Terrifying Ignorance

[selenite0]

The WSJ has an article today on the dispute over whether hurricanes are being worsened by global warming. But I won't get into that issue here. What scared me in the article was the description of the methods. One of the scientists involved is calculating hurricane power (P) as a function of the wind speed (WS) and duration (T), like this:

P = WS^3 * T

The reporter expressed it as: "To calculate the total power generated over a storm's lifetime, Dr. Emanuel multiplied each hurricane's maximum sustained wind speed by itself and then multiplied that result by the wind speed again, a calculation known as cubing. Then he factored in how many hours the storm lasted."

"A calculation known as cubing" !?!? Is the reporter so ignorant he doesn't know what the cube of a number is? Or is he trying to write for an audience who doesn't? Either way, how much can I trust technical information that's getting dumbed down like that?

Comments

[joyeuse13.livejournal.com]

Regardless of what the reporter knows, I will *bet* that a good portion of the audience wouldn't know a cube from a dodecahedron. :)

[kd5mdk.livejournal.com]

But they might think figuring a hurricane's power by multiplying it by itself 12 times might be a bit curious.

[xinef.livejournal.com]

Pity that WSJ requires a subscription, so I can't read the article. Sounds interesting.

[ernunnos.livejournal.com]

Anyone else seeing a problem using the maximum wind speed? It might provide a reasonable number for comparison assuming all hurricanes have the same life cycle—Which they don't. Hurricanes that cross the Florida peninsula and go back out over the gulf come immediately to mind—but that's not even a rough estimate of actual power.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Yep. It's not like they don't have the computer power to do an integration. I suspect that guy knew what answer he was trying to get.

[carbonelle.livejournal.com]

Yes: when you're working with "a calculation known as cubing," integration is not the place to go.

[tygerr.livejournal.com]

It's possible that the original number-crunching was fine, but the WSJ author wasn't up to understanding/explaining something so complex and difficult as the elements of integral calculus. Or equivalently, that he wasn't going to try to explain it to an audience that wasn't up to it. So he tried to communicate the essentials, and threw out all the technical details in simplifying it down to "cube of velocity multiplied by time".