Originally Posted by Justin '77

The quasi-linearity of the climate models is the same. Without some sort of empirical demonstration of where the bounds of quasi-linearity are, we cannot simply assume that any behavior outside the bounds of what we have already observed and correlated will continue to follow the same quasi-linear path.

Or perhaps one might say the system responds differently in different conditions as different fundamental mechanisms get triggered. As one gets below -2 delta T Vostok Equivalent, the North American and North Eurasia glaciers start flowing north and south with the Milankovitch variations. In that temperature range, orbital variations just have a much larger effect on climate than they do at warmer temperatures when there is no glaciation. If the temperature climbs above 2 Vostok Equivalent, one should expect a big temperature jump as the Antarctic thaws. If we should get all the way up to 10 Vostok, we could trigger another oceanic methane release such as the PETM.

I can agree that things are apt to say linear and predictable only within certain ranges when a fixed number of fundamentals are in play. The system will abruptly change behavior as various fundamental mechanisms are triggered. I just don't think the mechanisms are so mysterious and unpredictable if one takes the time to actually study a bit of climatology. If one looks at the history, one can see what fundamentals have occurred in the past, and anticipate when they are apt to engage again.

Many mechanisms are cyclical. Some of these cycles are very predictable, such as galactic arms and Milankovitch orbital variations. Other cycles are quite messy, are not understood well, such as solar variation. Other fundamentals are essentially random. No one is predicting when the next sooty volcanic eruption might occur. Other fundamentals trigger at specific temperatures.

Which is part of why I tried to review the various fundamentals. What are the fundamentals? When do they occur? Justin is correct that Earth's climate system is not a smooth thing. He just dwells on his own ignorance rather than starting with mechanisms that are known. I would deal with the known first. CO2, methane and SO2 are greenhouse gases. The northern permafrost is starting to thaw, and emit methane. Factories are emitting CO2, and a bunch of other stuff. The shipping companies are starting to survey the Northwest Passage as northern ice retreats, which means more sunlight is being absorbed by oceans rather than reflected by ice.

Perhaps there is another fundamental mechanism we haven't discovered yet, which we don't understand. (If the Earth's magnetic poles are switching, resulting in a period of weak magnetic fields, how does this effect how cosmic rays create clouds?) Such unknown mechanisms might make things better. They might make things worse. I'm just concerned about the mechanisms we do understand. An unknown mystery mechanism is as likely to doom a half hearted effort at preserving our current climate as it is to make such an effort unnecessary.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

I can agree that things are apt to say linear and predictable only within certain ranges when a fixed number of fundamentals are in play.

Just need to add something here. "Linear" and "predictable" are not identical in meaning. The climate appears to be a linear system, but it is also a complicated one. If it is impacted by a factor we haven't taken into consideration, then our predictions are going to be off by the significance of that factor.

The difference here is that nonlinear/chaotic systems aren't predictable even when we DO have all the governing factors taken into account.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I have to say that, for me, this discussion has turned from boring to fascinating. I started to wonder how they came up with average surface temperature over centuries, when we haven't even been taking official reading for that long. Turns out that even THAT information is an estimate ...

Yah. There haven't been many temperature recording sites in uninhabited areas, so they have been guessing. They are now refining the guesses. Still, many of the very long term measurements have been coming from a very few locations in Greenland and Iceland where glaciers have been building, recording temperature and atmospheric samples for millennia. Older estimates are based on sediment cores from the ocean bottom. Different methods entirely.

Not everything is known within reasonable tolerance. Temperature, they have a good proxy for in oxygen isotope ratios. CO2 concentration... Well. Let's just say that in some areas there is something approximating a 'scientific consensus,' while in other areas there is what is known as a 'work in progress.'

Note, while there is a lot we don't know about CO2 in the atmosphere in prehistoric time, there seems little doubt there used to be a lot more CO2 in the air that there is in modern times. Modern CO2 readings are in the 300 going on 400 parts per million range. Below, again, are the CO2 measurements since 1958 from Mauna Loa, Hawaii.

Long term, much of Earth's atmosphere originated from volcanoes, which emit a lot of CO2, and not much oxygen. Over the millennia, plants have been taking CO2 out of the atmosphere and releasing O2 as a byproduct. From the point of view of an animal, thank you plants. In the process, a lot of that carbon, once the plants die, ends up moving from the atmosphere into places like oil and coal deposits. When we burn fossil fuels, we are putting carbon back into the atmosphere, which was originally where much of it came from.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Long term, much of Earth's atmosphere originated from volcanoes, which emit a lot of CO2, and not much oxygen. Over the millennia, plants have been taking CO2 out of the atmosphere and releasing O2 as a byproduct. From the point of view of an animal, thank you plants. In the process, a lot of that carbon, once the plants die, ends up moving from the atmosphere into places like oil and coal deposits. When we burn fossil fuels, we are putting carbon back into the atmosphere, which was originally where much of it came from.

