Rick Monteverde wrote:
A chaotic system could also be very complex and have relatively simple and predictable outputs. The claim that the global climate has those characteristics is false to a high degree of certainty given historical records.
No one claims that the climate is simple or that it has easily predictable outcomes (outputs). It is complex and chaotic. However, we have extensive knowledge of the physics of the atmosphere, and our computers give us the ability to grasp immensely complex system such as the entire human genome. This ability would have been unthinkable even 30 years ago.
Short-term predictions for both weather and the stock market are probabilistic and somewhat ad hoc, so they quickly branch off into so many different possibilities, and after a week or so they become useless. Long-term predictions for both are also probabilistic but they are based on a different factors and methodology. The complexity of short term predictions does not carry over to long term ones. It is not as if we are branching off into 10E150 possibilities 30 years from now.
One of the reasons wind power is successful and cost-effective these days is vastly improved weather prediction both long-term and short-term. The average wind speed for different locations is now known with remarkable accuracy (a long term prediction). And they can predict the wind a week or two in advance, which helps schedule maintenance (a "short-term" prediction that goes much further into the future than anyone could have managed 30 years ago).
- Jed
