"Japan Plans 30-Year Supercomputer Forecasts"

TOKYO (AP) - Japan is planning ultra long-range 30-year weather forecasts that will predict typhoons, storms, blizzards, droughts and other inclement weather, an official said Tuesday.

The project, to start next year, will harness the powers of one of the world's fastest supercomputers and is an offshoot of ongoing research by the country's science ministry to map global warming trends for the next 300 years.

Using the Earth Simulator supercomputer, housed in a hangar-sized building in Yokohama, just south of Tokyo, Japan's science ministry hopes to calculate long-term patterns in the interaction of atmospheric pressure, air temperatures, ocean currents and sea temperatures, said Tomonori Otake, an official with the ministry's earth environment bureau.

The results will help establish predictable routes for typhoons and identify areas that are recurring targets for heavy rains, abundant snow, high waves, heavy winds, scorching heat or crop-threatening droughts.

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20060719/D8IUO8V08.html

a favorable public and political climate for research and discovery.
Unlike the situation in the U.S., where science is more and more getting the short end of the stick in every way. The U.S. will soon be laughed at and scorned as ignorant no-nothing hicks who value war, destruction, and shallow entertainment over anything positive, productive, and enlightened.

Accurate long range forecasts are not.
That said, I wish the Japanese scientists good hunting.

(Japan)AP-Scientists release predictions of future weather.

Mr. Myoroki Habinabi, Director of the Meterological Ministry Japan, presented to the world today the recent predictions of their supercomputer dedicated to predicting the weather for the next 30 years.

They are as follows:

2010: earth gets warmer do to global warming. Frequent forest fires, drought and water shortages do to lack of rain increase.

2015:Areas of the world will not have seen rain fall in close to 7 years. Whole ares of the American Southwest and China's northwest have turned to desert.

2020:all the glaciers are gone. Ice caps melting at an alarming rate. Oceans of the world rise 2 feet. Category 5 and the now mega Hurricane are now common at least 4 times a year in parts of the U.S. and Southeast Asia. Temperatures world wide skyrocket.

2025: whole areas of the Southwest in the U.S., North Africa, Central Asia, central South America; are completely inhabitable due to high temps reaching 150 degrees F.

2030: Energy capacity to deal with the need of A/C has collapsed. Mass die off due to raging high temps. Many areas of the earth now completely uninhabitable due to lack of water and high temps. Highest temp on earth recorded at the Dead Sea. 173 degrees F.

2036: Earth burst into flames.

is in for a bit of a letdown. :-)