There's another point to be made on this, which is that although global warming (along with other crap we're doing) is likely triggering a mass extinction event, it is extremely unlikely to wipe out all life on the planet, which means that life will ultimately recover, evolve new species to fill empty niches, and quite likely end up with a stronger and more vibrant biosphere as a result of the return of all that carbon to the atmosphere and consequent warming, just as currently one finds a richer and more diverse ecosystem in the tropics than in the temperate zones.

So this is not bad, long-term, for life. It's bad for the current species mix, and for human civilization.

Originally Posted by The Rani

lol ... omigod, Bob, why do you keep posting the same graphs over and over again? Maybe you should make them your sig line, that way you won't have to keep pasting them in.

Well, someone asked for the scientific evidence. I suggested going back to the top of the thread and reading. That person thought the idea was a joke, so I started posting the evidence again. I actually thought if I provided the evidence she might learn. You know. Students with short attention spans need repetition? Oops. Sorry. My mistake. Someone asks. I respond. Get dissed for responding. Not seeing any sign that repetition has improved comprehension.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Addendum:
Hey wait, I have a new theory. Maybe the cause of those rising CO2 levels in Hawaii is excessive pot smoking?

Yah. That's about how seriously you take scientific evidence and theory. If one isn't up to handling the science, go for comic relief. How much pot smoking do you think is done at 10,000 feet? Is it true that Hawaiian pot consumption cycles very regularly with the seasons?

Do you need me to post the pot consumption chart again? A quick search for historical trends of pot use in Hawaii didn't come up with a useful graph. I'll try again later.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

There's another point to be made on this, which is that although global warming (along with other crap we're doing) is likely triggering a mass extinction event, it is extremely unlikely to wipe out all life on the planet, which means that life will ultimately recover, evolve new species to fill empty niches, and quite likely end up with a stronger and more vibrant biosphere as a result of the return of all that carbon to the atmosphere and consequent warming, just as currently one finds a richer and more diverse ecosystem in the tropics than in the temperate zones.

So this is not bad, long-term, for life. It's bad for the current species mix, and for human civilization.

I also suspect that even human civilization could come out the 'better' for having to endure the transition. The basic lesson learned would be that resources used have to be balanced against resources available. I strongly suspect population will be limited. The smaller population could be granted a reasonable access to a decent life style.

But getting to that point is apt to involve a Malthusian collapse. While I understand the 'from a distance' perspective, I don't see the have nots letting the haves get off easy.

While we have talked quite a bit about reducing dependence on fossil fuels for energy, and cutting back on CO2 release, I don't recall much being said about cutting down forests lately. CSIRO, an Australia science agency that does similar work to NOAA, recently did a study on the subject, resulting in an article in Science and a short press release.

Dr Pep Canadell, from the Global Carbon Project and CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, says today in the journal Science that tropical deforestation releases 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon each year into the atmosphere.

“Deforestation in the tropics accounts for nearly 20 per cent of carbon emissions due to human activities,” Dr Canadell says. “This will release an estimated 87 to 130 billion tonnes of carbon by 2100, which is greater than the amount of carbon that would be released by 13 years of global fossil fuel combustion. So maintaining forests as carbon sinks will make a significant contribution to stabilising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.”

Originally Posted by The Rani

That's just the problem though. The "conditions of interest" are not the only conditions.

The conditions of interest are by definition the only ones we need to consider. If we aren't interested in something why consider it?

And asking us to list possible "unknown" factors is a bit silly, isn't it? We can't know the unknown.

Not all all. Unknown factors likely do not exist. If we don't even have any suspects then it becomes probable that there are no factors. The burden of proof falls on those suggesting invisible, undetected magical factors that can explain away concern over anthropogenic climate change.

As for the chaos issue, Justin is right...

No, chaos means a very specific thing. Justin is wrong.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Unknown factors likely do not exist.

Holy crap Mike! Do you even hear yourself?!?

I suppose we could just consider this a rare moment of Prophet-gen clarity. But still

As for the chaos issue, Justin is right...

No, chaos means a very specific thing. Justin is wrong.

And just where did this happen? I've been talking linear versus nonlinear, first of all. Nonlinear and Chaos are not synonyms.

