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RE: Climate change vs BANDits



> > I don't think the science of man made global warming
> is as 
> > settled as birds are dinosaurs.
> 
> Sorry, but it is. Get over it.

As long as the laws of thermodynamics are not falsified ;-) (which is unlikely 
to happen until Hell freezes over).

You cannot expect to exchange 49.5 gigatons of non-IR-absorbent matter by 49.5 
gigatons of IR-absorbent matter - which is hat the measurements of atmospheric 
CO2 show to have happened in the last 150 years or so - without the 
thermodynamic balance of the system in question changing in reaction to that. 

What is not settled is the *predictive* part - what region will be affected 
how. It is actually not that hard (if you had basic climate science) to give a 
rule-of-thumb prognostic. Increasing summer aridity in the Mediterranean, quite 
likely coupled with an increased incidence of torrential precipitation in the 
winter, is almost a given for example. As is increasing humidity in the Sahel.

But that is not science. Predictive climate *science*, for the sheer volume and 
complexity of the task, is still bordering on the impossible. It is, however, 
not completely impossible, because climate (as per its definition as the 
"long-term average weather") is a far less complex system than weather and for 
a considerable part follows entirely predictable patterns. You can, for 
example, give a reasonably accurate prediction that at least one of the summers 
2013-2015 will be very hot, if not super-hot (on global average), and how many 
K this'll probably be. (How the Met Office managed to blow its winter 
prediction this year is entirely beyond me. We have had a record low in solar 
flux about 1 year ago; how this can *not* translate to a colder-than-average 
winter I have no idea.)


Regards,

Eike

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