Global Warming is hardly anything new
23 Dec 2012, 10:52 pm
slave wrote:
Do you think that Science/Math(s)/Supercomputers will ever attain a precise predictive understanding of weather?
or are there simply too many variables?
Not really. To deal with chaotic systems one would need infinite precision which is clearly impossible for a real physical computer. We will have to be happy qualitative descriptions of where strange attractors and strange repelors are.
Just to give you a really clear idea of the problem, take a look at the behavior of a well lubricated triple pendulum sometime. The system is completely deterministic but there is no math that will predict the behavior more than a few seconds out given a someone approximate or indeterminate initial position. Two initial position can -look- extremely similar (or even the same) yet the behavior of the triple pendulum will be very different in the two cases.
I seriously doubt we will be able to predict weather much more than ten days out, no matter how powerful our computers are.
ruveyn
ruveyn
24 Dec 2012, 2:01 am
ruveyn wrote:
To deal with chaotic systems one would need infinite precision which is clearly impossible for a real physical computer. We will have to be happy qualitative descriptions of where strange attractors and strange repelors are.
I get the feeling that you are demanding things out of climate science that you wouldn't demand out of any other science.
You know what else is a chaotic but deterministic phenomenon? The evolution of life on Earth. Does that mean that you don't trust any story about how a certain event in the evolution of life was caused by a certain factor?
For example, if an expert told you that the evolution of dogs was caused by human interference, would you doubt them and start giving them a talk about the mathematics of chaotic systems?
In both cases, there is a plausible mechanism (domestication / human-released greenhouse gases), a historical trend which seems likely to continue (dogs changing in form over time / average temperature becoming warmer), and the cause kicks in at the right time (start of human culture / industrial revolution).
24 Dec 2012, 9:32 am
Declension wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
To deal with chaotic systems one would need infinite precision which is clearly impossible for a real physical computer. We will have to be happy qualitative descriptions of where strange attractors and strange repelors are.
I get the feeling that you are demanding things out of climate science that you wouldn't demand out of any other science.
The things I am "demanding" is that there be a practical way of dealing with the difficulty in predicting, describing and explaining a chaotic dynamic system. Everything I have said about climate and weather could equally be said of turbulence. The underlying equations of turbulence, the Navier Stokes equations are barely treatable mathematically. To this day we do not have even a numerical method for dealing with the -general- Navier Stokes equation. We can only provide numerical methods for certain special cases.
The Clay Institute has offered a million dollar prized for a general numerical method for even approximating solutions to general N-S equation. So far no one has claimed the prize.
So we have not yet got a working science of turbulence. What we have are models. Sound familiar?
ruveyn
24 Dec 2012, 2:11 pm
ruveyn wrote:
slave wrote:
Do you think that Science/Math(s)/Supercomputers will ever attain a precise predictive understanding of weather?
or are there simply too many variables?
Not really. To deal with chaotic systems one would need infinite precision which is clearly impossible for a real physical computer. We will have to be happy qualitative descriptions of where strange attractors and strange repelors are.
Just to give you a really clear idea of the problem, take a look at the behavior of a well lubricated triple pendulum sometime. The system is completely deterministic but there is no math that will predict the behavior more than a few seconds out given a someone approximate or indeterminate initial position. Two initial position can -look- extremely similar (or even the same) yet the behavior of the triple pendulum will be very different in the two cases.
I seriously doubt we will be able to predict weather much more than ten days out, no matter how powerful our computers are.
ruveyn
ruveyn
Thanks.
Good point about the triple pendulum.
24 Dec 2012, 10:40 pm
ruveyn wrote:
The things I am "demanding" is that there be a practical way of dealing with the difficulty in predicting, describing and explaining a chaotic dynamic system. Everything I have said about climate and weather could equally be said of turbulence. The underlying equations of turbulence, the Navier Stokes equations are barely treatable mathematically.
But the AGW hypothesis does not require a detailed mathematical understanding of the system itself, since it is a hypothesis about how an outside factor is influencing the system.
Think about it this way. Suppose that you have a giant magical pool table with no holes, and five hundred pool balls whizzing around on it, colliding with each other and colliding with the sides and never losing momentum, and releasing a loud CLACK sound whenever they collide. Maybe such a chaotic system would be very difficult to reason about mathematically.
However, suppose that one day you added an extra hundred balls to the table, and then after that you noticed that the "average time between clacks" coming from the table had increased. Then you could reasonably have a hypothesis that the extra balls are causing the increased clack frequency, even though you don't have a detailed mathematical understanding of the system.
25 Dec 2012, 3:16 am
Declension wrote:
However, suppose that one day you added an extra hundred balls to the table, and then after that you noticed that the "average time between clacks" coming from the table had increased. Then you could reasonably have a hypothesis that the extra balls are causing the increased clack frequency, even though you don't have a detailed mathematical understanding of the system.
Yes. But what CAUSED the presence of the extra balls? See what the problem is?
ruveyn
25 Dec 2012, 4:27 am
This argument is rather silly. Climate change could still wipe us out, regardless of who caused it. One thing that is guaranteed is climate change in the future. The idea that we don't contribute to the atmosphere defies physics, but there are other factors too.