Chaos Theory

chaos theory describes the behavior of certain nonlinear dynamical systems that under certain conditions exhibit dynamics that are sensitive to initial conditions (popularly referred to as the butterfly effect). As a result of this sensitivity, the behavior of chaotic systems appears to be random, because of an exponential growth of errors in the initial conditions.

I've made no characterizations whatsoever regarding climate as a chaotic or nonchaotic system. In fact, were I to guess, I would posit that climate is probably not chaotic, since the systems we can observe seem in large part to self-damp. But I will happily admit that this is an off-the-cuff guess.

What I have pointed out is that, contra the AGW models, climate is a nonlinear system. I'll save the trouble of re-posting from the same thread and just send you to this one where I stole a very good summary from Wikipedia.

The money shot is:

nonlinear systems represent systems whose behavior is not expressible as a sum of the behaviors of its descriptors. In particular, the behavior of nonlinear systems is not subject to the principle of superposition, as linear systems are. Crudely, a nonlinear system is one whose behavior is not simply the sum of its parts or their multiples. Linearity of a system allows investigators to make certain mathematical assumptions and approximations, allowing for simple computation of results. In nonlinear systems these assumptions cannot be made. Since nonlinear systems are not equal to the sum of their parts, they are often difficult (or impossible) to model, and their behavior with respect to a given variable (for example, time) is extremely difficult to predict. When modeling non-linear systems, therefore, it is common to approximate them as linear, where possible.

Are you saying that the definition I am using is incorrect, or are you merely echoing Bob's unjustified assertion that climate is not merely linear-approximate over a certain range, but actually a linear system? Such an assertion should really be supported...

I think we can agree that if one is attempting to predict weather, the atmosphere has to be considered a chaotic system. If you want to know how fast this cold front is going to move, or where that hurricaine is going, you need all sorts of data and an immensely powerful computer. Even then, the chaotic weather models are so sensative to the slightest variations, the best of models are not going to be able to be accurate more than a week or so into the future, if that.

I confess I've been looking at climate as a heat flow problem. The sun inputs energy as light. The Earth radiates out energy, primarily as infa red. The sun's input is pretty well constant, give or take a small variation. In general, the hotter the Earth gets, the more infa red radiation is emitted. Thus, the system is broadly stable. If something happens to cause a heating condition, the Earth grows warmer until there is enough heat escaping as IR to balance the heat coming in from the sun.

What the fundamental mechanisms share in common is that they either effect the amount of the sun's heat coming in, or they block IR radiation going out. At the largest scale, climate is bounded by the conservation of energy. How much energy is coming in? How much is going out? That's all that ultimately matters. What happens to the energy between the time it comes in and the time it goes out can be incredibly complex, but the bottom line climate problem is bounded by the mechanisms that effect energy coming and going.

Greenhouse gasses block IR going out. Cosmic rays effect cloud cover, which reflects energy coming in. Volcanic soot enables cloud formation, reflecting light coming in. Variation in the orbits effect the amount of light coming in. If you keep track of the energy coming in and out you can calculate the average temperature over all.

The better professional models do better than that. The pros are looking to know the climate at different lattitdues, and how climate is effected by oceans, deserts and mountains. Their models have to be complicated to keep track of different heat exchanging mechanisms that exist in different parts of the world. How to the prevailing winds flow? Where are the ocean currents going? These models get more complicated than a layperson can understand. Depending on one's world view, one can either accept or reject what one can't understand.

However, I don't see a consensus developing on the quality of the professional models. Thus, I'm trying to list all the known mechanisms effecting the amount of heat coming in and going out. I'm invoking conservation of energy. Declaring a system chaotic is not going to make energy appear from nowhere, or allow it to vanish out of a system. If one looks at how each of the fundamental climate mechanisms enables or blocks the flow of energy, you have a basic layperson's perspective on whether the planet is going to get warmer or cooler.

With the possible exception of Mike, I don't see anyone doing the math to handle things at a more complex level than that.

I would like to understand how Justin's mystery mechanism effects the flow of energy onto or off of the planet.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Holy crap Mike! Do you even hear yourself?!?

You have suggested that 20 years from now, those that suggested that global warming was human caused will be embarrassed by what subsequently happens. Unknown factors that will make this happen likely do not exist. Other kinds of unknown factors are irrelevant.

And just where did this happen? I've been talking linear versus nonlinear, first of all. Nonlinear and Chaos are not synonyms.

Yes you have, but you have created an equation between nonlinear and "fundamentably unpredictable" in the minds of Rani and quite possibly others here. I was addressing this.

