On the futility of climate models: 'simplistic nonsense'

Guest essay by Leo Smith – elevated from a comment left on WUWT on January 6, 2015 at 2:11 am (h/t to dbs)

As an engineer, my first experience of a computer model taught me nearly all I needed to know about models.

I was tasked with designing a high voltage video amplifier to drive a military heads up display featuring a CRT.

Some people suggested I make use of the acoustic coupler to input my design and optimise it with one of the circuit modelling programs they had devised. The results were encouraging, so I built it. The circuit itself was a dismal failure.

Investigation revealed the reason instantly: the model parametrised parasitic capacitance into a simple single value: the reality of semiconductors is that the capacitance varies with applied voltage – an effect made use of in every radio today as the ‘varicap diode’. for small signals this is an acceptable compromise. Over large voltage swings the effect is massively non linear. The model was simply inadequate.

Most of engineering is to design things so that small unpredictable effects are swamped by large predictable ones. Any stable design has to work like that. If it doesn’t, it ain’t stable. Or reproducible.

That leads to a direct piece of engineering wisdom: If a system is not dominated by a few major feedback factors, it ain’t stable. And if it has a regions of stability then perturbing it outside those regions will result in gross instability, and the system will be short lived.

Climate has been in real terms amazingly stable. For millions of years. It has maintained an average of about 282 degrees absolute +- about 5 degrees since forever.

So called ‘Climate science’ relies on net positive feedback to create alarmist views – and that positive feedback is nothing to do with CO2 allegedly: on the contrary it is a temperature change amplifier pure and simple.

If such a feedback existed, any driver of temperature, from a minor change in the suns output, to a volcanic eruption must inevitably trigger massive temperature changes. But it simply never has. Or we wouldn’t be here to spout such nonsense.

With all simple known factors taken care of the basic IPCC style equation boils down to:

∆T = λ.k.log( ∆CO2)

where lambda (λ) is the climate sensitivity that expresses the presupposed propensity of any warming directly attributable to CO2 (k.log(CO2)) radiative forcing and its resultant direct temperature change to be amplified by some unexplained and unknown feedback factor, which is adjusted to match such late 20th century warming as was reasonably certain.

Everyone argues over the value of lambda. No one is arguing over the actual shape of the equation itself.

And that is the sleight of hand of the IPCC…arguments about climate sensitivity are pure misdirection away from the actuality of what is going on.

Consider an alternative:

∆T = k.log( ∆CO2) + f(∆x)

In terms of matching late 20th century warming, this is equally as good, and relies merely on introducing another unknown to replace the unknown lambda, this time not as a multiplier of CO2 driven change, but as a completely independent variable.

Philosophically both have one unknown. There is little to choose between them.

Scientifically both the rise and the pause together fit the second model far better.

Worse, consider some possible mechanisms for what X might be….

∆T = k.log( ∆CO2) + f(∆T).

Let’s say that f(∆T) is in fact a function whose current value depends on non linear and time delayed values of past temperature. So it does indeed represent temperature feedback to create new temperatures!

This is quite close to the IPCC model, but with one important proviso. The overall long term feedback MUST be negative, otherwise temperatures would be massively unstable over geological timescales.

BUT we know that short term fluctuatons of quite significant values – ice ages and warm periods – are also in evidence.

Can long term negative feedback create shorter term instability? Hell yes! If you have enough terms and some time delay, it’s a piece of piss.

The climate has all the elements needed. temperature, and water. Water vapour (greenhouse gas: acts to increase temperatures) clouds (reduce daytime temps, increase night time temps) and ice (massive albedo modifiers: act to reduce temperatures) are functions of sea and air temperature, and sea and air temperature are a function via albedo and greenhouse modifiers, of water vapour concentrations. Better yet, latent heat of ice/water represents massive amounts of energy needed to effect a phase transition at a single temperature. Lots of lovely non-linearity there. Plus huge delays of decadal or multidecadal length in terms of ocean current circulations and melting/freezing of ice sheets and permafrost.

Not to mention continental drift, which adds further water cycle variables into the mix.

Or glaciation that causes falling sea levels, thus exposing more land to lower the albedo where the earth is NOT frozen, and glaciation that strips water vapour out of the air reducing cloud albedo in non glaciated areas.

It’s a massive non linear hugely time delayed negative feedback system. And that’s just water and ice. Before we toss in volcanic action, meteor strikes, continental drift. solar variability, and Milankovitch cycles…

The miracle of AGW is that all this has been simply tossed aside, or considered some kind of constant, or a multiplier of the only driver in town, CO2.

When all you know is linear systems analysis everything looks like a linear system perturbed by an external driver.

When the only driver you have come up with is CO2, everything looks like CO2.

Engineers who have done control system theory are not so arrogant. And can recognise in the irregular sawtooth of ice age temperature record a system that looks remarkably like a nasty multiple (negative) feed back time delayed relaxation oscillator.

Oscillators don’t need external inputs to change, they do that entirely within the feedback that comprises them. Just one electron of thermal noise will start them off.

What examination of the temperature record shows is that glaciation is slow. It takes many many thousands of years as the ice increases before the lowest temperatures are reached, but that positive going temperatures are much faster – we are only 10,000 years out of the last one.

The point finally is this: To an engineer, climate science as the IPCC have it is simplistic nonsense. There are far far better models available, to explain climate change based on the complexity of water interactions with temperature. Unfortunately they are far too complex even for the biggest of computers to be much use in simulating climate. And have no political value anyway, since they will essentially say ‘Climate changes irrespective of human activity, over 100 thousand year major cycles, and within that its simply unpredictable noise due to many factors none of which we have any control over’

UPDATE: An additional and clarifying comment has been posted by Leo Smith on January 6, 2015 at 6:32 pm

Look, this post was elevated (without me being aware…) from a blog comment typed in in a hurry. I accept the formula isn’t quite what I meant, but you get the general idea OK?

If I had known it was going to become a post I’d have taken a lot more care over it.

Not used k where it might confuse,. Spotted that delta log is not the same as log delta..

But the main points stand:

(i) The IPCC ‘formula’ fits the data less well than other equally simple formulae with just as many unknowns.

(ii) The IPCC formula is a linear differential equation.

(iii) There is no reason to doubt that large parts of the radiative/convective thermal cycle/balance of climate are non linear.

(iv) There are good historical reasons to suppose that the overall feedback of the climate system is negative, not positive as the IPCC assumes.

