6 ms·

The Unbearable Complexity of Climate

38 points by azgolfer 17y ago

Retric 17y ago
Saying, "I don't understand what's going on" does not mean that nobody understands what's going on. PS: If you actually carried out the experiment using the picture as a guide you would measure a rise in body temperature. The human body trys to maintain constant temperature, but it can't ignore the laws of physics.
- jcnnghm 17y ago
  "does not mean that nobody understands what's going on." What are all the inputs and outputs? Which are significant? Does anybody know the answer to either of these questions? You can build a model without knowing all the inputs and outputs, but it's called a guess.
  - Retric 17y ago
    For the global temperature, the input is ~99.98% light and a tiny amount of heat from the earth’s core etc, and the output is light to space. The earth receives ~174 petawatts 24/7 365 and you can't really hide energy on that scale for very long. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earths_energy_budget http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earths_energy_budget) You can directly measure this stuff so it's not really a guess. PS: He used "tera-watt scale" which is about as true as saying watt scale. Well he was only off by 1000x so it's not quite that bad.
    - iron_ball 17y ago
      My PC's power supply operates on the terawatt scale. Specifically, it operates on the very low end of the terawatt scale.
- petewarden 17y ago
  Amen. This is a long opinion piece, with no evidence cited that the Constructal Law is a better predictor of the climate's response to increased CO2 than existing techniques. The one relevant paper linked to is an intriguing but underdeveloped model: http://homepage.mac.com/williseschenbach/.Public/Constructal_Climate.pdf http://homepage.mac.com/williseschenbach/.Public/Constructal... The paper doesn't back up the author's claim that "there is no physics-based reason to assume that increasing CO2 will make any difference to the global temperature". It includes an assumed factor y=0.4 for the infrared reflectance 'greenhouse factor', and any increase in that value will affect the expected results. If anything applying the Constructal Law would be more worrying than current models, since there's potentially a more chaotic response to increased CO2 levels, increasing the risk of dramatic climate changes.
  - azgolfer 17y ago
    From a recent paper by two German Physicists (a) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects, (b) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet, (c) the frequently mentioned difference of 33 degrees Celsius is a meaningless number calculated wrongly, (d) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately, (e) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical, (f) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero, the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.
    - Retric 17y ago
      Moon surface temp: equator Min 100k, mean 220K max 390K 85°N min 70 K mean 130K max 230K http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon Earth: min 184k mean 287K max 331 K http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth PS: NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has used its Diviner instrument to probe the insides of permanently shadowed craters on Earth's satellite. It found mid-winter, night-time surface temperatures inside the coldest craters in the northern polar region can dip as low as minus 249C (26 Kelvin). The Diviner instrument observed the lowest summer temperatures in the darkest craters at the southern pole to be about 35K (-238C); but in the north, close to the winter solstice the instrument recorded a temperature of just 26K on the south-western edge of the floor of Hermite Crater.
andrewcooke 17y ago
is this kosher? it starts out fine, explaining how complex systems are, well, complex. but then it starts to seem a bit odd because it ignores statistical properties (you can't predict the movement of every gas molecule in a box, but you can know the average temperature pretty damn accurately). and then suddenly it jumps to "constructal law": > The Constructal Law applies to all flow systems which are far from equilibrium, like a river or the climate. wtf? how can something as vague as "the climate" follow a law? and what's the constructal law? and so you go to wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructal_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructal_theory - and it all starts to look a bit flakey... [edit: less flippant]
- magoghm 17y ago
  Adrian Bejan, the guy who created/discovered Constructal Theory doesn't seem to be flakey at all: http://hcr3.isiknowledge.com/author.cgi?&link1=Search&link2=Search%20Results&AuthLastName=bejan&AuthFirstName=adrian&AuthMiddleName=&AuthMailnstName=&CountryID=-1&DisciplineID=0&id=533 http://hcr3.isiknowledge.com/author.cgi?&link1=Search&#3... and http://www.mems.duke.edu/fds/pratt/MEMS/faculty/abejan/ http://www.mems.duke.edu/fds/pratt/MEMS/faculty/abejan/
  - andrewcooke 17y ago
    thanks. something still seems odd to me, but perhaps i am just too cynical. or perhaps it is being misapplied? when i have more time i will look at constructural theory in more detail.
  - magoghm 17y ago
    Although the "James Harry Potter Gold Medal" sounds kind of weird, it is a real award: http://www.asme.org/Governance/Honors/SocietyAwards/James_Harry_Potter_Gold_Medal.cfm http://www.asme.org/Governance/Honors/SocietyAwards/James_Ha...
    - bitwize 17y ago
      "For outstanding snitch catching on the Quidditch pitch, I present to you..."
rbranson 17y ago
Um, is this the same guy? CFO of South Pacific Oil? http://www.linkedin.com/pub/willis-eschenbach/14/a54/935 http://www.linkedin.com/pub/willis-eschenbach/14/a54/935
- viggity 17y ago
  If it was, does that make his points any less valid?
  - DaniFong 17y ago
    No, but in light of that knowledge you'd be a fool not to look more skeptically upon his claims.
  - joe_the_user 17y ago
    IF this person is pushing one side of an argument without revealing the large stake he has in that side winning, then he loses credibility. He wasn't honest about something one would expect him to be honest about and so one needs to look more closely at other things he says. Journalist disclose their interests and their companies interests to avoid losing credibility this way.
    - anamax 17y ago
      > IF this person is pushing one side of an argument without revealing the large stake he has in that side winning, then he loses credibility. You mean like researchers who get money to "confirm" AGW? > Journalist disclose their interests Oh really? Do you know how many NYT reporters are married to or involved with folks they cover? (Hint - the answer is not 0. The NYT's response when asked is that they've cleared things with their editor....)
      - joe_the_user 17y ago
        Uh, You're mistakenly assuming I'm taking a position on this particular topic. If it's true that someone else has a stake in this or some other debate, then indeed they also have an obligation to reveal it. The only thing I'm arguing is that anyone who has stake in a debate has an obligation to make that stake clear. That's it.
Tichy 17y ago
"Because climate is a flow system far from equilibrium, it is ruled by the Constructal Law. As a result, there is no physics-based reason to assume that increasing CO2 will make any difference to the global temperature, and the Constructal Law gives us reason to think that it may make no difference at all." Sorry, but that is stupid. Just because changing one thing (ie making a short cut in the river) doesn't change one other thing doesn't imply that no matter what you change, nothing will change. Also, the author never seems to have seen a redirected river in a bed of concrete. It's been nice to have learned about the constructional law, but other than that, I have to take this article with a grain of salt. It clearly doesn't seem to be neutral in motivation.
DaniFong 17y ago
Heh. The human body is a 'flow system far from equilibrium.' So while it's true that if you dunk the feet of a healthy person in hot water and wait, the temperature of their forehead may not increase by that much, it does not imply that the temperature of their feet won't increase, it does not imply that the forehead temperature of a hypothermic person won't increase, and it does not imply that the forehead temperature of a healthy person exposed to a flamethrower will not increase... Does the Constructal law say anything about the environment were the Sun to suddenly disappear?
vannevar 17y ago
I wonder if Mr Eschenbach realizes that the effectiveness of America's entire nuclear arsenal relies on the computer models he so casually dismisses. Nuclear weapons testing is virtual, and has been since 1992. Contrary to the article, climate models don't assume a relationship between CO2 and global warming; rather, they reflect what we know about the physical properties of CO2 in the atmosphere, as born out in laboratory experiments and field measurements. The relationship with global warming emerges from the models, not the other way around.