What I have pointed out is that, contra the AGW models, climate is a nonlinear system.

Simple climate models are linear in their forcings, but the forcings themselves are not necessarily linear. So when you say climate is not linear while the models used to describe it are linear you are wrong.

Are you stating that climate is nonlinear in its forcings?

Simple climate models employ empirical methods to address nonlinearities. For example dissolution of human-made CO2 by the oceans is affected by the solubility of CO2 in seawater. The relation between CO2 in the air and dissolved CO2 (i.e. solubility) is governed by Henry's Law which says that the liquid phase CO2 concentration in the ocean water is proportional to the partial pressure of the CO2 in the air. The proportionality between the two is a nonlinear function of temperature. This alone adds a nonlinearity to the determination of CO2 level. So does the effect of circulation and mixing in the oceans. The CO2 level must first be determined before any radiative effect on climate can be calculated.

Attempts to model climate using human input of CO2 into the atmosphere were attempted in the past. How atmospheric CO2 changed with time (or even if it did change with time) was not known. It was really impossible to proceed on the question of whether human activity could or was affecting climate because of the intractability of the nonlinear problem that must to solved to know the CO2 level. Hence great effort was expended to measure what could not be calculated.

Simple climate models don't calculate CO2, they use measured CO2 as a model input. Thus the nonlinear behavior of climate mediated through CO2 level is handled empirically. This means to predict future temperature using the simple models one must supply a value for future CO2.

Similarly climate models will use total solar irradiation as an input (since we can measure it) rather than try to calculate it. This removes the need to concern ourselves with solar hydrodynamics, which you tried to bring into the mix to muddy the waters.

For the cosmic ray mediated effect on climate we replace the complex nonlinear process through which solar activity is hypothesized to affect climate with still more empiricism. We can measure solar activity is a variety of ways. We can measure cosmic ray flux too. Over the last 50 years their secular trend has been flat. No trend in solar activity/cosmic rays means no trend in temperature produced by these phenomena. Once again empirical work eliminates problems coming from nonlinearities.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

I've made no characterizations whatsoever regarding climate as a chaotic or nonchaotic system.

What is this?

Originally Posted by Justin '77

The problem isn't that someone else has a mechanism which explains where the warming is coming from (which appears to be what you are looking for from the galactic topography discussion); it is that the anthropogenic CO2 explanation is far from rigidly exclusive. The models are fundamentally based on an assumption that a chaotic, mega-multi-input system can be understood on the basis of a small number of inputs over a vanishingly small time interval. Other inputs -- which both undeniably exist and are undeniably not tracked at present -- have impact, and as the last thirty-some-odd years of study of chaotic systems should have made clear by now to anyone, even small inputs can cause effects of all manner of scope.

It sure looks like you are calling climate chaotic. Shortly after this Brian takes up your theme:

Is the climate a chaotic system or a linear one? Weather is certainly a chaotic system, but climate is not weather.

Here the intent of the question is clear. Is climate (unlike weather) chaotic? Since he is not conversant with the mathematics, he equates chaotic with nonlinear.

Bob Butler disputes your characterization that climate is chaotic

I also distrust your characterization of climate as chaotic. Weather is chaotic. A trivial change in the initial conditions of a weather simulation can put storms in vastly different places. Climate is not chaotic. A small change in the input of climate models does not produce vastly different climates. There are tipping points, where polar ice melts, or methane is released from the tundra. That is not the same as the extreme sensitivity to slight changes you get with truly chaotic systems.

He is right, of course.

You give a coy response to Brian:

The fact that the question remains an unanswered one isn't sufficient?

Bob gave an answer. Instead you hinted that climate is really chaotic.

Brian agrees with Bob that climate is not chaotic and since you were careful not to disabuse him of the notion that non chaotic means linear you then say this:

climate is not a linear system; the models tend to be linear, but they are not climate, The models appear to work so well because they are tuned to reproduce the single known dataset from which they have been constructed.

and this

The recent climate models -- if they are in fact correct -- have revolutionized our understanding of the impact of CO2 on global climate. That is, they not only do not give 'basically the same results' as did their predecessors; but they give fundamentally new results (as you would expect making linear models of a chaotic system).

Here again you imply that climate is chaotic.

Finally I addressed your claim that climate was chaotic:

Originally Posted by Justin '77

The models are fundamentally based on an assumption that a chaotic, mega-multi-input system can be understood on the basis of a small number of inputs over a vanishingly small time interval. Other inputs -- which both undeniably exist and are undeniably not tracked at present -- have impact, and as the last thirty-some-odd years of study of chaotic systems should have made clear by now to anyone, even small inputs can cause effects of all manner of scope.

