But, we already knew that from experience. However, a lot of models still treat climate as a mostly or near linear process, and that’s why they aren’t performing particularly well at even predicting the present.
(via the Hockeyschtick) A paper published July in Science says “the climate system can be highly nonlinear, meaning that small changes in one part can lead to much larger changes elsewhere.”
“Some proposed mechanisms for transmission of major climate change events between the North Pacific and North Atlantic predict opposing patterns of variations; others suggest synchronization. Resolving this conflict has implications for regulation of poleward heat transport and global climate change.”
“When the climates of the more local high-latitude Pacific and Atlantic sectors varied in parallel, large, abrupt climate fluctuations occurred on a more global scale.”
One of many examples would be the interactions of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation [PDO] and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation [AMO], which are sometimes aligned in the same positive phase to produce abrupt global warming, sometimes aligned in the same negative phase to produce abrupt global cooling, and sometimes in opposite phases which “cancel” their net global effect.
Systems which are “highly nonlinear” and chaotic are extremely difficult to impossible to predict or model. The projections of current climate models show that the models really boil down to just a simplistic 1:1 linear function of CO2 levels:
Needless to say, modeling the “highly nonlinear” and chaotic global climate system using a linear function of a single independent variable – CO2 – is nonsense and an essentially worthless exercise. Damaging the entire global economy and basing policy decisions upon such models is pure insanity.
From the AAAS Journal: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/345/6195/444.short
Science 25 July 2014: Vol. 345 no. 6195 pp. 444-448 DOI: 10.1126/science.1252000
Abstract:
Some proposed mechanisms for transmission of major climate change events between the North Pacific and North Atlantic predict opposing patterns of variations; others suggest synchronization. Resolving this conflict has implications for regulation of poleward heat transport and global climate change. New multidecadal-resolution foraminiferal oxygen isotope records from the Gulf of Alaska (GOA) reveal sudden shifts between intervals of synchroneity and asynchroneity with the North Greenland Ice Core Project (NGRIP) δ18O record over the past 18,000 years. Synchronization of these regions occurred 15,500 to 11,000 years ago, just prior to and throughout the most abrupt climate transitions of the last 20,000 years, suggesting that dynamic coupling of North Pacific and North Atlantic climates may lead to critical transitions in Earth’s climate system.
Editor’s Summary:
Climates conspire together to make big changes
The regional climates of the North Pacific and North Atlantic fluttered between synchrony and asynchrony during the last deglaciation, with correspondingly more and less intense effects on the rest of the world, researchers have found. The climate system can be highly nonlinear, meaning that small changes in one part can lead to much larger changes elsewhere. This type of behavior is especially evident during transitions from glacial to interglacial conditions, when climate is affected by a wide variety of time-varying influences and is relatively unstable. Praetorius and Mix present a record of North Pacific climate over the past 18,000 years. When the climates of the more local high-latitude Pacific and Atlantic sectors varied in parallel, large, abrupt climate fluctuations occurred on a more global scale.
Rolo says:
July 25, 2014 at 7:25 am
So, finally people got to read the Lorenz 1963 paper … 😉 A little late, no ? …
It is nice to see Lorenz mentioned. The potential irony is that the climate system maybe fully as simple to describe as the most optimistic “linear” modeler would want, and yet still be as impossible to forecast Lorentz shows. The systems that Lorentz and Mandelbrot discuss are fully determinant, yet the outcome of recursion is not predictable. I suspect that a number of quasi-cyclic patterns(e.g. PDO, AMO, ENSO) that have been identified conform to Lorenz’s Butterfly effect, and that a great deal of the debate about whether there are cycles or not would go away if more attention were given to that aspect of “highly nonlinear systems.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/22/of-mountains-molehills-and-noisy-bumps-in-the-sea-ice-record/
suggest any further comment of this oddity goes there , not here.
Steven Mosher:
Your post at July 25, 2014 at 6:58 am says without explanation
Your post provides an interesting coincidence.
Yes when a post starts with a declaration that it is from Steven Mosher I’m relatively sure that whoever wrote it is stupid.