38 points by azgolfer 17y ago

Saying, "I don't understand what's going on" does not mean that nobody understands what's going on. PS: If you actually carried out the experiment using the picture as a guide you would measure a rise in body temperature. The human body trys to maintain constant temperature, but it can't ignore the laws of physics.

jcnnghm 17y ago
"does not mean that nobody understands what's going on." What are all the inputs and outputs? Which are significant? Does anybody know the answer to either of these questions? You can build a model without knowing all the inputs and outputs, but it's called a guess.
- Retric 17y ago
  For the global temperature, the input is ~99.98% light and a tiny amount of heat from the earth’s core etc, and the output is light to space. The earth receives ~174 petawatts 24/7 365 and you can't really hide energy on that scale for very long. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earths_energy_budget http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earths_energy_budget) You can directly measure this stuff so it's not really a guess. PS: He used "tera-watt scale" which is about as true as saying watt scale. Well he was only off by 1000x so it's not quite that bad.
  - iron_ball 17y ago
    My PC's power supply operates on the terawatt scale. Specifically, it operates on the very low end of the terawatt scale.
petewarden 17y ago
Amen. This is a long opinion piece, with no evidence cited that the Constructal Law is a better predictor of the climate's response to increased CO2 than existing techniques. The one relevant paper linked to is an intriguing but underdeveloped model: http://homepage.mac.com/williseschenbach/.Public/Constructal_Climate.pdf http://homepage.mac.com/williseschenbach/.Public/Constructal... The paper doesn't back up the author's claim that "there is no physics-based reason to assume that increasing CO2 will make any difference to the global temperature". It includes an assumed factor y=0.4 for the infrared reflectance 'greenhouse factor', and any increase in that value will affect the expected results. If anything applying the Constructal Law would be more worrying than current models, since there's potentially a more chaotic response to increased CO2 levels, increasing the risk of dramatic climate changes.
- azgolfer 17y ago
  From a recent paper by two German Physicists (a) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects, (b) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet, (c) the frequently mentioned difference of 33 degrees Celsius is a meaningless number calculated wrongly, (d) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately, (e) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical, (f) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero, the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.
  - Retric 17y ago
    Moon surface temp: equator Min 100k, mean 220K max 390K 85°N min 70 K mean 130K max 230K http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon Earth: min 184k mean 287K max 331 K http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth PS: NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has used its Diviner instrument to probe the insides of permanently shadowed craters on Earth's satellite. It found mid-winter, night-time surface temperatures inside the coldest craters in the northern polar region can dip as low as minus 249C (26 Kelvin). The Diviner instrument observed the lowest summer temperatures in the darkest craters at the southern pole to be about 35K (-238C); but in the north, close to the winter solstice the instrument recorded a temperature of just 26K on the south-western edge of the floor of Hermite Crater.