Why do you think climate is necessarily chaotic? The motions of gas molecules in a closed container are chaotic, like balls on a billiard table, yet even more so because of highly nonlinear attractive forces operating between each pair of particles. Compare the moving particles to moving masses (flows) of air in the atmosphere, which are chaotic.

Despite the chaos of the particle movements themselves the pressure or temperature of the container is not unpredictable--not chaotic. This is because temperature and pressure are average properties. Climate is average weather and is not necessarily chaotic. For the special case of global temperature, this is completely analogous to the temperature of the gas in the container. It is perfectly predictable and well-behaved--given the energy inputs and outputs from the system.

You did not address this until just recently:

In fact, were I to guess, I would posit that climate is probably not chaotic, since the systems we can observe seem in large part to self-damp.

I will take that as a acknowledgement that you were wrong about climate being chaotic.

Originally Posted by The Rani

So you think acting like an asshole will somehow make me smarter?

Awareness of the evidence could make you better educated. At this point, though, I'm not sure you care much for the science. Justin at least attempts to engage vaguely in the science, working discussions of cosmic ray sources and the nature of chaos. You might be wise in avoiding leaping into the scientific side of the debate, sticking more with insults and taunting, but when one of your taunts says you are totally unaware of the evidence, you shouldn't complain when you get the evidence rubbed in your nose.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Hey wait, you never answered the question about why you aren't a True Believer. Got any graphs that can explain that one?

In the four options described in the poll, I interpreted the first (denialist) and last (true believer) as being world view determined positions. No matter what the evidence, the world view of the individual would determine their position, and they would not be moved from it. The middle two positions, I interpreted as people who at least spent some time looking at the evidence and allowing it to shape their positions.

Once upon a time, I embarked on a search for God. This search took me to a bunch of different places, pitting my evidence based science side against my faith based brought-up-Catholic side. One of the last and most central places this search took me was the building of an ESP experiment, involving a geiger counter as a random event generator and a 'reality splitter' circuit intended to create alternate universes in the 'many worlds' quantum mechanics sense. I didn't end up with objective evidence of the nature of mind over matter, but I did learn whether my values were centered on religion or science, on faith or evidence. I have described myself as 'agnostic' since that time, but have not argued with believer contentions that they have personally observed highly unlikely but seemingly random events which contribute to their faith in divine influence.

Anyway, if my search for God led me to perform an experiment, to try to learn how the worlds of mind and matter interact, I felt safe in answering a 'faith or evidence' question on the side of evidence. That is where my values lie.

If you read the question differently, fine. If you think you know me well enough to question my understanding of my own values, go ahead, snark and launch personal attacks. You're good at that aspect of the environmental debate. I just wouldn't throw the word 'asshole' around too lightly if you intend to maintain focus on that approach.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Unknown factors likely do not exist. If we don't even have any suspects then it becomes probable that there are no factors. The burden of proof falls on those suggesting invisible, undetected magical factors that can explain away concern over anthropogenic climate change.

Not really. Good scientists search extensively for factors that might make their hypotheses wrong, and they test them out.

I for one would be pleased to consider any factor you'd care to mention, to test any hypothesis you'd care to present. Give me a theory to analyze. Show me some data that the existing theories do not explain. I'm wide open to new 'mystery mechanisms.' I even came up with one myself, a magnetic pole reversal amplifying cosmic ray influences on cloud formation. Look up the history of when magnetic pole reversals occurred. See if there are climate glitches in the temperature record at those times. Go with it!

But at core I agree with Mike. When the current theory explains the data, it stands as the reigning champ until a better theory explains better data better. Suggesting that there may be better data someday or that there may be better theories someday is true, but irrelevant. The goal is to match theory and data. If one doesn't have a theory, let alone data to back it up, one is in faith based mode. One is denialist, rather than skeptic.

Mea culpa, Mike.

The word 'chaotic' got thrown around so much in response to my original contention regarding linearity/nonlinearity that I appear to have, for a couple of posts, improperly used the two terms interchangeably. No excuse; I know better than that.

(And since my response was posted in clear-mind, I did a search over the threads for the word 'chaos' in my own posts, and found no hits. Should have broadened the search a bit, I guess...)

To summarize: I incorrectly used the word 'chaotic' to describe the behavior of climate, when I should have been using the word 'nonlinear'.

Thank you for helping straighten that out.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I don't throw that word around lightly at all.