(v) given the number of feedback paths and the lags associated with them, there is more than enough scope in the climate for self generated chaotic quasi-periodic fluctuations to be generated even without any external inputs beyond a steady sun.

(vi) Given the likely shape of the overall real climate equation, there is no hope of anything like a realistic forecast ever being obtained with the current generation of computer systems and mathematical techniques. Chaos style equations are amongst the hardest and most intractable problems we have, and indeed there may well be no final answer to climate change beyond a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil and tipping the climate into a new ice age, or a warm period, depending 😉

(vii) A point I didn’t make: a chaotic system is never ‘in balance’, and even its average value has little meaning, because its simply a mathematical oddity – a single point on a range where the system never rests – it merely represents a point between the upper and lower bounds; Worse, is system with multiple attractors, it may not even be anywhere near where the systems orbits fr any length of time.

In short my current thinking says :

– there is no such thing as a normal climate, nor does it have a balance that man has disturbed , or could disturb. Its constantly changing and may go anywhere from ice age to seriously warm over extremely long periods of time. It does this all by itself. There need be no external drivers to move it from one attractor to another or cause it to orbit any given attractor. That climate changes is unarguable, that anything beyond climate itself is causing it, is deeply doubtful. That CO2 has a major effect is, on the data, as absurd as claiming that CO2 has no effect at all.

What we are looking at here is very clever misdirection cooked up for economic and political motives: It suited many peoples books to paint CO2 emissions as a scary pollutant, and a chance temporary correlation of rising temperatures and CO2 was combined in a linear way that any third rate scientist could understand to present a plausible formula for scary AGW. I have pointed out that other interpretations of the data make a non scary scenario, and indeed, post the Pause,. actually fit the data better.

Occam’s razor has nothing to say in defence of either.

Poppers falsifiability is no help because the one model – the IPCC – has been falsified. The other can make no predictions beyond ‘change happens all by itself in ways we cannot hope to predict’. So that cannot be falsified. If you want to test Newton’s laws the last experiment you would use is throwing an egg at a spike to predict where the bits of eggshell are going to land….

Net result is climate science isn’t worth spending a plugged nickel on, and we should spend the money on being reasonably ready for moderate climate change in either direction. Some years ago my business partner – ten years my junior wanted to get key man insurance in case I died or fell under a bus. ‘How much for how much’ ‘well you are a smoker, and old, so its a lot’ It was enough in fact to wipe out the annual profits, and the business, twice over. Curiously he is now dead from prostate cancer, and I have survived testicular cancer, and with luck, a blocked coronary artery. Sometimes you just take te risk because insuring against it costs more … if we had been really serious about climate change we would be 100% nuclear by now. It was proven safe technology and dollar for dollar has ten times the carbon reduction impact than renewables. But of course carbon reduction was not the actual game plan. Political control of energy was. Its so much easier and cheaper to bribe governments than compete in a free market…

IF – and this is something that should be demonstrable – the dominant feedback terms in the real climate equations are non linear, and multiple and subject to time delay, THEN we have a complex chaotic system that will be in constant more or less unpredictable flux.

And we are pissing in the wind trying to model it with simple linear differential equations and parametrised nonsense.

The whole sleight of hand of the AGW movement has been to convince scientists who do NOT understand non linear control theory, that they didn’t NEED to understand it to model climate, and that any fluctuations MUST be ’caused’ by an externality, and to pick on the most politically and commercially convenient one – CO2 – that resonated with a vastly anti-science and non-commercial sentiment left over from the Cold War ideological battles . AGW is AgitProp, not science. AGW flatters all the worst people into thinking they are more important than they are. To a man every ground roots green movement has taken a government coin, as have the universities, and they are all dancing to the piper who is paid by the unholy aggregation of commercial interest, political power broking and political marketing.

They bought them all. They couldn’t however buy the climate. Mother Nature is not a whore.

Whether AGW is a deliberate fraud, an honest mistake, or mere sloppy ignorant science is moot. At any given level it is one or the other or any combination.

What it really is, is an emotional narrative, geared to flatter the stupid and pander to their bigotry, in order to make them allies in a process that if they knew its intentions, they would utterly oppose,.

Enormous damage to the environment is justified by environmentalists because the Greater Cause says that windmills and solar panels will Save the Planet. Even when its possible to demonstrate that they have almost no effect on emissions at all, and it is deeply doubtful if those emissions are in any way significant anyway.

Green is utterly anti-nuclear. Yet which- even on their own claims – is less harmful, a few hundred tonnes of long lived radionuclides encased in glass and dumped a mile underground, or a billion tonnes of CO2?

Apparently the radiation which hasn’t injured or killed a single person at Fukushima, is far far more dangerous than the CO2, because Germany would rather burn stinking lignite having utterly polluted its rivers in strip mining it, than allow a nuclear power plant to operate inside its borders .

Years ago Roy Harper sang

“You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink

You can lead a man to slaughter, but you’ll never make him think”

I had a discussion with a gloomy friend today. We agreed the world is a mess because people don’t think, they follow leaders, trends, emotional narratives, received wisdom.. Never once do they step back and ask, ‘what really is going on here?’. Another acquaintance doing management training in the financial arena chalked up on the whiteboard “Anyone who presages a statement with the words ‘I think’ and then proceeds to regurgitate someone else’s opinions, analysis or received wisdom, will fail this course and be summarily ejected’

And finally Anthony, I am not sure I wanted that post to become an article. I dont want to be someone else’s received wisdom. I want the buggers to start thinking for themselves.

If that means studying control theory systems analysis and chaos mathematics then do it. And form your own opinions.

“Don’t follow leaders, watch your parking meters”

I say people don’t think. Prove me wrong. Don’t believe what I say, do your own analysis. Stop trusting and start thinking.

I’ll leave you with a final chilling thought. Consider the following statement:

“100% of all media ‘news’ and 90% of what is called ‘science’ and an alarming amount of blog material is not what is the case, or even what people think is the case, but what people for reasons of their own, want you to think is the case”

Finally, if I ever get around to finishing it, for those who ask ‘how can it be possible that so many people are caught up in what you claim to be a grand conspiracy or something of that nature?’ I am on the business of writing a philosophical, psychological and social explanation. It entitled ‘convenient lies’ And it shows that bigotry prejudice stupidity and venality are in fact useful techniques for species survival most of the time.

