International Journal of Arts and Humanities (IJAH)

While it may be tempting to quickly move on from our failings and shortcomings, given the seriousness of potential consequences within the fields of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, having a method of practice and process to efficiently and effectively review and dissect past incidents and events can be useful to formulating future planning and strategy. Hindcasting, which is also sometimes referred to as backtesting, may be the perfect vehicle for just such introspection. “We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience.” ~George Washington Perhaps the first President of the United States was on to something in 1781 when he penned the words above in a letter to John Armstrong. (Washington, 1781) In its purest form, the hindcasting method (as illustrated below in Figure 1.1) usually refers to a process that tests a mathematical model or framework. (Everpedia, 2019) For instance, scientists might input historical climate data from a determined period and then see if the model accurately reflects the actual observed climate conditions. With enough data and observations that are correlated, then the use of hindcasting would serve to validate the model. An additional benefit of the hindcasting method is also in its ability not just to look backward, but also in the capability to use models validated by backtesting to forecast or predict future events. 2 For instance, Chen, Cane and colleagues (2004) using hindcasting, were not only able to validate the success of their model‟s ability to accurately predict the occurrence of El Niño events over the 146 years from the period 1857 to 2003, but they also discovered that their model provided the ability to accurately forecast the conditions leading up to El Niños up to two years prior to their beginning thereby providing valuable time for possible preparation and mitigation activities. (Chen, et.al., 2004) Figure 1.1 – The Hindcasting Process Uses of Hindcasting Traditionally, hindcasting has been most often used in the fields of Oceanography and Meteorology to provide validity to weather forecasts and ocean condition models. “Starting as early as the late 1960s and has progressed to be the de facto standard for the development of extreme and operability data” (Oceanweather, 2019) for weather forecasting particularly related to extreme weather events such as hurricanes and cyclones.