And you've forgotten which side of "the environmental debate" I'm on, asshole.

You are on the snark and insult side, rather than the evidence side.

Originally Posted by The Rani

USA! USA!

Dude, someone's gotta teach you some better put-downs. KIA? Zilch?

Why don't you dance for us?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BlRUpwJt7c

Originally Posted by The Rani

Ok back to seriousness for a minute.

With all the citing of paleoclimatic data, I should participate seriously in this thread, too. Too bad I'm busy being the Friendly Neighborhood Vote Wrangler of alt.usenet.kooks.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Wait a sec, are Marc and I not the only ones here who sometimes post under the influence?

Depends on what you define as 'influence'. I rarely drink (or etc.) by myself, and when I'm socially... influenced... I hardly ever have the time to step away and post.

But being really, really tired I find can have the same sense-obscuring effect.

Ok back to seriousness for a minute. Are you saying that the problem is that Mike's equation is linear, while climate change is non-linear?

I'm not arguing Mike's equation. What I am arguing is the structure of the AGW models. Every single one of them so far has operated on the assumption that climate is a linear system -- that is, that the effects of each of the various forcing inputs was discretely separable.

Since the mechanics of the actual processes cannot be resolved to support that view, the AGW modelers rely on statistical analysis to demonstrate that some set of forcing input functions can, if summed properly, closely approximate the observed behavior of the system. Which is all fine and good. As I expanded on in my comments to Brian on the Ideal Gas Law, it is perfectly reasonable to find that a nonlinear system has certain ranges upon which it appears to behave linearly. Which, arguably, the AGW crowd may have done.
Where things break down, however, is when you try to use those linear-approximations to forecast outside the range for which they were generated. That is, where you stop treating the system as linear-approximate and start treating it as actually linear. I saw a great comment from a paper about cloudcover modeling (bulk climate, not weather), where they said that their model could be adjusted to very closely recreate any length of dataset, but that the moment they tried to use it to predict forward, the answers it gave failed to track more often than not. Linear approximations are like that.


And on an aside, I've given a bit of thought to the question of climate being 'chaotic' or not. I commented that, since climate appears to have a damping-feedback quality, it couldn't be chaotic. That does not necessarily follow. The example of an underdamped pendulum is classic damped-chaotic. What matters to chaos is not the number of quasi-stable points, but the sensitivity of the system's behavior around those points. So I really couldn't even say whether or not climate is probably a chaotic system.


But really, the problem with AGW models is twofold. Broadly:

• the science (which is to say, the structure of the models)
• and the data (which is to say, the tracking of all relevant variables, including the knowing of what the relevant variables are)

Both aren't there.

You can argue both -- it is a very young science after all -- but really either one is sufficient cause for skepticism.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

You are on the snark and insult side, rather than the evidence side.

Dude, someone's gotta teach you some better put-downs. KIA? Zilch?

I guess insults too are dependent on world view. From the point of view of my values, that should have been an insult. If it was a whiff, it was true even if it didn't hurt your feelings. I'm sort of into insults that are true. They feel better from this side, and quite often irritate on the other side. The sort of childish playground stuff you and Zilch do doesn't much interest me.

Originally Posted by The Rani

USA! USA!

Did you hear that Bush sucks? From the Washington Post, for discussion purposes...

Negotiators from the United States are trying to weaken the language of a climate change declaration set to be unveiled at next month's G-8 summit of the world's leading industrial powers, according to documents obtained yesterday by The Washington Post.

A draft proposal dated April 2007 that is being debated in Bonn, Germany, this weekend by senior officials of the Group of Eight includes a pledge to limit the global temperature rise this century to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, as well as an agreement to reduce worldwide greenhouse gas emissions to 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

The United States is seeking to strike that section, the documents show.

Many scientists have warned that an increase of more than 3.6 degrees this century could trigger disastrous consequences such as mass extinction of species and accelerated melting of polar ice sheets, which would raise sea levels.

3.6 degrees F is 2 degrees C. I have a graph that shows us, oh, about 2 degrees C below the point where the Antarctic melts, and temperatures jump another 4 or 5 degrees C.

Need I reprint the graph? Can we put the question of how much Bush sucks on a scientific basis?

Originally Posted by Justin '77

I'm not arguing Mike's equation. What I am arguing is the structure of the AGW models. Every single one of them so far has operated on the assumption that climate is a linear system -- that is, that the effects of each of the various forcing inputs was discretely separable.