Of course the interesting facet is the ‘Black Swan’ times, when it’s the most dangerous thing in the world.

Following the herd is safer than straying off alone. Unless the herd is approaching the cliff edge and the leaders are more concerned with who is following them than where they are going…

AGW is one of the great dangers facing mankind, not because its true, but because it is widely believed, and demonstrably false.

My analysis of convenient lies shows that they are most dangerous in times of deep social and economic change in society, when the old orthodoxies are simply no good.

I feel more scared these days than at any time in the cold war. Then one felt that no one would be stupid enough to start world war three. Today, I no longer have that conviction. Two generations of social engineering aimed at removing all risk and all need to actually think from society has led to a generation which is stupid enough and smug enough and feels safe enough to utterly destroy western civilisation simply because they take it totally for granted. To them the promotion of the AGW meme is a success story in terms of political and commercial marketing. The fact that where they are taking us over a cliff edge into a new dark age, is something they simply haven’t considered at all.

They have socially engineered risk and dissent out of society. For profit. Leaving behind a population that cannot think for itself, and has no need to. Its told to blindly follow the rules.

Control system theory says that that, unlike the climate, is a deeply unstable situation.

Wake up, smell the coffee. AGW is simply another element in a tendency towards political control of everything, and the subjugation of the individual into the mass of society at large. No decision is to be taken by the individual, all is to be taken by centralised bureaucratic structures – such as the IPCC. The question is, is that a functional and effective way to structure society?

My contention is that its deeply dangerous. It introduces massive and laggy overall centralised feedback, Worse, it introduces a single point of failure. If central government breaks down or falters, people simply do not know what to do any more. No one has the skill or practice in making localised decisions anymore.

The point is to see AGW and the whole greenspin machine as just an aspect of a particular stage in political and societal evolution, and understand it in those terms. Prior to the age of the telegraph and instantaneous communications, government had to be devolved – the lag was too great to pass the decisions back to central authority. Today we think we can, but there is another lag – bureaucratic lag. As well as bureaucratic incompetence.

System theory applied to political systems, gives a really scary prediction. We are on the point of almost total collapse, and we do not have the localised systems in place to replace centralised structures that are utterly dysfunctional. Sooner or later an externality is going to come along that will overwhelm the ability of centralized bureaucracy to deal with it, and it will fail. And nothing else will succeed, because people can no longer think for themselves.

Because they were lazy and let other people do the thinking for them. And paid them huge sums to do it, and accepted the results unquestioningly.

Happy new year

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Gunga Din

January 6, 2015 1:45 pm

A model that doesn’t match or come close to representing reality is, at best, a toy.
(OK. Sometimes eye candy.8-)

Rick

January 6, 2015 1:46 pm

Edsel bashing again? The Edsel has far more historical value than climate models.

Chip Javert

Reply to Rick

January 6, 2015 2:45 pm

Well, at least it’s pretty easy to accurately model their current sales…

Rud Istvan

Reply to Rick

January 6, 2015 3:08 pm

At least the Edsel has some collector value.
Doubt GCMs ever will except to some Museum of Science Gone Wrong. An exhibit next to Phlogiston, perhaps. Better, next to Piltdown Mann holding a hockey stick.

M Courtney

Reply to Rud Istvan

January 7, 2015 4:06 am

Such a museum would be of great value.
If we only teach the sciences by their successes then we will keep reproducing their failures.
Does anyone know of such an online Museum of Scientific Blunder?

Charles Nelson

January 6, 2015 1:46 pm

At the top of this post Anthony said he suspected Nick Stokes might be paid.
Just happens that I noticed something a little odd at the Guardian over the recent holiday period.
An article on Climate Change was posted and a number of skeptics were first to respond, normally these comments would have been swamped and howled down by Warmists within minutes…there was quite a few hours of eerie silence before this happened.
I’m guessing paid Warmists need their holiday breaks just like the rest of us…or maybe nowadays their pay masters simply can’t afford the penalty rates for holiday workers!

M Courtney

Reply to Charles Nelson

January 7, 2015 4:09 am

Or sceptics work from home (or work) while Alarmists are in Academia – which closes down entirely.
Academia requires science activity and profile building as the core part of the job. Commenting on the Guardian may not be a paid activity but rather an obligation of the Academic world.
Maybe check the summer holidays for a test?

VikingExplorer

January 6, 2015 1:47 pm

The first few words made me think it was yet another rant against models in general, and therefore against science in general.
However, I was very pleasantly surprised that this article was excellent. As an EE, I deeply appreciate Leo’s engineering mindset and reasoning.
Since I don’t have first hand knowledge of actual climate models, I have to agree with Nick Stokes partially about the characterization of those models. I would –GUESS– that they are a lot closer to Leo’s characterization than they are to a thorough control systems analysis based solely on established first principles.

No one is arguing over the actual shape of the equation itself.

You’re right. I did make the same arguments some 7 years ago on CA.

MiileB

January 6, 2015 1:51 pm

excellent ! great piece.

Mi Cro

January 6, 2015 2:00 pm

From ~1983 to 1997, I was an Electronic Design Automation Application Engineer, one of my main tasks was demo’ing and supporting customers with our simulation products. I’d be the guy someone like Leo would call and ask why his simulation didn’t do what he expected (ie in this case the simulation results showed the circuit worked, and the actual design didn’t).
There are all sorts of considerations with models, test conditions, assumptions, plus we had 4-5 different simulation products, Analog differential equation solvers (basis for GCM’s), gate level digital simulators, behavioral simulator, Digital Timing analyzer, and then we also had interconnect modeling, and test vector analysis / simulators, all with different strengths, weaknesses, different levels of dependance on the circuit setup in the simulator, all this mattered. Then once you got a result, you had to understand what it was answering in reference to the question you asked.
I too believe the claims of the Modelers are overstated, and suspect that all they’ve done is taken the long road into the wilderness and ended up lost, but afraid to ask for directions.

k scott denison

January 6, 2015 2:04 pm

Great post. As (also) an engineer, I’ve come to think about it this way:
1. As Mosher, among others, tell us repeatedly, man-made growth in CO2 is a growth in forcing.
1a. CO2 is not a feedback.
2. We know from ice cores, etc. that CO2 has been much higher in the past, hence the forcing from CO2 must have been higher in the past.
3. We know that the temperature of the earth did not runaway in the past from the increase in CO2 forcing.
4. CO2 is CO2 in that the climate system cannot tell the difference between CO2 generated by man versus CO2 generated by nature.
5. Therefore, CO2 from man cannot cause temperature to runaway, unless someone wants to define the mechanism by which manmade CO2 (and only manmade CO2, not nature-made CO2) acts both as a forcing and changes the feedback mechanisms.
6. Should mankind survive long enough we will eventually see both extremes of climate. We should prepare to live with both versus wasting time thinking we can control the climate.

nielszoo

January 6, 2015 2:10 pm

And kudos on this from yet another engineer. Thanks for saying what a lot of us think about this modelling mess. I use simple optical radiation and imaging models every day it always amazes me how one could expect all their high powered GCM’s to work when they don’t yet know how the climate works to begin with. We should call them GPM’s, Global Political Models because that’s all the inputs and outputs are… pure politics.