andrewcooke 17y ago

is this kosher? it starts out fine, explaining how complex systems are, well, complex. but then it starts to seem a bit odd because it ignores statistical properties (you can't predict the movement of every gas molecule in a box, but you can know the average temperature pretty damn accurately). and then suddenly it jumps to "constructal law": > The Constructal Law applies to all flow systems which are far from equilibrium, like a river or the climate. wtf? how can something as vague as "the climate" follow a law? and what's the constructal law? and so you go to wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructal_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructal_theory - and it all starts to look a bit flakey... [edit: less flippant]

magoghm 17y ago
Adrian Bejan, the guy who created/discovered Constructal Theory doesn't seem to be flakey at all: http://hcr3.isiknowledge.com/author.cgi?&link1=Search&link2=Search%20Results&AuthLastName=bejan&AuthFirstName=adrian&AuthMiddleName=&AuthMailnstName=&CountryID=-1&DisciplineID=0&id=533 http://hcr3.isiknowledge.com/author.cgi?&link1=Search&#3... and http://www.mems.duke.edu/fds/pratt/MEMS/faculty/abejan/ http://www.mems.duke.edu/fds/pratt/MEMS/faculty/abejan/
- andrewcooke 17y ago
  thanks. something still seems odd to me, but perhaps i am just too cynical. or perhaps it is being misapplied? when i have more time i will look at constructural theory in more detail.
- magoghm 17y ago
  Although the "James Harry Potter Gold Medal" sounds kind of weird, it is a real award: http://www.asme.org/Governance/Honors/SocietyAwards/James_Harry_Potter_Gold_Medal.cfm http://www.asme.org/Governance/Honors/SocietyAwards/James_Ha...
  - bitwize 17y ago
    "For outstanding snitch catching on the Quidditch pitch, I present to you..."

rbranson 17y ago

Um, is this the same guy? CFO of South Pacific Oil? http://www.linkedin.com/pub/willis-eschenbach/14/a54/935 http://www.linkedin.com/pub/willis-eschenbach/14/a54/935

viggity 17y ago
If it was, does that make his points any less valid?
- DaniFong 17y ago
  No, but in light of that knowledge you'd be a fool not to look more skeptically upon his claims.
- joe_the_user 17y ago
  IF this person is pushing one side of an argument without revealing the large stake he has in that side winning, then he loses credibility. He wasn't honest about something one would expect him to be honest about and so one needs to look more closely at other things he says. Journalist disclose their interests and their companies interests to avoid losing credibility this way.
  - anamax 17y ago
    > IF this person is pushing one side of an argument without revealing the large stake he has in that side winning, then he loses credibility. You mean like researchers who get money to "confirm" AGW? > Journalist disclose their interests Oh really? Do you know how many NYT reporters are married to or involved with folks they cover? (Hint - the answer is not 0. The NYT's response when asked is that they've cleared things with their editor....)
    - joe_the_user 17y ago
      Uh, You're mistakenly assuming I'm taking a position on this particular topic. If it's true that someone else has a stake in this or some other debate, then indeed they also have an obligation to reveal it. The only thing I'm arguing is that anyone who has stake in a debate has an obligation to make that stake clear. That's it.

Tichy 17y ago

"Because climate is a flow system far from equilibrium, it is ruled by the Constructal Law. As a result, there is no physics-based reason to assume that increasing CO2 will make any difference to the global temperature, and the Constructal Law gives us reason to think that it may make no difference at all." Sorry, but that is stupid. Just because changing one thing (ie making a short cut in the river) doesn't change one other thing doesn't imply that no matter what you change, nothing will change. Also, the author never seems to have seen a redirected river in a bed of concrete. It's been nice to have learned about the constructional law, but other than that, I have to take this article with a grain of salt. It clearly doesn't seem to be neutral in motivation.

DaniFong 17y ago

Heh. The human body is a 'flow system far from equilibrium.' So while it's true that if you dunk the feet of a healthy person in hot water and wait, the temperature of their forehead may not increase by that much, it does not imply that the temperature of their feet won't increase, it does not imply that the forehead temperature of a hypothermic person won't increase, and it does not imply that the forehead temperature of a healthy person exposed to a flamethrower will not increase... Does the Constructal law say anything about the environment were the Sun to suddenly disappear?

vannevar 17y ago

I wonder if Mr Eschenbach realizes that the effectiveness of America's entire nuclear arsenal relies on the computer models he so casually dismisses. Nuclear weapons testing is virtual, and has been since 1992. Contrary to the article, climate models don't assume a relationship between CO2 and global warming; rather, they reflect what we know about the physical properties of CO2 in the atmosphere, as born out in laboratory experiments and field measurements. The relationship with global warming emerges from the models, not the other way around.