Since the mechanics of the actual processes cannot be resolved to support that view, the AGW modelers rely on statistical analysis to demonstrate that some set of forcing input functions can, if summed properly, closely approximate the observed behavior of the system. Which is all fine and good. As I expanded on in my comments to Brian on the Ideal Gas Law, it is perfectly reasonable to find that a nonlinear system has certain ranges upon which it appears to behave linearly. Which, arguably, the AGW crowd may have done.

Where things break down, however, is when you try to use those linear-approximations to forecast outside the range for which they were generated.

Briefly touching on the Ideal Gas Law example, if you fill a known volume area with water vapor and vary temperature and pressure, the ideal gas law is a pretty good approximation while the water vapor stays water vapor. As soon as you see water or ice forming, though, you are no longer dealing with an ideal gas. The simple Ideal Gas Law tool breaks down as a good deal of energy is absorbed or released in the state transitions.

This doesn't mean it is fundamentally impossible to understand what is happening once you get outside the special conditions of the ideal gas law. You just have to change methods. I vaguely recall college physics labs, using pressure - volume - temperature charts for various substances, designed for use when gasses don't stay gasses. Non-linearity does not mean unknowable or unpredictable or chaotic.

On a much larger scale, glaciation is another example of water vapor changing state. Above certain temperatures, glaciers don't form, and you don't have to consider glaciation as part of one's climate model. Once you reach a cooler temperature, and glaciers do start to form, the system starts behaving differently. One has reached a tipping point. One has to add another factor to one's calculations. Glaciation acts as an amplifier. Once one has dropped below certain thresholds, any other forcing factor driving the system is going to have a greater effect.

There is a lower limit as well, snowball Earth. Once the entire planet is white, further drops in temperature are not going to increase reflectivity of radiation into space. The amplification of other forcing factors stops.

Mike also played with the container of gas.

Despite the chaos of the particle movements themselves the pressure or temperature of the container is not unpredictable--not chaotic. This is because temperature and pressure are average properties. Climate is average weather and is not necessarily chaotic. For the special case of global temperature, this is completely analogous to the temperature of the gas in the container. It is perfectly predictable and well-behaved--given the energy inputs and outputs from the system.

What Mike calls forcing functions, what I have been calling fundamental mechanisms, are effectively gates that control energy flowing into and out of a not quite controlled system. Energy is conserved, and can be added in a linear fashion. As the amount of black body IR radiation increases with temperature gain, and decreases with temperature loss, the system seeks and to some degree finds stability where energy coming in equals energy going out. Yes, the heat will not flow evenly. The more you care about smaller scale fluctuations, the less a planet looks like a single uniform Newtonian mass, the more it looks like an incomprehensible chaotic mess. Still, that is the distinction between climate and weather.

While the energy added and lost to the fundamental mechanisms might be added and subtracted in a linear fashion, this does not imply each mechanism is linear. One common estimate is that one might have to double or half CO2 concentrate to get a given (2 degree C?) temperature variation. That isn't linear. There are many sorts of relationships, however, which aren't linear but are still understandable: geometric, logarithmic and exponential come to mind. Thus, non-linear and incomprehensible do not mean the same thing.

This does not mean all the fundamental mechanisms are fully comprehended. You seem to be drifting back into your chaos position. You might be better served accepting that addition and subtraction of energy into a system is linear, but that not all of the mechanisms by which energy is added or removed are understood. You might drop assertions that the overall climate system is chaotic and / or non-linear, and focus on specific mechanisms which in your view are inadequately understood.

It occurs to me that the relevant question is really a lot simpler than we are turning it into. Regardless of how good the models are, or how closely we can predict climate change under X conditions, for policy purposes it comes down to just two simple questions:

1) If we keep putting greenhouse gases into the air, will the climate warm more than if we don't?

And:

2) Do we want it to?

Originally Posted by Mikebert

And what action will then be recommended? To do nothing for now. The perferred option is to act as if Cost > Benefit for all potential costs.

Nobody knows the costs either. Shifting from the oil regime to a new energy regime, if done with a market-frieindly approach like carbon taxes rather than command and control, will create wealth. The amount of wealth created could end up outweighing the upfront cost of the initial changeover (this has been the case in previous shifts in energy paradigm).

The cost could end up being large or small or even be negative. The skeptics choice of action says Cost > Benefit. This means the benefit could vary from large to small or even negative. Skeptics aren't really saying the rising CO2 might be good. They are simply saying that we not consider CO2 in decisions at this time. If we don't consider something then we are placing no value on it. No value is zero value.

