In the early 1960s, US meteorologist Edward Lorenz worked on computer models of weather systems. What term did he use to describe the variations found?
Edward Norton Lorenz Cambridge at the age of 90, having suffered from cancer. Lorenz built a mathematical model of the way air moves around in the atmosphere. As Lorenz studied weather patterns he began to realize that the weather patterns did not always behave as predicted. Minute variations in the initial values of variables in his twelve-variable computer weather model (c. 1960, running on an LGP-30 desk computer) would result in grossly divergent weather patterns. This sensitive dependence on initial conditions, which came to be known as the butterfly effect, meant that weather predictions from more than about a week out are generally
Lorenz energy cycle Lorenz energy cycle The Lorenz energy cycle describes the generation, conversion and dissipation of energy in the general atmospheric circulation. It is named after the meteorologist Edward N. Lorenz who worked on its mathematical formulation in the 1950s. Any atmospheric circulation system, whether it is a small-scale weather system or a large-scale zonal wind system, is maintained by the supply of kinetic energy. The development of such a system requires either a transformation of some other form of energy into kinetic energy, or the conversion of the kinetic energy of another system into that of the developing system. On a