Richard
“Highly nonlinear” does not necessarily mean “not predictable”, at least to some level. The quantum mechanical equations of motion are ungodly complex and nonlinear for even a small arrangement of atoms. Yet, Newton’s laws describe the macro world quite well, as demonstrated by the theorem of Ehrenfest. The Langevin equation provides a specific, rigorous means of modeling macro behavior which changes only slowly with respect to micro relationships.
I believe the climate system can be modeled. I just don’t believe they have the right equations.
“Highly Non-Linear” systems can be very stable.
Tipping Points are non-linear events and they have been part of the catastrophic AGW mime since day one.
WAPO, June 23, 2008, James Hansen: Twenty Years Later
Tipping Points are non-linear positive feedbacks or a breach into another domain of a strange attractor. But not all non-linear systems are dominated by positive feedback. Negative feedbacks can be linear or non-linear.
Every electric motor, every internal combustion engine, even the pendulum of a clock depend upon non-linear feedbacks to function.
Just looking at first (linear) principles, the period of a pendulum ought to be a function of the size of its swing, the bigger the swing, the longer the period. One of Galileo’s greatest discoveries was that the period is insensitive to the length of swing arc. The pendulum owes its stability to non-linear force dynamics.
Mosh,
Here is why models don’t work. It is very simple.
X = 4*(1-X) where initial x is >0 and <1. Start with any number between .1 and .9. Now predict the 100th iteration within 1%. Without looking.
M Simon says:
July 25, 2014 at 10:47 am
Or try this simple experiment. Start with .3000000 and .3000001 and tell me how far apart the the 100th iteration of those two numbers will be.
A little more about the pendulum.
Its constant period does indeed come from a largely linear system.
Twice the displacement means twice the force means twice the acceleration.
But not twice the velocity, or the kinetic energy at the bottom of the swing would exceed the potential energy at the end of the swing.
@Steven Mosher 6:58 am
Yes when the story starts with a declarations of why models dont work I’m relatively sure that whoever wrote it is stupid.
What a breathtakingly stupid model you have created, Steven.
richard verney says:
July 25, 2014 at 9:25 am
Eliza says:
July 25, 2014 at 6:44 am
/////////////////
I guess it probably depends upon the weather up there over the next few weeks, but if it were to cross the 1979/2000 average, I bet there would be strong pressure brought upon MSM not to report on that: Antartic ice at a high, and Arctic ice above the 1979/2000 average both at the same time! And then perhaps a harsh NH winter, it could be interesting.
As you rightly say, a close eye should be kept on this season’s recovery
I wouldn’t worry about that too much. Current CT sea ice area=5.23, the average minimum=4.72,
dropping about 0.08/day.
M Simon says:
July 25, 2014 at 10:47 am
Did you mean 4*X*(1-X), the logistic map?
Bart says:
July 25, 2014 at 10:41 am
“I believe the climate system can be modeled. I just don’t believe they have the right equations.”
Long term predictions could only be potentially possible if Earth’s climate is dominantly controlled by outside systems – like the sun – and for some reason we learn to predict those controlling systems.
Left to its own devices Earth’s weather and climate is chaotically oscillating, and the definition of chaos is that no model with finite resolution can predict the real chaotic system perfectly; the deviation of the states of the chaotic system and the simulation grows exponentially over time. This is the definition- there is no shortcut around it.
Who knew ??
Any time you have an “occasionally” (not necessarily periodically) measured property of say “the climate” ; or anything else for that matter, where you cannot predict, even the direction of movement, from your most recent measured value, to the next measured value you observe, then you have by definition, a “non-linear” function.
So yes, I believe the climate is non linear.
“””””…..Stephen Rasey says:
July 25, 2014 at 10:43 am
“Highly Non-Linear” systems can be very stable.
…………………………………….
Just looking at first (linear) principles, the period of a pendulum ought to be a function of the size of its swing, the bigger the swing, the longer the period. One of Galileo’s greatest discoveries was that the period is insensitive to the length of swing arc. The pendulum owes its stability to non-linear force dynamics…….””””””
Not true at all. The period of a simple pendulum, is indeed a non-linear function of the amplitude of the swing.
Constancy of the period, presumes the restoring force is exactly proportional to the displacement. (and sin(x) = (x) = tan (x) )
d2x/dt^2) =-kx is the governing differential equation of simple harmonic motion. And (k) is a constant; and in this case is NOT Boltzmann’s constant.