Climate Researcher

January 6, 2015 2:14 pm

[snip – more krap from the BANNED Doug Cotton. Doug, when are you going to get it through your head that you are not welcome here under ANY of the many different fake names you use? Get, out, stay out. -Anthony ]

.

GromitDog

Reply to Climate Researcher

January 6, 2015 3:23 pm

Mi Cro said – “…so the latent heat of the air is being set someplace else…”
If you want to learn where the latent heat is being ‘sent’, you may want to study up on convective parcel behavior & Skew-T Log thermodynamic charts. A few good references online are:
http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA221842
https://www.meted.ucar.edu/training_module.php?id=225#.VKxq8sni6is
http://www.theweatherprediction.com/thermo/skewt/
kiwi.atmos.colostate.edu/group/todd/Extras_files/Skew-T-Manual.pdf
http://skewt-logp.com/skewt-sites.htm
Just remember:
1) Dry Adiabatic Lapse Rate = 5.5F°/1,000 ft cooling for rising parcel
Moist Adiabatic Lapse Rate = 3F°/1,000 ft cooling for rising parcel
Latent Heating = 5.5-3 = 2.5F/1000 ft extra heat to the dry lapse rate…but it is still cooling
2) Clouds are opaque (block) LWIR

Mi Cro

Reply to GromitDog

January 7, 2015 12:50 pm

GromitDog commented on

If you want to learn where the latent heat is being ‘sent’, you may want to study up on convective parcel behavior & Skew-T Log thermodynamic charts. A few good references online are:

Hey Thanks, these look quite interesting!

Climate Blog Critique

Reply to Climate Researcher

January 7, 2015 2:07 pm

That’s OK – I’ve dedicated a page at whyitsnotco2.com to rebuking errors in WUWT articles. What I present there is valid physics about which you have no correct understanding and no formal qualifications either Sir Anthony. You are out of your depth running a blog on atmospheric physics.

Chip Javert

January 6, 2015 2:41 pm

This is just amazing.
Leo Smith contributes an interesting anecdotal post about an a “perfect” model yielding an imperfect “real” system, and we get 120 intense comments (mine included) in the space of 3 1/2 hours, that do little more than prove arguments about angels on the heads on pins still enthrall us.
The only legitimate response to Leo’s point is (like the GEICO commercial) “everybody knows that”, or, perhaps “everybody SHOULD know that”.

Mi Cro

Reply to Chip Javert

January 6, 2015 2:46 pm

With many of the posters having used simulation tools, and been responsible for their results when measured against real examples of the systems modeled.

RockyRoad

Reply to Chip Javert

January 6, 2015 2:48 pm

Unfortunately, too many refuse to see reality, but you’re right. Stuck on Stupid seems to be the order of the day for far too many.

janus

Reply to Chip Javert

January 6, 2015 2:54 pm

But the point he makes is this:
(And I absolutely agree with it)
“…That leads to a direct piece of engineering wisdom: If a system is not dominated by a few major feedback factors, it ain’t stable. And if it has a regions of stability then perturbing it outside those regions will result in gross instability, and the system will be short lived.
Climate has been in real terms amazingly stable. For millions of years. It has maintained an average of about 282 degrees absolute +- about 5 degrees since forever.
So called ‘Climate science’ relies on net positive feedback to create alarmist views – and that positive feedback is nothing to do with CO2 allegedly: on the contrary it is a temperature change amplifier pure and simple.
If such a feedback existed, any driver of temperature, from a minor change in the suns output, to a volcanic eruption must inevitably trigger massive temperature changes. But it simply never has. Or we wouldn’t be here to spout such nonsense….”

Gunga Din

Reply to janus

January 6, 2015 3:22 pm

A computer model that produces something that doesn’t match reality is worthless.
How many manufacturers would produce a product that a computer model said would work after the actual prototype failed?
In such a case only the trial lawyers win.
Who wins what by basing policy on the climate models?

Steve Thayer

January 6, 2015 2:45 pm

With engineering computer models, the more real measurements and data you get on the response of your system the more correlation you can do to improve your model. What surprises me about looking at computer model predictions is that I haven’t seen any that have been adjusted to match the response of the last 20 years. Shouldn’t they be able to take the climate data over the last X years that we have measurements for, CO2 levels, solar activity, volcanic activity, ocean currents, whatever else is a variable in climate predictions, put in real measured values after you get them, and then change the unmeasurable unknowns (like feedback levels in a climate system) so the model predictions for temperatures match what was observed? Once your model makes predictions that match the past, you have more confidence it can predict future responses. It won’t be perfect, but you keep learning from new data, keep refining your model so the predictions improve. Then you re-run your refined model to show that you match the past, and show your updated prediction for the future. But I haven’t seen any climate model output that has shown it can match the past 20 years. They update their predictions so they are CLOSER to the measured temperatures, but still above them, and still wrong. I don’t get that, its like they don’t believe the measurements. “Well we think the REAL temperatures were at this level up here above the measured data, so we correlated to that”. Why don’t they update the models so the predictions MATCH measured temperatures in the past? Then show us their predictions for the future.

Mi Cro

Reply to Steve Thayer

January 6, 2015 2:54 pm

put in real measured values after you get them, and then change the unmeasurable unknowns (like feedback levels in a climate system) so the model predictions for temperatures match what was observed?

Steve,
My understanding is that when they do this, CGM output doesn’t match measurements, and that they use aerosols as an modelers adjustment.

