Jed - What you describe below circumvents, for a few special practical cases, the fundamental point I made about the use of models. In your examples, some components can contain quite a bit of 'inertia' of one form or another (often as historical and statistical: "When we see A happening here, then 90% of the time B will follow in about C time and last for D time. Don't know why, but it just does.") Those situations can be exploited to make useful long term predictions in certain realms, even when the actual real world physical drivers are not well known, measurable, or even, as I have said, calculable.
Are you missing my point entirely? On purpose? Both you and Ed essentially say that I refuse to look at melting ice, and you imply that I'm like the CF skeptic who lets papers placed in his hand fall to the floor. My argument is not that there is no such thing as climate change. The argument is whether there are anthropogenic causes to it. I say that the models are incapable of directing that conclusion because of their inherent shortcomings. Scientists who are experts in the field also make this observation and have published it. Your attempt to mischaracterize my statements as the personal opinion of myself alone as a diminished "instant expert" is not only very far off the mark, it's surprising from one who seems to share, as observed from years of reading your postings on this forum, my view that such rhetorical tactics are a poor substitute for an honest and fair minded investigation and exchange on known facts. I have personal exposure and experience in computer science and am capable, just as you claim Gore is, of reading and understanding the papers of scientists in the field. If this were CF/LENR I'd be saying "sure I see all that excess energy from some obviously extraordinary and non-chemical source, but I think it's not caused by this particular mechanism you have proposed. Instead it is from some other for which there is better evidence." Not a great analogy, but sorta. I don't think anyone has a real solid track yet on what is behind the various CF/LENR results. Oh wait, that's what I'm saying about the cause of the warming we see. Ok, maybe not so bad after all. - Rick -----Original Message----- From: Jed Rothwell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, September 05, 2008 9:26 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [Vo]:Sunspotless Rick Monteverde wrote: > >> If that were true, weather forecasting computer programs would not work. > >You are correct. You've heard of Lorenz, of course. The programs only >work for a very brief time before their results degrade to useless >noise, so they are only good before they reach that point . . . Local weather forecasts degrade because they are detailed. Nowadays they can make a weather forecast months or even years ahead for large areas such as the entire Pacific Ocean, or the trends for the whole of Japan for several months, which is now predicted with astonishing accuracy on NHK. My point is that if experts did not understand the detailed physics of the atmosphere, they could not make detailed weather forecasts at all. That was the case until the 1960s. Even after satellite photos became available weather forecasts were not reliable until the physics and computational models were improved. Furthermore, you are ignoring the fact that the global warming experts predictions have come true in the world is indisputably growing hotter rapidly, as Ed pointed out. You do not need a computer to see that. Just look at melting ice, the level of the Inland Sea, or the average temperature of the Pacific ocean water and atmosphere surrounding Japan. Local temperatures vary of course but over large landmasses and extended periods they have been going up. To deny such first-principal observations is to go traipsing off into the cloud-cuckoo land of the cold fusion deniers who do not believe that thermocouples and thermometers work. - Jed
