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To: gondramB
What is sadly lacking is a breakdown as to how much of the rise is from which cause.

Unfortunately that might not be possible. Look into "Chaos Theory".

It's a branch of mathematics describing "complex systems". You may have heard about the "Butterfly-effect" -- a butterfly flaps its wings in Peking and a month later you have tornadoes in Kansas. What that is saying is that with complex-systems (like the Earth's atmosphere) relatively small incremental inputs can have enormous effects given enough time & space. Similarly rather large inputs can seemingly have no discernable effect at all. Very counter-intuitive.

Anytime anybody -- including a climatologist -- tells you with certainty that CO2 levels are directly linked to Global Warming they are guilty of a gross oversimplification. They are probably also confusing Cause and Effect. The hard part is knowing when a scientist is speaking in simplified terms so that he can get his point across to a layman, or whether he's just blowing smoke to get his next grant application approved.

9 posted on 04/10/2009 1:16:54 PM PDT by Tallguy ("The sh- t's chess, it ain't checkers!" -- Alonzo (Denzel Washington) in "Training Day")
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To: Tallguy

>>What is sadly lacking is a breakdown as to how much of the rise is from which cause.

Unfortunately that might not be possible. Look into “Chaos Theory”.

It’s a branch of mathematics describing “complex systems”. You may have heard about the “Butterfly-effect” — a butterfly flaps its wings in Peking and a month later you have tornadoes in Kansas.<<

I did study a little chaos math and was a poor student of a physics professor they called the Evangelist of Chaos.

The layman’s statement of the butterfly effect overlooks sensitivity. The weather system turns out not to have enough sensitivity to butterflies to cause many tornadoes. Chaos is frequently confused with the idea that everything is random when in fact the accumulation of random events can be predictable. For example , nobody can tell you where a snowflake will land but they can give good estimates of snow accumulation.

>>Anytime anybody — including a climatologist — tells you with certainty that CO2 levels are directly linked to Global Warming they are guilty of a gross oversimplification. <<

You mean the current global warming? All the physicists and atmospheric dynamics I know agree that the increase by a third in CO2 recently is a factor in global warming.

What I can’t get an answer I can understand is an estimate of how much is from CO2 - I’d take an estimate comparable to a weather forecast. i.e. I expect error bars around the numbers.


31 posted on 04/10/2009 2:45:32 PM PDT by gondramB
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