For me a technological solution is required, anarcho-primitivism is not the solution, although I do have admiration for self-sufficient hunter gather tribes like Khoishan, who I wouldn't call 'poor' in the same sense as other Africans.
The current solutions are not viable. We need to get over this word 'sustainability' it is not about sustainability. We may not only have to make development in energy, but think of climate mitigating technology. We know that large volcanic eruptions can have a cooling effect on the world. We just don't know enough about it to know the long term consequences.
Personally I think there is potential for drastic development in energy, we have just got to keep researching.
Last edited by 0_equals_true on 25 Dec 2012, 4:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
25 Dec 2012, 4:33 am
When the last global drought happen are ancestors were proto-mamals, which were small, and lived in burrows, which is why they survived.
We are bigger now, which causes some problems.
Last edited by 0_equals_true on 26 Dec 2012, 3:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
25 Dec 2012, 6:55 am
ruveyn wrote:
Declension wrote:
However, suppose that one day you added an extra hundred balls to the table, and then after that you noticed that the "average time between clacks" coming from the table had increased. Then you could reasonably have a hypothesis that the extra balls are causing the increased clack frequency, even though you don't have a detailed mathematical understanding of the system.
Yes. But what CAUSED the presence of the extra balls? See what the problem is?
ruveyn
But in the analogy, the "extra balls" are the additional greenhouse gases released by humans. We know all about the extra balls and where they came from! You can't deny that humans have been releasing additional greenhouse gases.
25 Dec 2012, 1:04 pm
Declension wrote:
But in the analogy, the "extra balls" are the additional greenhouse gases released by humans. We know all about the extra balls and where they came from! You can't deny that humans have been releasing additional greenhouse gases.
But human activity is NOT the only source of "greenhouse gas" Volcanoes fart, the oceans bubble up CH4 (methane) and water vapor is a more powerful heat trap than CO2. Cosmic rays affect cloud formation which regulates how much of the sun's heat falls on Earth. Etc. etc. etc. In the absence of a real theory of climate (we do not yet have one) weighing and sorting these factors is a matter of adjusting parameters in the models and we are back to epicycles and deferents. Just like astronomy was like before Kepler and Newton.
ruveyn
25 Dec 2012, 7:39 pm
ruveyn wrote:
Volcanoes fart, the oceans bubble up CH4 (methane) and water vapor is a more powerful heat trap than CO2.
But how can those be the relevant factors? There is nothing about any of those factors which had a sudden increase at around the same time that the recent climate shift started.
25 Dec 2012, 10:07 pm
Declension wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
Volcanoes fart, the oceans bubble up CH4 (methane) and water vapor is a more powerful heat trap than CO2.
But how can those be the relevant factors? There is nothing about any of those factors which had a sudden increase at around the same time that the recent climate shift started.
Not true. These things have been happening since God invented dirt. You might want to ask how the last glacial maximum ended bringing about the current interglacial period some 12,000 years ago. It sure wasn't human activity that caused the glaciers to recede then
Here is the long and skinny. ALL the drivers of climatic change have not been properly weighed and vetted. The assumption that the main driver is human activity, in particular, the increase of CO2 from burning fossil fuels is an assumption which may or may not be true. Obviously humans have some input, but is it the MAIN input? That is the question. We are being urged to take an Oath of Poverty and to freeze in the dark. What evidence is there that following such a policy will bring about a reversal of the current warming trend?
Keep in mind we had cyclic warming and cooling long before there were humans.
ruveyn
26 Dec 2012, 3:31 am
ruveyn wrote:
Declension wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
Volcanoes fart, the oceans bubble up CH4 (methane) and water vapor is a more powerful heat trap than CO2.
But how can those be the relevant factors? There is nothing about any of those factors which had a sudden increase at around the same time that the recent climate shift started.
Not true. These things have been happening since God invented dirt.
So which one had a "sudden increase"?
26 Dec 2012, 3:19 pm
GGPViper wrote:
Wow! We finally have researchers researching the researchers!
Are there any studies researching the researchers researching the researchers?
Would anyone like to research that?
While we have all this researching done, what ever happened to the searchers that did the original searching that later had to be researched?
Maybe we should research that too. Or would that be a "search" because nobody's done that yet?
_________________
I'm not likely to be around much longer. As before when I first signed up here years ago, I'm finding that after a long hiatus, and after only a few days back on here, I'm spending way too much time here again already. So I'm requesting my account be locked, banned or whatever. It's just time. Until then, well, I dunno...
27 Dec 2012, 3:05 am
ruveyn wrote:
Declension wrote:
So which one had a "sudden increase"?
There was a "sudden increase" when the super volcanoes beneath Siberia start their million year erruption. See Siberian Traps. Also see Deccan Traps.
ruveyn
But according to what I could find, the last eruptions of those were tens of millions of years ago! How could that be the cause of the very recent growth in global temperatures?