If the length of the pendulum is near infinite, then the period of oscillation is totally independent of the (near infinite) length .
In fact the period is about 84 minutes, for any near infinite length.
That also is the period calculated for a simple pendulum, whose length equals the radius of the (assumed uniform) earth.
And the cognoscenti, will immediately recognize that the same 84 minute period, is the orbital period of an earth satellite orbiting at the surface, of an assumed airless planet.
Gyro stabilized platforms suffer from a “hum” noise disturbance; well that hum has an 84 minute period.
Well at least that was true, back in the days, when they actually taught you something in school.
Courtney.
If you or anyone else knows specifically why models don’t work then collect your Nobel prize.
You don’t. The op doesn’t.
And claims to knowledge require some proof.
@george e. smith at 1:50 pm
I don’t understand your objection.
For the general case of a real pendulum, finite length much less than the radius of the earth, the equation of the pendumum is a highly non-linear harmonic equation, even without air resistance.
But for the frictionless small-angle assumption, point mass, you can discount some of the non-linear terms, and determine the period T (sec) is approximately = 2*Pi()*sqrt(L/g), where L is the length (meters) of the pendumum and g is the accel of gravity, a value independent of the mass and the arc.
It is a stable, non-linear system. Even in the small angle approximation, with some linear assumptions, it winds up as a non-linear stable harmonic system.
“””””…..Stephen Rasey says:
July 25, 2014 at 2:23 pm
@george e. smith at 1:50 pm
I don’t understand your objection……”””””
Well Stephen, make up your mind.
You offer the simple pendulum as an example of a “highly non-linear system”; just now repeated essentially; but you claim the period is NOT dependent on the swing amplitude; so presumably it is independent of that swing amplitude.
But then you introduce the “small angle approximation” which in airlessness removes the system from the “highly non-linear” category, and makes it a “highly linear” system instead.
The small angle approximation is not a highly non-linear system; which is the ONLY reason its period is amplitude independent (for small amplitudes)
A straight SF-LA vacuum tube tunnel has the same 42 minute travel time (one way), as does a straight LA-NYC tunnel.
george e. smith says:
…………….
Shuler period, very important for GPS
T=2pi(Rearth/g)ex0.5 = 84.4min
Mosher:
Your post at July 25, 2014 at 2:14 pm displays your usual ignorance, arrogance and stupidity when it says in total
There are very many critically important faults with the models that are documented in the literature so there is no possibility of anyone getting a Nobel Prize for adding to the long list.
Anyway, I choose to again state the specific reason why the models don’t work that I was first to determine and to publish. And I explain Kiehl’s important extension of it.
None of the models – not one of them – could match the change in mean global temperature over the past century if it did not utilise a unique value of assumed cooling from aerosols. So, inputting actual values of the cooling effect (such as the determination by Penner et al.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/07/25/1018526108.full.pdf?with-ds=yes )
would make every climate model provide a mismatch of the global warming it hindcasts and the observed global warming for the twentieth century.
This mismatch would occur because all the global climate models and energy balance models are known to provide indications which are based on
1.
the assumed degree of forcings resulting from human activity that produce warming
and
2.
the assumed degree of anthropogenic aerosol cooling input to each model as a ‘fiddle factor’ to obtain agreement between past average global temperature and the model’s indications of average global temperature.
More than a decade ago I published a peer-reviewed paper that showed the UK’s Hadley Centre general circulation model (GCM) could not model climate and only obtained agreement between past average global temperature and the model’s indications of average global temperature by forcing the agreement with an input of assumed anthropogenic aerosol cooling.
The input of assumed anthropogenic aerosol cooling is needed because the model ‘ran hot’; i.e. it showed an amount and a rate of global warming which was greater than was observed over the twentieth century. This failure of the model was compensated by the input of assumed anthropogenic aerosol cooling.
And my paper demonstrated that the assumption of aerosol effects being responsible for the model’s failure was incorrect.
(ref. Courtney RS An assessment of validation experiments conducted on computer models of global climate using the general circulation model of the UK’s Hadley Centre Energy & Environment, Volume 10, Number 5, pp. 491-502, September 1999).
More recently, in 2007, Kiehle published a paper that assessed 9 GCMs and two energy balance models.