Scott Basinger

Reply to Steve Thayer

January 6, 2015 3:02 pm

“What surprises me about looking at computer model predictions is that I haven’t seen any that have been adjusted to match the response of the last 20 years. ”
These adjustments would likely cause the model results to contradict the message that CO2 is a huge environmental threat. That’s why they haven’t been made; and also why they haven’t managed to cull the known bad actors from the ensemble.

Kip Hansen

Editor

January 6, 2015 2:52 pm

I have been preparing a guest essay on the applicability of the various principles of “Chaos Theory” to this subject. In the meantime, I suggest re-reading Dr. Robert G. Brown’s recent essay which touches on the issues involved.
The simple fact is that the climate system itself is a bounded coupled non-linear dynamic system — and made up more-than-one non-linear sub-systems — similar to Mr. Smith’s capacitance problem:

Over large voltage swings the effect is massively non linear. The model was simply inadequate……Most of engineering is to design things so that small unpredictable effects are swamped by large predictable ones. Any stable design has to work like that. If it doesn’t, it ain’t stable. Or reproducible.

Unfortunately, even mentioning Chaos and Climate in the same sentence tends to bring out two equally-wrong camps: those that say “See, the whole climate/weather system is just random and can’t be predicted at all” and those who claim that “calling the climate chaotic is anti-science — to say the climate is chaotic denies all of science!”
That is what I hope to dispel in my essay — don’t hold your breath — I have struggled with the essay for months.

Gary Hladik

Reply to Kip Hansen

January 6, 2015 4:16 pm

Thanks for the link to RGB’s article/comment. I had forgotten all about it.

Leo Smith

Reply to Gary Hladik

January 6, 2015 10:42 pm

RCB is really the inspiration for what i said. I cant beat him on knowledge: I just tried to make it more accessible. I left academia after gaining a degrees and worked in industry. It was a challenge to transfer my knowledge to others who hadn’t had that education. But I persisted in the attempt.
On several occasions I got my comeuppance, and finally dealt it back too.
1/. “How do you know that hoist will safely lift ten tonnes’ ‘because we had fifteen on it last week and it didnt bend or break”.
2/. “How can you repair that amplifier when you dont know how it works at all?” “Well I just take out all these things here (transistors) and if those are burnt (resistors) , them too, and replace them, and then it works” “And if it doesn’t?” “I give it to Richard and if he cbnt fix it in ten minutes he throws it in the bin after we take all the expensive bits off it and test them”.
3/.” How do you know the noise is coming from this wonderful German designed Philips tuner head and not your own amateurish designed IF strip” “I forget. I am busy and I think getting you in and paying you three times my salary is a bloody waste of money”…a week later…”well I have done all the calculations on your IF strip and it seems to be ok so I guess it is the tuner head” “well I told you so. I remember now, I took the tuner head off, pout on a dummy load and the noise all went, so it had to be the tuner head” “and how long did that take you? ” “30 seconds actually”.
I think what struck me is the radically different approaches to problem solving that people of different backgrounds would take …one time a pair of us were trying to puzzle out if we had the right number of tables to fully describe all te possible combianations of some data transformational rules we wanted to specify. We thought we had it taped, but we couldn’t prove that we had. Until along came our Phd Maths guru. ‘can you see a way to prove this?’ “oh, what’s that, three tables of two columbs, and you variables are..oh yeah. That’s right. That’s all you need’. ‘Are you sure?’ Pitying look, ‘iys basic 3×2 matrix. Didnt you DO matrices? Well I had, but I used to bug out an read the newspaper in those lectures. Never saw the pint…Hmm.
Which is all to say that RCB is the real McCoy, and I am merely translating his words of wisdom into concepts that mere mortals can understand.
He is like my maths guru. saying ‘its simple 3×2 matrix or t ‘an array of coupled non linear Navier Stokes equations’ doesn’t do it for me.
A ‘system of sufficient complexity it can do that all by itself ‘ is the point we want to make.

Gary Pearse

Reply to Kip Hansen

January 6, 2015 4:23 pm

Kip, I understand the idea of it, but to me, the most obvious thing about the climate system is its stability, the +/- 2% variance in degrees Kelvin over millions of years. Yes this variance can take us from a glacial max to an interglacial optimum (I prefer maximum for this, too) and it is important to try to know which way we might be heading, especially in the cooling case. I think thinking chaos arises out of the bottom up science in a problem (I’m an engineer, too) perhaps better viewed from the top down.
I like Smith’s type of formula a lot. We know certain things, some of which I think are quite remarkable. The energy budget seems decently known – we have satellites measuring what comes in and what goes out. We know the enthalpy of water in its three states and an effort to better quantify the volumes of these and their changes would be an early priority in a real climate science mission. I just learned a day or so ago from Willis’s post that the albedo of both northern and southern hemispheres is the same, regardless of the differences between the two! We know there is a cap of ~31C for open ocean SSTs. We know significant orbital mechanics effects. We know maybe enough about radiative physics. Finally we know that no matter how these things all stack up at one time or another, negative feedbacks will limit the extremes to ~2% of the T-Kelvin. We know it involves albedo changes and such but perhaps we can make some strides if we make the feedback equal + or -“x” to start with the direction of course being to limit the drift to the roughly known variance.
You know, we are quite happy with the Ideal Gas Laws and have designed some precision machines and devices based on this knowledge. However, we don’t know where any particular molecule is or where it will be a second from now in the system we are confidently working with. This is chaotic but bounded and the variance at STP is small. So, so what? It would be like mainstream climate science’s microbial viewpoint if we were spending billions trying to track the chaotic paths of gas molecules to arrive at a formula for its behavior in order to design systems based on it. Atomic theory is also the domain of statistical mechanics because we aren’t presented with hard little electron balls behaving like a planetary system. I’ve always felt that any discussion of chaos theory should also consider these types of ideas. We may one day have a perfectly workable predictive theory based on statistical mechanics. Before we do, however, we should set aside our models for the moment and go forth and start sampling the real system in earnest without fiddling the data to make it acceptable to entrenched ideas. We are definitely handicapped in our quest by the deterioration of data in the hands of climate missionaries.

