Do you believe gaining an understanding of chemistry and being able to accurately predict chemical reactions was any less a task than modelling the atmosphere? How about gaining an understanding of the laws of physics such that we can begin to model the universe itself? Is that a smaller task than modelling the atmosphere?
The point I am trying to make is that we don't know enough about the atmosphere to even begin to understand what is going on there and till we can show a reasonably accurate model that is in agreement with the natural laws we know to be at work the idea of making predictions or better yet, economic suggestions is simply not to be taken seriously.
As I said, I don't know enough of climate science to make a clear judgement. Prior to this thread, I assumed that greenhouse gases were indeed causing warming. I was therefore surprised to learn that satellite images showing no significant change in the amount of outgoing radiation.
My first attempt therefore to understand all these is through non-equilibrium thermodynamics -- input energy, dissipation and production of entropy. Since conservation of energy does not apply, you need fluid dynamics to determine how energy is transformed within the system.
At this point, I gave up, since non-viscous fluids in turbulent flow is characterized by what I vaguely remember as reynolds decomposition. This is a source of headache because it involves fluid motion that has deterministic and non-deterministic components.
If simulations boil down to this, then I would understand why anyone would be skeptical.
Climate forcings are elements (not in the chemical sense) that alter the energy budget within the atmospheric system. A postive forcing will cause a net increase of absorbed incoming or outgoing radiation resulting in a temperature increase and a negative forcing will result in less absorption and rsult in a net temperature decrease. Ocean circulation, for example can be a climate forcing, the sun and the earth's orbit around it can obviously change the energy budget within the atmosphere causing increases or decreases in temperature. Net changes within the atmosphere can be forcings.
To date, we do not even know what all of the natural climate forcings are and consequently don't have a full understanding of the ones we do know about. As a result, we don't even know the net sign (+,-) of the natural climate forcings at any given time much less the net effect of anything we add to the atmosphere.
Does a positive net forcing always result in a temperature increase? Heat is simply energy that is converted into motion within the atmosphere, no? Heat causes the atmosphere to move around which does not always translate into a higher temperature -- net, that is.
Claiming knowledge sufficent to predict the climate without a full understanding of the basics like the energy budget within the atmosphere, or the net sign of climate forcings is analagous to trying to predict a chemical reacion with no grasp of the number of valence electrons associated with the reagents involved in the reaction. It simply can't be done.
What climate science is doing today is developing simulations based on assumptions made with regard to observed data. They match what is happening right now, but can't even accurately predict the past, much less the future. The simulations are built on assumptions rather than an actual understanding of the underlying mechanism.
In what ways were the simulation unable to post-dict?
Assumptions, in themselves, are not necessarily a bad way of doing science. At some point, we deal with quantities that are empirical (as opposed to fundamental quantities mathematically derived from nature). For instance, reynolds number is experimentally derived for different types of fluid moving relative to different kinds of surfaces.
In so much as they may be described as an energy budget within a fluid system, yes. If you have a complete knowledge of the underlying mechanics at work, you can accurately predict how a fluid will behave in a given set of parameters and just as easily predict how that fluid's behavior will change if you alter one or more of the parameters.
I thought as much.
Motion of the atmosphere is extremely chaotic and stochastic. There are ways, though, to separate the effects of random motion in a way that is negligible to the big picture. But it seems one need to examine all the parameters that went into the simulation to make a fair judgement.
Do you, by any chance, know how these simulations were formulated?
I am not a climate scientist. I am a biochemist. I don't claim to know how energy moves through the atmosphere. That isn't what I do. But like you, I know enough to spot BS when I see it and mainstream climate science, as it exists today, making claims and predictions is a great steaming, stinking pile of self serving, politically directed BS.
I'd reserve my opinion until I can see for myself the simulations involved. Oh, and you might need to give brief explanations of it.
By the way, if you are a scientist, you surely know that science is more about pointing out what does't work than what does as in any given senario, there are far more things that don't work than that do.
That is generally correct although there are certain fields in science (theoretical and particle physics) where a coherent mathematical model comes before verifying its predicted results. Investments like the large hadron collider is simply too expensive to be undertaken based on a hunch.
Oh, and I am an engineer.