The cost of doing nothing includes our commitment to feed interests contrary to those of most Americans. Higher oil prices imply more funds for the Iranian war machine, something appalling in itself, and to the promoters of the most extreme Islamic fundamentalism (Wahhabi Islam). They also imply greater control of the American economy to the oil industry which as a commanding industry but subject to no command other than the natural desire to maximize profits, and will be tempted to squeeze everyone else to maximize those profits. Those who distrust a command economy under the control of elected officials should reasonably find similar cause for concern in unconstrained economic power of private interests accountable only to ownership and management. The caprice of plutocrats and the greed of executives make bad public policy.

Monopolies and cartels are, to be sure, excellent at getting resources. They tend, surprisingly, to underinvest (unless one considers investments in political corruption "investments" while drawing investment away from everyone else. Restraint of trade is far easier for them for garnering more profit than is innovation in techniques and service. Monopoly and cartel power feeds as a rule the most reactionary causes. Think of the Gilded Age, and think of its corruption and economic instability. All that went right back then was some remarkable innovation, and that by people who (Bell, Edison) had no stake in the corporate choices of the time.

....

The 4T will soon be upon us, and it will render inaction far too costly to contemplate. We will need capital outlays just to prevent people from becoming hungry, idle, and disaffected. Our current paradigm of automobiles for private transport beyond a few miles and tractor-trailers for almost all transport has gone to the point of diminishing returns. We have so committed to a fossil-fuel based system of transportation and transport that we have now committed ourselves to the inherent injustice of monopoly or cartel control of the economy and to the perverse effect of feeding interests abroad that themselves seek to annihilate the American way of life or to render it into something most of us would abhor. Does anyone like to feed the Iranian war machine or the ultra-fundamentalist cult of Wahhabi Islam that itself opposes everything liberal, democratic, and hedonistic (and thus American)?

At the same time we have effectively handed control of the American economy to a cartel that can profit more by restraining trade than by supplying more of what we need. The cost of fuel is a component of everything that we get, which means that the cost of everything will rise. Shareholders and executives of Big Oil will be able to extract more from us by gouging us than by offering more fuel. Bloated profits also imply more funds for buying political support and perhaps even extralegal enforcement of its will. Cartels almost always support the most reactionary causes around -- which in an industrial society means fascism.

There's no technological fix to the reliance upon Big Oil. We will have to travel less, buy less, use fewer electronic entertainments, live in colder abodes, and even eat less. Rising fuel prices are literally food off the table.

This is not a diatribe against capitalism. Most capitalists are themselves being burned by rising oil prices. Wal-Mart, which relies heavily upon middle-income purchases of its wares, just had its worst quarter in years. If you thought the giant retailer so big and efficient that it is exempt from energy costs, think again. Auto manufactures are increasingly resorting to gimmick financing to sell cars. That gimmick financing cuts into profits and is itself risky. Seven years to pay off a subcompact car that will be junk by then? That is itself asking for defaults when the car is unsuited to any use ofther than recycling it as scrap metal. Recreational travel is one of the easiest activities which to cut back -- so expect 2007 to be a dreadful year for most hotel chains, restaurants, and many amusement parks. Any purchase of any luxury will likely be deferred because people will have to pay more for necessities like food and fuel. Even the gasoline retailers get burned because they at best break even on gasoline and make their money on repairs or on the sale of non-petroleum items (including candy, alcoholic beverages, magazines, and convenience foods).

This is likely a good time to sell off common stock in any industry other than oil or armaments, so expect the bubble to burst any month. Instant 4T right there.

What follows? The 4T will necessitate measures to put idled, cold, hungry, disillusioned people back to work -- most likely on CCC and WPA programs, and to make the government the Investor of Last Resort. We may need huge investments in exotic trains (Maglev technology, for example) and the power grid just to get people away from radical causes (fascism and Marxism) that bedevil a democracy with an imploded economy. We won't be able to wait for the next speculative boom; consider that the Stock Market did not reach the 1929 peak again until 1952, even if the Great Depression was gone long before 1952.

Originally Posted by The Rani

So you think acting like an asshole will somehow make me smarter?

Dude, get a frickin sense of humor.

Hey wait, you never answered the question about why you aren't a True Believer. Got any graphs that can explain that one?

You're being hostile here, NOT funny. Nobody needs a sense of humor to realize that.

Maybe if you stopped goofing around, you might learn something. You showed some signs of it earlier in the thread.

Originally Posted by The Rani

USA! USA!

Dude, someone's gotta teach you some better put-downs. KIA? Zilch?

You're being the class clown right now. You're just interested in calling attention to yourself and seeing how clever you can be with your put-downs. We all know you're smarter than that.

What are you hiding from?