(ref. Kiehl JT,Twentieth century climate model response and climate sensitivity. GRL vol.. 34, L22710, doi:10.1029/2007GL031383, 2007).
Kiehl found the same as my paper except that each model he assessed used a different aerosol ‘fix’ from every other model. This is because they all ‘run hot’ but they each ‘run hot’ to a different degree.
He says in his paper:
And, importantly, Kiehl’s paper says:
And the “magnitude of applied anthropogenic total forcing” is fixed in each model by the input value of aerosol forcing.
Kiehl’s Figure 2 can be seen at
http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/8167/kiehl2007figure2.png
Please note that the Figure is for 9 GCMs and 2 energy balance models, and its title is:
It shows that
(a) each model uses a different value for “Total anthropogenic forcing” that is in the range 0.80 W/m^2 to 2.02 W/m^2
but
(b) each model is forced to agree with the rate of past warming by using a different value for “Aerosol forcing” that is in the range -1.42 W/m^2 to -0.60 W/m^2.
In other words the models use values of “Total anthropogenic forcing” that differ by a factor of more than 2.5 and they are ‘adjusted’ by using values of assumed “Aerosol forcing” that differ by a factor of 2.4.
So, each climate model emulates a different climate system. Hence, at most only one of them emulates the climate system of the real Earth because there is only one Earth. And the fact that they each ‘run hot’ unless fiddled by use of a completely arbitrary ‘aerosol cooling’ strongly suggests that none of them emulates the climate system of the real Earth.
Richard
Steven Mosher,
The only thing that matters is if a model can reliably predict. If it can, it is a good model. If it can’t, it is worthless.
Really, what else matters?
Steven Mosher said:
“If you or anyone else knows specifically why models don’t work then collect your Nobel prize.”
The models do not acknowledge that the amount of conduction (and thus convection) within an atmosphere varies inversely with the radiative capability of the atmosphere.
Leakage of energy to space by radiative means from within the atmosphere causes the amount of energy returned to the surface in convective descent to fall below the amount of energy removed from the surface in convective ascent.
DWIR from radiative gases simply offsets the reduction in energy returned to the surface via convective descent and so DOES NOT add energy to the surface.
Where do I collect my prize?
Lorenz appears in this enlightening documentary from 1989:
The experiment at 26:26 shows non-linear “tipping points” in a Taylor-Cuoette fluid flow system. The result is somewhat analogous to global air circulation, with zonal and meridional patterns emerging at different thresholds.
The latests schizophrenic rant at the Aussie Con suggests that we are probably in a meridional cooling pattern:
https://theconversation.com/the-pre-holocene-climate-is-returning-and-it-wont-be-fun-27742
“Taylor Couette” is what I meant so say:
=============
“Taylor showed that when the angular velocity of the inner cylinder is increased above a certain threshold, Couette flow becomes unstable and a secondary steady state characterized by axisymmetric toroidal vortices, known as Taylor vortex flow, emerges. Subsequently increasing the angular speed of the cylinder the system undergoes a progression of instabilities which lead to states with greater spatio-temporal complexity, with the next state being called as wavy vortex flow. If the two cylinders rotate in opposite sense then spiral vortex flow arises. Beyond a certain Reynolds number there is the onset of turbulence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor%E2%80%93Couette_flow
==================
Wavy vortex flow over previously glaciated regions:
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&q=polar+vortex+2014
Non-linear, chaos, the Lorenz attractor, quasi-stability, … Yet with our limited state knowledge and boundary conditions, even knowing when the next divergence will occur is Impossible… Until after it is apparent… Then human hindsight and reconciliation takes over. Climate states are non linear and state transitions are un predictable. Man induced CO2 concentrations are secondary to natural cycles that mask the CO2 signal change. Deal with it Climate Scientists. Predicting the next 60 years climate is about as dubious as calling for a day of rain in 2 months hence present.
Here is an unusually large circular wind flow from earth/nullschool. This is at 1000 hPa and it shows one huge circular flow that touches the west side of South Africa and the east side of central South America. Further to the east there is an equally huge circular wind pattern in the Indian Ocean. Are those extra large patterns somewhat unusual? …http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/orthographic=-18.30,-51.39,497