Kip Hansen

Editor

Reply to Gary Pearse

January 6, 2015 4:48 pm

Reply to Gary Pearse ==> The steadiness of the climate system — generally believed to be between two extreme states, Ice Ages and Interglacials — is one of the ‘expected’ possible outcomes of a bounded coupled non-linear dynamic system. Many non-linear systems settle down to oscillation between two (or more) states, with deterministic but unpredictable behavior in between. It is important not to confuse “chaotic” (in the Chaos Theory sense) with random — in the Brownian motion sense.
I assume you’ve looked at Dr. Brown’s post linked above — the section in it on non-linearity.
My suggested reading list for Chaos Theory includes:

Chaos: The Making of a New Science by James Gleick
and
Does God Play Dice?: The New Mathematics of Chaos by Ian Stewart

Gary Pearse

Reply to Gary Pearse

January 7, 2015 5:24 am

Thanks Kip Hansen, I will look at these references. I’m a mining engineer/processing engineer and a geologist so the stuff is probably going to be somewhere up above my head, but I have been inspired by the many talented folks like yourself, RGB, Steve McIntyre and Willis Eschenbach that I’ve met here and on other technical threads and have taken up the hobby of relearning and expanding my knowledge of physics and math that I learned over 50 years ago. To me, it doesn’t get any better than the internet for a real education.

maccassar

Reply to Kip Hansen

January 6, 2015 5:40 pm

As usual the essay by Dr Brown is excellent. Reading his work is always a pleasure since it is filled with logic and common sense.

vukcevic

January 6, 2015 3:01 pm

Britain opposes the change
saying that it would forever break the link between our concept of time and the rising and setting of the Sun. It would also spell the end for Greenwich Mean Time.
Read more: Leap second: French time lords add one second to 2015
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11327571/Leap-second-French-time-lords-add-one-second-to-2015.html

Curious George

Reply to vukcevic

January 6, 2015 4:55 pm

What a horror. Not enough that they did it 2012, 2008, 2005, … – see Wikipedia.

fhhaynie

January 6, 2015 3:05 pm

But, but, it only takes a little bit of sensitivity to a little bit of CO2 increase to upset the “dynamic equilibrium” and anthropogenic emissions are causing that little bit of increase./sarc

Rob Dawg

January 6, 2015 3:14 pm

Lambda to the slaughter. Bravo.

Gunga Din

Reply to Rob Dawg

January 6, 2015 3:25 pm

Glad I never joined a fraternity!
(There should be a line or a clip from “Revenge of the Nerds” but I can’t think of one.8-)

Steve from Rockwood

Reply to Gunga Din

January 6, 2015 3:29 pm

To the bat cave!

Steve from Rockwood

January 6, 2015 3:29 pm

The lack of runaway on feedback in either direction on Earth makes me feel somewhat religious on those days I’m feeling humble. OK, not that often, but doesn’t it seem strange that we cling to life on a Goldilocks planet? A little bit in or a little bit out and poof – no life, of any kind.

Gunga Din

Reply to Steve from Rockwood

January 6, 2015 3:33 pm

Rare Earth

Chip Javert

Reply to Steve from Rockwood

January 6, 2015 7:40 pm

So the question appears to be does this “Goldilocks” moment warrant your humility. Well, earth’s been here 4,500,000,000 years and humans for 2,000,000 = 0.04% of the time.
By sheer coincidence (I hope) 400ppm of CO2 equals 0.04%. OMG! Now I’m feeling religious…

Leo Smith

Reply to Steve from Rockwood

January 6, 2015 10:47 pm

reverse the logic. If it weren’t like that we wouldn’t be here to find it remarkable.
It is not possible to make statements about the probability of a single event. It happened. Probability implies counting lots of other events where it didn’t or did. We dont have that luxury with the one universe.

Barry

January 6, 2015 4:04 pm

“There are far far better models available, to explain climate change based on the complexity of water interactions with temperature. Unfortunately they are far too complex even for the biggest of computers to be much use in simulating climate.”
What are these “far far better models” you speak of? What makes them too complex for the biggest of computers? (Does anyone know how “big” computers are these days?)
What are “water interactions with temperature”?

Bill Parsons

January 6, 2015 4:05 pm

The Earth has flipped from ice house to hot house at least four times in the last half-billion years. It appears fairly sudden in geological time scales, but regardless, one might suspect that even without those mischievous humans to cause them, the planet has undergone natural positive feedbacks (tippling points for the after-hours alarmists).
http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm (please scroll down to see graph)
A “real” question from an uninformed observer: how many feedback loops are actually at work in determining Earth’s climate on a billion-year time scale?

Salvatore Del Prete

January 6, 2015 4:09 pm

http://www.meltdata.com/articles/pliocene-epoch-climate.html
If one would read this one would understand how asinine the climate models/AGW theory is. The climate models can’t even predict how /why the climate changes in the future even if they know how the climate changed into the future. Example the Pliocene to Pleistocene climate change.
CO2 versus climate change is the WRONG way to go when trying to piece the climate puzzle. It is an exercise in futility and my approach is much better. Read below.
The four factors as to why the climate changes are
Initial state of the earth- In regards to how close the climate is to glacial/inter-glacial thresholds(THE ICE DYNAMIC), land /ocean arrangements, land elevation levels ,random terrestrial events such as a mega volcanic eruption or random extra terrestrial events which played a role at times although minor in the scheme of things.
Earth Magnetic Field Strength- which will moderate or compound solar effects in regards to galactic cosmic ray /other charged particles being able to penetrate the earth’s atmosphere and in turn influence cloud formation/geological activity. Also at times of magnetic excursions galactic cosmic rays may be concentrated in lower latitudes where moisture is more abundant causing a greater impact in cloud formation.
Milankovitch Cycles – Which will favor a colder climate when obliquity is at a minimum, earth’s orbit is most elliptical and aphelion in the orbit of the earth occurring during the N.H. summer.
Solar Variability and Secondary Effects- Although solar variability(solar irradiance) may be on the order of .2 to .3 percent (from Grand Maximum to Grand Minimum conditions) it is the secondary effects associated with this solar variability which could have an impact on the climate ranging from changes in atmospheric circulation patterns, to an increase in volcanic activity , to more clouds, ocean heat content lowering etc.
Solar Parameters and possible effects.
Solar Irradiance Changes .1 to .3% lower- Effects ocean heat content /sea surface temperature distribution and actual sea surface temperatures which effects Enso /Ocean currents. An example being the Thermohaline circulation or Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, the AMOC .
Solar Wind Changes to lower then 350 km/sec- Will effect concentrations of galactic cosmic rays entering the atmosphere and increase low cloud amounts. Cosmic Ray Counts north of 6500 units per minute should achieve this. Also at times of low solar wind speed the AP index will be very low which shows a correlation to volcanic activity according to data in that during prolonged minimum solar conditions going back to 1600 ad-present, 87% of all major volcanic eruptions took place at such times.
EUV Light Changes– very low levels(100 units or less) will effect ozone distributions in the atmosphere in both a vertical/horizontal sense which will in turn impact the atmospheric circulation pattern by warming the polar regions more then the mid-latitudes causing a more meridional atmospheric circulation pattern This type of atmospheric circulation pattern at the unset should result in more clouds, precipitation ,more cloud cover causing an increase in earth albedo hence cooler temperatures.
In addition EUV light in the near visible range and visible light will penetrate the ocean surface waters to significant depths(up to 50m) there by effecting ocean heat content /sea surface temperatures.
One must remember that factor one, Initial State Of The Earth, factor two, Earth Magnetic Field Strength and factor three, Milankovich Cycles will cause factor four Solar Variability/Secondary Effects to have different climatic outcomes even if the given solar changes are the same.
In addition at times of limited solar variability although it is still impacting the climate noise in the climatic system can obscure the solar climatic signal.
In summary I will take my theory over AGW theory any day of the week, it is a 1000x better as an explanation as to why/how the climate changes and why it has in the past.

