Yes I agree Anthony has done a pretty good job on balance — that can’t be said of all the posters, however. I’m trying to put some weight in the other pan.

I’m not 100%, or even 90%, sure on any of this. No on can be. We don’t have data over a long enough period — Man’s life-time is short.

It only seems clear to me that Man must have, having the capacity to do so on a large scale, contributed to un-balancing changes in some way. It seems only wise to err on the side of caution. (Besides, there are other reasons to implement change — I’ll not go into that here…)

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I have been heavily influenced by the German language. Also by older, more traditional uses of English. (It is also true that “Olde English” has not yet disposed of capitalization of nouns.)

I much prefer hyphenated compounds in many cases where it has become the norm to use un-hyphenated forms; I feel they are often clearer in meaning by breaking the word into its parts.

—–

As to:
“Mark Shuford, are you dyslexic, or simply unaccustomed to a computer keyboard and its concomitant functions?”

Would you wish to make yourself clear on you meaning here? Or are you simply unaccustomed to the fact that people are not readers of minds?

If, by some chance I have read your mind correctly, you may refer to my use of some small sections of ALL CAPS phrases. This is about the only way to indicate emphasis when typing something up with ascii/text only — that and under-lining, setting off with dashes, bracketing (with various punctuation marks). _I_ do not assume that everyone want to read stuff in HTML, so I do not format stuff using such; I could as well format using trof or LaTEX — would that make you happier?

If this was my correct guess, the complaint is generally aimed at Internet usage AGAINST PEOPLE WHO LEAVE THE CAPS-LOCK DOWN THE WHOLE TIME THEY ARE TYPING — THUS LOSING THE EMPHASIS WHERE IS IS DESIRED BY LEAVING NO WAY TO INDICATE EMPHASIS. (And don’t complain on that block of text — you do recognize satire, I hope.)

Until you study both of these subjects a bit you have no right to an opinion on dynamic-systems, especially any involving Thermo-dynamics*.

That seems a bit harsh. Anthony does a pretty good job of encouraging people who are willing to think to post here. Compared to some of the comments I see on newspaper forums, the noise level here is pretty low. Low enough so I can ignore the truly clueless posters or point them to some introductory URLs.

BTW, I’m intrigued at your use of capitalization and hyphens. We didn’t use such decorations when I took thermo ages ago. Are you posting outside the states or had a German professor for Thermo?

Pumping of more Energy (heat) into a system increases its Total Net Energy (average warming of the system = Global Warming). Dynamic systems are very often (more often than is believed even by ‘experts’) _not_ Linear (go study this one yourself). There are realms, as the net total energy in the system changes where things are not Orderly and Predictable but instead become Chaotic.

I guess I understand what you say, I’ve seen several systems dependent on energy, is http://physics.ucsd.edu/neurophysics/courses/physics_173_273/Chaotic_Circuit_03.pdf what you had in mind? Kinda cute, I’m tempted to make one.

Earth is orderly and predictable? Since when?

Further: It is well known by technicians, engineers, and scientists (again, before the idea of Global Warming ever entered anyone’s head) that Positive Feedback with-in a system creates Oscillations (chaos) and if left un-corrected the system will destroy itself. (You have most likely all heard this as ‘Screech-back’, ‘Howling’, or ‘Feed-back’ of a sound-system at a performance or presentation of some sort.)

However, I have trouble with your concern about the energy put into the Earth system, it just doesn’t seem we’ve added anywhere close the amount of energy to drive a system that has maintained the current level of chaos to something so extreme it destroys itself. We’re talking fractions of a degree. over the short term, a few degrees over a few centuries. Don’t sweat the CO2 much – its IR absorption window is nearly saturated. And don’t believe James Hansen when he talks about tipping points.

A chaotic system does not make it unpredictable, it just limits what you can predict. For example, I can’t tell you the high temperature will be on Anthony’s next birthday. However, if I knew what his birthday was, I could give a range of temperatures that will almost certainly be right.

“An early pioneer of the theory was Edward Lorenz whose interest in chaos came about accidentally through his work on weather prediction in 1961. Lorenz was using a simple digital computer, a Royal McBee LGP-30, to run his weather simulation. He wanted to see a sequence of data again and to save time he started the simulation in the middle of its course. He was able to do this by entering a printout of the data corresponding to conditions in the middle of his simulation which he had calculated last time.

Lorenz’s discovery, which gave its name to Lorenz attractors, proved that meteorology could not reasonably predict weather beyond a weekly period (at most).”

