Michael Tobis wrote: > I'm attending a meeting about this iniative this week and intend to > distribute some ideas as grey literature in the hopes of influencing a > scientific culture toward approaching global change from an > engineering perspctive. > > My initial reaction to the DOE initiative was deep skepticism. If it's > Sim Earth, it's certainly writ large. The target platform is computers > 1000 times more powerful than any currently in existence. > > I have come around. I think that the systems engineering perspective > can, with care, make effective use of such large resources. I am > working on a broad brush explanation of how this might happen. I will > nevertheless admit that it is much easier to use such vast resources > ineffectively, and that the odds of that happening are substantial at > the very least.
I think the largest problem with such a massive undertaking would be deciding what it all means. Afterall, if we could precisely model the climate system, (say, down to the level of tornados), would it be possible to discern whether a change in the model system, such as changing the CO2 level, produced a particular set of results? Such a vast model would be almost impossible to sort out the basic cause and effect relationships. We already know that the model results would be improved, at least conceptually, with finer resolution in grid size. But, as the grid size becomes smaller, the parameterizations no longer fit the scale. I once heard a talk in which it was pointed out that doubling the number of grid points in a climate model would require something like 10 times more computational power. I would like to introduce a new "variable" to clarify the issues. Lets quantify the computing power for an individual model run by using "teraFLOP-years". That quantity might be similar to the Kilowatt-hour measure of energy or light-years to measure astronomical distances. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/136634_computer26.html Ultimately, the issue is how to connect all that massive simulation power to the political process. It is absolutely worthless to have the science done if it is going to be ignored. Worse yet, the implied promise of being able to precisely simulate the whole ball of wax in 10 years becomes another excuse to wait another 10 years before deciding to do something. Just today, we see that coal to liquids conversion is being pushed hard by the coal companies. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/business/29coal.html Where's the long term thinking? We already have considerable proof that adding ever more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere is likely to result in big problems down the line. The public has apparently gotten this message, but are unwilling to actually begin making meaningful lifestyle changes, if the polls are to be believed. Today's near-record U.S. pump prices for gasoline are still too low to really change people's direction, yet, the politicians are scrambling to appease the public ire, promising to reduce prices. We (will) love our cars too death. E. S. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