willhaas

January 6, 2015 4:10 pm

As a systems engineer I am sensitive the the idea that one has to get the system right and, by this article and the commentary, it is comforting to know there exist a lot of like minded individuals. I have always had difficulty with the apparent AGW model for the climate system.
1. Water vapor is the primary greenhouse gas yet all that the AGW theory says about it is to make some very rash assumptions. They claim that CO2 controls the effect of H2O such that H2O amplifies the effect of CO2 and that is all H2O does. It is very simplistic assumptions that can get one into a lot of trouble. It turns out that while H2O is the primary greenhouse gas in the Earth’s atmosphere, it is also a major coolant, moving heat energy from the Earth’s surface to where clouds form via the heat of vaporization. According to some of the energy distribution models that I have seen, more heat is moved by H2O via the heat of vaporization then by both convection and LWIR absorption band radiation combined. This one phenomena invalidates the AGW climate model as thiadditionalal phenomena provides a negative feedback.
2. AGW theory seemsadmitmitt that they do not really understand clouds and cloud formation but they assume clouds are neutral and so they can just forget about them. But clouds do exist in the real world and cannot be ignored. I can at least assume that more global H2O will result in more global clouds which not only reflect mincomingming solar energy but that radiate to space more efficiently then the clear atmosphere that they replace. Clouds would seem to provide another negative feedback that is not included in the AGW model.
3. CO2 is not a source of energy. To cause warming CO2 must actradiantadient, thinsulatorulator causing warming in the lower atmosphere and cooling in the upper atmosphere. AGW theory appears to have forgotten about the upper atmospheric cooling which reduces upper atmospheric H2O and hence counteracts the effect of adding CO2. This mechanism represents another negative feedback that is not included in the AGW model.
4. More greenhouse gas in the atmosphere should increefficiencyfeciency of LWIR absorption band radiation to space. This is still another negative feedback that is not included in the AGW model.
5. In rereading the AGW literature, they claim that greenhouse gases absorb IR radiation from the surface and then re-radiate it out in all directions. If such re-radiation take place heat energy is not really absorbed. What they seem to be describing is a diffuse reflector and not an energy absorber. They say the energy is radiatdirectionsdierctions then they cthemselvesthemsemves and say the energy is radiated either up or down which is wrong. It is all a matter of probability as to whether a photo interacts with the Earth’s surface, another gas molecule or makes it back to space. As altitude increases, there are fewer gas molecules and a higher probability that a particular photon will be radiated to space. In keeping with the laws of thermodynamics, heat energy flow, even by radiation, has to be from hot to cold. So I have my doubts about any such radiative greenhouse effect as described in the AGW literature. The AGW literature seems to ignore that there are means of heat transport within the Earth’s atmosphere other than LWIR absorption band radiation.
6. I have appreciated articles on the convective gravity greenhouse effect which is much more how it works in a real greenhouse but I am not sure according to that theory how energy gets radiated off this planet. When speaking to proponents of AGW one has to phrase things in terms of their language and that means radiative energy transport theory.

mikewaite

Reply to willhaas

January 7, 2015 1:19 am

Wilhaas: I do not know whether the following textbooks are nowadays regarded as “kosher” in the AGW debate : Goody “Principles of Atmospheric Radiation and Physics” and Salby: “Fundamentals of Atmospheric Physics” , but their chapters on radiative transfer and the green house effect deal with the amplification factor of water vapour . A simplified requirement for the amplification to lead to a runaway positive feedback is that the optical depth of water in the relatively transparent 10micron region should exceed a critical value . This value is reached with Venus, with greater solar input, which therefore exhibits the result of runaway greenhouse effect , but not on Earth , or at least not until the surface temperature on Earth reaches 314K ( Goody ) which is 25-30C higher than mean temperature at present . Salby also has interesting section on radiative – convective heat transfer as opposed to solely radiative transfer.
I would be interested to know what others think of these authors and their relevance to the AGW debate.

Bill Illis

January 6, 2015 4:10 pm

I have a database of all the CO2 estimates from geologic history (from the methods that produce reliable results). There are 2,700 in total. I also have a database of the temperature history (derived from the dO18 isotopes) and I backfit that temperature line to the date the CO2 estimates came from. In other words, the best estimate of equilibrium CO2 sensitivity that can be made, and there is 2,700 of them.
It indicates CO2 sensitivity has probably had NO influence at all on the temperature history of the planet and all the other variable mentioned in the post like Albedo are the governing factors (think of the Earth’s Albedo in the ice ages for example. All that extra land ice, sea ice and yes, cloud cover (because the IPCC feedback parametre says cloud cover goes up when it gets colder)).
Here is the CO2 sensitivity of the past (the last 10,000 years, the last 25 million years and then 750 million years). It is just a random +/- 40.0C per doubling.
http://s28.postimg.org/eucaualr1/CO2_sensitivity_last_10_Kys.png
http://s23.postimg.org/3jnbzr9cb/CO2_sensitivity_last_25_Mys.png
http://s28.postimg.org/lovsbgt5p/CO2_sensitivity_last_750_Mys.png

TRG

January 6, 2015 4:21 pm

I’ve been asking myself this question for a while: If the climate is so sensitive, why hasn’t it already blown up?