Mark Shuford, are you dyslexic, or simply unaccustomed to a computer keyboard and its concomitant functions?

In fact: IF IT WERE NOT FOR CHAOS we would, long, have been able to predict the weather! This was with relatively low levels of chaos. The more severe fluctuations now happening are due to greater chaos, caused by higher Net Energy (Heat) in the atmospheric system.

Which “more severe fluctuations” would those be? All we’ve really done is gotten better (in some cases) at measuring. And some folks have gotten much better at exaggeration.

“I hope the population is not dumbed-down enough to believe that warming causes cooling.”
— David S.

But it is exactly the point that the world is so dumbed-down that it doesn’t realize this.

May I ask, most politely: Do you have a technical back-ground. Do you strive to learn something new (_not_ from the newspapers or Tee-vee) every-day?

As referred to in my previous post: Chaos in “linear” systems has been well recognized and studied for many years; years which go much further back than “Global Warming” has been an issue.

In fact: IF IT WERE NOT FOR CHAOS we would, long, have been able to predict the weather! This was with relatively low levels of chaos. The more severe fluctuations now happening are due to greater chaos, caused by higher Net Energy (Heat) in the atmospheric system.

And to re-iterate: The material I read on Chaos Theory, and especially on feed-back in systems, was studied a good fifteen (15) years before ‘Global Warming’ was mentioned… and having this background, I at once recognized the significance and high probability of truth of its occurring.

Tnx,
Mark Shuford

“Climate Chao” was the term used.

I’ve read (and this was _years_ before GW was a subject) a couple of books and a few articles on chaos theory…. and, as an engineer, understand the implications of _positive feedback_.

Until you study both of these subjects a bit you have no right to an opinion on dynamic-systems, especially any involving Thermo-dynamics*.

I’ll not spend a lot of time on this in this post…. as you either already understand or won’t believe _me_. As I said, Go Read Young Man!

Pumping of more Energy (heat) into a system increases its Total Net Energy (average warming of the system = Global Warming). Dynamic systems are very often (more often than is believed even by ‘experts’) _not_ Linear (go study this one yourself). There are realms, as the net total energy in the system changes where things are not Orderly and Predictable but instead become Chaotic.

Further: It is well known by technicians, engineers, and scientists (again, before the idea of Global Warming ever entered anyone’s head) that Positive Feedback with-in a system creates Oscillations (chaos) and if left un-corrected the system will destroy itself. (You have most likely all heard this as ‘Screech-back’, ‘Howling’, or ‘Feed-back’ of a sound-system at a performance or presentation of some sort.)

We’re talking about a _VERY_ large system here!

As I said: Don’t take my word… go use your mind and do some study.

–
It is the lack of a really good general education to the populace which is truly ruining this country and this world; and especially a lack thereof on the part of our “leaders”. We are living in a technological era — if we do not understand it then ‘Our reach has truly exceeded our grasp’… and the human race will get what it does to itself.

Tnx,
Mark Shuford

*And I realize this is a _very_ scary word to those of you ignorant of it…. It has cause many a Sophomore Science/Engineering Major to change his major to one not involving Physics.

In the original claims made for Global Warming there was only one natural disaster omitted…Meteor strike.

They covered all the bases from the start, so there was no way out and no where to hide.

Perhaps they knocked over a file cabinet? A ‘tipping point’ of sorts.

Well yes. But no.

The alarmists have been extreeemly efficient in brainwashing the whole mostly western world to believe in “Global warming Global warming”.
Their own SUPER efficient media manipulation now backfires.
Every little family now have learned “Global warming”. They cant take it back for real. Even though articles here and there now says “Global change” its just a minority that rides with that change.

No, when cooling gets massive, the great majority will hold the alarmists up to “Hey, they said global warming!!” . They cant take it back for real. Too late.

We never would have had the Dust Bowl, and Steinbeck never would have written “The Grapes of Wrath.” On the other hand, he might have invented the Internet a lot sooner.

What exactly does that mean

What a bunch of hogwash.

Well anyway I hope the population is not dumbed-down enough to believe that warming causes cooling.

I’m waiting for Hansen to explain how rising CO2 causes warming and cooling. We are very near a tipping point, the point where rational thought is finally and irrevocably done away with.

On another topic, Nature Conservancy in Canada still seems to be pretty apolitical on the CC and AGW front. They just keep acquiring land through purchase or donation, quietly doing their work. I’m surprised that Greenpeace and Sierra et al, haven’t condemned Nature Conservancy for their lack of alarmism.