Can you predict the future?

Here's the best video I could find showing the surf at the Huntington Beach Pier.  I moved to H.B. in January 1987, and lived there most of the time until late 2008.  So when I imagine sitting on a beach, looking at the waves, this is the one I imagine.  The vast majority of days the waves are 2-4 feet high, with 5 foot sets.  The surf shown in this clip is all from big days, and barrels happen sometimes, but are really rare in H.B..  

It's a simple question:  Can you predict the future?  

Most people would instinctively say, "No," then hesitate.  You probably think it's a trick question, since I'm starting this blog post with it.  Or maybe you want more information, you want details, "How far into the future?"  

For an example, will the closest traffic light to your house turn green, at some point, about an hour from now?  You most likely said, "Yes."  If not, you might want to move to a better location, with less backed up traffic.  You just predicted the future.  How did you do that?  Traffic lights are a machine, one that works on a timed pattern.  Green, yellow, red.  So unless it's broken, that light will turn green, just about an hour from now.  You can make this judgement, predict the future of that light, based on its reliability, and on a pattern.  There's a really small possibility that the light won't keep working.  A storm or other power outage could happen, and that light could lose power, and then your prediction would be wrong.  But the odds are well in your favor, due to the light's reliability, and its steady pattern of changing, that it will turn green just about an hour from now, within a couple minutes or so.  

Now, let's step this idea far into the future.  Think about your favorite ocean beach.  It could be one you visit often, if you live on a coast.  It could be one you've been to on vacation.  It could be a beach you've seen in movies or on video.  Picture the waves on that beach.  Now, how big will the waves be, at exactly this time, 50 years from today?  Can you make a good prediction?  

Back in the late 1990's, I lived on 15th Street, in downtown Huntington Beach, for nearly 3 years.  If I wasn't working in the morning, I'd often ride my bike down to the 6th Street donut shop, right on Pacific Coast Highway, and get a donut or two, and a Diet Coke.  Then I'd cross the street, sit on the edge of the upper parking lot level, and watch the surfers, while I ate my donuts.  I never did learn to surf while living in H.B., but I went Boogie boarding a bit, and was surrounded by surfers, and surf talk.  On most days there, on the north side of the H.B. Pier, the waves would be 2-3 feet high, with 5 foot sets.  That's about average.  "Sets" are the groups of large waves that come every few minutes, usually caused by a storm hundreds or thousands of miles away.  

So if I said, "Fifty years from today, at this time, the waves on the north side of the Huntington Beach Pier will be 2-3 feet high, with 5 foot sets," there's a good chance I will be right, or pretty close.  About 60% of the time, maybe more, that's about right.  Now there could be a storm across the Pacific at that time, and the waves would be overhead, say 6-7 foot high, like some in the video above.  So my 50 year prediction would be wrong.  Or if I hedged it a little bit, and said, "In 50 years, those waves will be 2-4 feet high, with 5-6 foot sets," I'd raise my chances of being right, by expanding my target range slightly. 

So I just made a 50 year prediction that probably has a 40% to 65% chance of being right.  How?  From experience of watching the waves daily in H.B., over several years, I know the average height.  It would take some outside element, a big storm at the right time, in the right part of the ocean, to prove me wrong.  Also, waves are a regular natural cycle, they are something that keeps happening, and go up in down in size, influenced by a whole range of oceanic and atmospheric influences.  So I'm betting that the same basic cycle will exist in 50 years, because I've seen it in Huntington Beach over the 34 years since I first watched those waves.  They are pretty much the same now as they were in 1987.

So when you can find some repeating pattern or cycle, and it works over many years, you can make reasonably good predictions, well into the future.  Not perfect by any means, but reasonably good.  A forecast would be a better name.  You can forecast what the waves will be like, with a reasonable degree of certainty, barring major outside events.  

If a huge breakwater is built offshore, blocking the wave action a half mile out, then there won't be hardly any waves.  Also, climate change could alter the weather patterns, and the wave patterns, which could make the average waves larger or smaller.  But you can make a prediction, even fifty years into the future, if you have some kind of long term waves or cycles involved.  

There are waves and cycles in all kinds of things.  The weather, the seasons, ocean waves, planets revolving around the sun, stars appearing at certain times from our viewpoint, meteor showers and comets appearing at certain times, all these things go in cycles of some sort.  You get the idea.  

There are patterns, and sometimes pretty regular cycles, in the doings of animals and humans as well.  Will ducks fly south this fall?  Yep.  By and large, most of them will.  How about 20 years form now?  Yep, it's a safe bet most of them will fly south then, too.  

So you CAN make relatively good predictions, even years into the future, if you have some kind of long term cycle to work with.  Not perfect predictions, but reasonably good predictions.  You can predict a wide variety of things days, months, or years into the future, if they go in some kind of cycle or wave.  Astronomer's can tell you when Hailey's comet will come into view 2,000 years from now, to the day. Yes, there are things that could change that.  The comet, or Earth, could be hit by huge asteroids, or a black hole could sweep through and suck the Earth into oblivion.  But those are tiny, very remote possibilities.  Chances are, the astronomer's prediction will be right, 2,000 years from now, on when you can see Hailey's comet.  

But can you make 99% accurate predictions years into the future?  That seems impossible.  Think about your favorite beach again.  Look at the waves, watch them crash, and look at how big they are.  Now, 50 years from today, will there still be waves hitting that beach?  

Heh, heh, heh.

-Steve Emig