necessary and economical to have a center that collects all the data
because the data collecting effort would be common to all. Making a forecast is the
use of the data. That comes one step afterwards, and can be made on the same data
by many different people.
The success of the European Center of Medium Range Weather Forecast is based on
their data collection and data analysis processes.
And then you give the data to the forecaster in Moscow, Frankfurt, or elsewhere. And
the forecaster makes his particular forecast for a region that he knows better than the
others. Of course the computer models may spit out the same information. In the end
one best model may develop. We are at the beginning of the era of models. There are
great things to come.
IV
The role of your colleagues, of the working team, of schools. Did you experience during
your scientific career that there are existing schools, groups which have certain minds,
certain theories, is this important in oceanography?
The exchange of ideas, opinions, plans, and so on is most important for a scientist.
Otherwise you become very soon sterile. It happens on large scales, through conferences in an objective way, through personal friendships most consistently, and most
scientists participate in this interaction.