> Of course. By the exact same logic, no-one understood combustion enough to
build an internal combustion engine until quantum mechanics was worked out.
I worry that this exaggerates in at least two ways.
> I don’t see any connection at all between the ability to understand small
scale (in space and time) and the average of that behaviour over large scales.
1. The "small scale" discussed in the report is tens of orders of magnitude
closer to "large scale" than in your example. The world's smallest internal
combustion engine (circa 2001) [*1] was about the size of a penny, which (at
19.05mm) is around 1.18*10^33 times greater than Planck length; the area of the
atmosphere is only about 31.8 million (3.18*10^7) times greater than the patch
of sky over the WMO's home town of Geneva (and only about 12,000 times greater
than the sky over Switzerland.) Might not the logic change if the scale
difference is 37 septillion (~37,100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) times less
extreme?
> Statistical mechanics is a great example where the large scale is quite
predictable without requiring understanding of small scales.
2. Then you have the question of whether city-scale atmosphere averages into
global atmosphere the way that quantum particles average into solid objects, or
statistically modeled particles average into idealized gases. My understanding
(not having studied quantum mechanics formally in some years) is that quantum
effects at mesoscale have to be carefully teased out because, inter alia, the
small-scale effects typically average themselves away [Fermi-Dirac/binomial
distribution of spins, etc *2]. But one look at a Hadley cell makes it clear
that global atmosphere isn't a flat mean of local atmosphere. I'm not even sure
that statistical mechanics works that well for you here--isn't turbulence
theory a core area of research at both small and large scales?
And there are other problems (an engine, as a black box, is highly bounded with
near-perfect observation of inputs and outputs, so control without low-level
understanding is more plausible; in the atmospheric case, we're literally
underneath the box and observing bits of it from above and below).
Anyway, not sure the WMO's point is that easy to dismiss...
*1 http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2001/04/02_engin.html*2
http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0407/0407081.pdf
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
CC: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [geo] Re: New WMO Report on Weather Mod Plus Geoengineering
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 07:38:24 -0700
Of course. By the exact same logic, no-one understood combustion enough to
build an internal combustion engine until quantum mechanics was worked out.
Sorry, I don’t see any connection at all between the ability to understand
small scale (in space and time) and the average of that behaviour over large
scales. Statistical mechanics is a great example where the large scale is
quite predictable without requiring understanding of small scales. While I do
agree with the conclusion that understanding the impacts is a challenge, I
don’t think that the appeal to the failure of weather modification is relevant.
d From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jim Lee
Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2013 9:21 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [geo] Re: New WMO Report on Weather Mod Plus Geoengineering I just
have to say, "I told you
so"https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/geoengineering/GfMt-0jXzDY/amVJ-V1vXQEJhttps://groups.google.com/d/msg/geoengineering/JFmkKOWe_wY/dbiJemslrqoJ"It
was also stated that if we still do not understand (Weather Modification) at
small scales (after 60 years), understanding what the impacts of Geoengineering
would be at large/global scale, should be seen as a major challenge. [1]" ~ Jim
Leehttp://climateviewer.com/geoengineering-weather-control.html
On Tuesday, August 20, 2013 7:45:57 AM UTC-4, Josh Horton wrote:This may
interest some of you - a recent (brief) WMO report on weather modification
including some discussion of GE.
http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/arep/wwrp/new/documents/Doc_3_6_weather_mod_2013_Final_tn.pdf
Josh--
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