Dear Eric and Igor, Found this at New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12416903.900-a-weather-eye-on-unpredictability-much-of-chaos-theory-came-from-trying-to-understand-how-the-earths-atmosphere-behaves-now-meteorologists-are-using-chaos-to-assess-how-reliable-climate-and-weather-forecasts-are.html?full=true ‘Finally, does chaos theory prevent us from predicting possible climate change in the next century? The answer here is no. The type of prediction is quite different from that outlined above. Here, the goal is not predicting an individual trajectory on the climate attractor; the goal is to determine the shape and position of the whole climate attractor itself when, for example, greenhouse gases increase. The critical question that climatologists are trying to answer is whether the climate attractor will suffer a minor perturbation (for example, small shift of the whole attractor along one of the axes of phase space), or whether there will be a substantial change in the whole shape and position of the attractor, leading to some possibly devastating weather states not experienced in today's climate. Chaos theory certainly does not forbid the possibility of some substantial change to the atmosphere's climate attractor as a result of modest increases in the amount of carbon dioxide. At the moment, we cannot be sure of the answer. The same sort of models employed in predicting the weather are also being used to try to find out what the greenhouse effect has in store for us.’ Tim Palmer is head of the predictability and diagnostics section of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts in Reading, Berkshire. The changing story – from ‘weather averages’ to determining ‘the shape and position of the whole climate attractor’. The latter is the average strange climate attractor maybe? I'm amused but I don’t like his chances considering that weather models become wildly inaccurate after 7 days at most. This article is a bit of a scramble - similar to Hurrels blurb - to preserve jobs, funds and face in unanticipated chaos. You guys ready to give in yet and admit that climate is chaotic? Because really the weight of scientific opinion is against you. Cheers Robert -- 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