Bob Boder

Reply to TRG

January 9, 2015 10:03 am

Pretty much what Dr Brown has been trying to say all along, there have many natural disasters that have unbalanced the system much more than man could in even his wildest dreams but it still settles into a steady state. This is what leaves the strongest evidence that the negative feedbacks rule.

Gunga Din

January 6, 2015 4:39 pm

It took me awhile to find this. (I “forced” myself to find it.) This post brought it to mind. Sorry, no lambdas or other other mathematical formulas people can’t follow, but for what it’s worth…..

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/12/tisdale-an-unsent-memo-to-james-hansen/#comment-985181
Gunga Din says:
May 14, 2012 at 1:21 pm
joeldshore says:
May 13, 2012 at 6:10 pm
Gunga Din: The point is that there is a very specific reason involving the type of mathematical problem it is as to why weather forecasts diverge from reality. And, the same does not apply to predicting the future climate in response to changes in forcings. It does not mean such predictions are easy or not without significant uncertainties, but the uncertainties are of a different and less severe type than you face in the weather case.
As for me, I would rather hedge my bets on the idea that most of the scientists are right than make a bet that most of the scientists are wrong and a very few scientists plus lots of the ideologues at Heartland and other think-tanks are right…But, then, that is because I trust the scientific process more than I trust right-wing ideological extremism to provide the best scientific information.
=========================================================
What will the price of tea in China be each year for the next 100 years? If Chinese farmers plant less tea, will the replacement crop use more or less CO2? What values would represent those variables? Does salt water sequester or release more or less CO2 than freshwater? If the icecaps melt and increase the volume of saltwater, what effect will that have year by year on CO2? If nations build more dams for drinking water and hydro-power, how will that impact CO2? What about the loss of dry land? What values do you give to those variables? If a tree falls in the woods allowing more growth on the forest floor, do the ground plants have a greater or lesser impact on CO2? How many trees will fall in the next 100 years? Values, please. Will the UK continue to pour milk down the drain? How much milk do other countries pour down the drain? What if they pour it on the ground instead? Does it make a difference if we’re talking cow milk or goat milk? Does putting scraps of cheese down the garbage disposal have a greater or lesser impact than putting in the trash or composting it? Will Iran try to nuke Israel? Pakistan India? India Pakistan? North Korea South Korea? In the next 100 years what other nations might obtain nukes and launch? Your formula will need values. How many volcanoes will erupt? How large will those eruptions be? How many new ones will develop and erupt? Undersea vents? What effect will they all have year by year? We need numbers for all these things. Will the predicted “extreme weather” events kill many people? What impact will the erasure of those carbon footprints have year by year? Of course there’s this little thing called the Sun and its variability. Year by year numbers, please. If a butterfly flaps its wings in China, will forgings cause a tornado in Kansas? Of course, the formula all these numbers are plugged into will have to accurately reflect each ones impact on all of the other values and numbers mentioned so far plus lots, lots more. That amounts to lots and lots and lots of circular references. (And of course the single most important question, will Gilligan get off the island before the next Super Moon? Sorry. 😎
There have been many short range and long range climate predictions made over the years. Some of them are 10, 20 and 30 years down range now from when the trigger was pulled. How many have been on target? How many are way off target?
Bet your own money on them if want, not mine or my kids or their kids or their kids etc.

I know. Lots of “ifs”. I don’t know the answers to them. But the climate models do?

nickreality65

January 6, 2015 5:00 pm

In IPCC AR5 TS.6 they admit uncertainty about the factor.
IPCC AR5 TS.6 Key Uncertainties is where climate science “experts” admit what they don’t know about some really important stuff. They are uncertain about the connection between climate change and extreme weather especially drought. Like the 3” drought that hit Phoenix. They are uncertain about how the ice caps and sheets behave. Instead of gone missing they are bigger than ever. They are uncertain about heating in the ocean below 2,000 meters which is 50% of it, but they “wag” that’s where the missing heat of the AGW hiatus went, maybe. They are uncertain about the magnitude of the CO2 feedback loop, which is not surprising since after 17 plus years of rising CO2 and no rising temperatures it’s pretty clear whatever the magnitude, CO2 makes no difference.
http://www.writerbeat.com/articles/3713-CO2-Feedback-Loop
Barring some serious flaw in science or method, Miatello’s paper should serve as the death certificate for AGW/CCC.
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/PSI_Miatello_Refutation_GHE.pdf

KevinK

Reply to nickreality65

January 6, 2015 6:36 pm

And there is this recent paper published in a peer reviewed paper by folks in the field (they speak climate science better than us engineers);
http://www.seipub.org/des/paperInfo.aspx?ID=21810
The summary states;
“In our view the greenhouse phenomenon, as it was postulated by J. Fourier (1824), estimated by S. Arrhenius (1906), first quantified by S. Manabe and R. Wetherald (1967), explained by R. Lindzen (2007), and endorsed by the National Academy of Science and the Royal Society (2014), SIMPLY (sic) DOES NOT EXIST” (bold highlighting is mine).
Cheers, Kevin

Bubba Cow

Reply to KevinK

January 7, 2015 8:25 am

Wow! Thanks.

KevinK

January 6, 2015 5:08 pm

Mr. Smith, great post,
Thank from another engineer, EE and optical system design (aka applied radiation physics).
You wrote;
“Engineers who have done control system theory are not so arrogant. And can recognise in the irregular sawtooth of ice age temperature record a system that looks remarkably like a nasty multiple (negative) feed back time delayed relaxation oscillator.”
Your time delayed relaxation oscillator example reminds me of the “solder joint oscillator” circuit I once built (by mistake of course). I had a driver for a fluorescent light bulb, it output about 2500 volts at a few kiloHertz. The capacitance of the gas in the tube determined the resonant frequency (along with a few other components). All worked fine for the first few minutes after start-up, flip the switch and the lamp lit up perfectly. Then the light output slowly faded over a few minutes or so, then suddenly went back to full brightness.
Quite the head scratcher, the circuit models showed no such response, all the currents and voltages in the circuit looked nominal, nothing appeared to be saturating. The negative feedback loop in the circuit followed all the guidelines for control system design.
Turns out that the switching transistor was just a wee bit too warm (not a large enough heatsink to shed the thermal load), not warm enough to be damaged however. This caused the solder that connected the transistor leads to start to liquify (not enough to open the connection so the lamp stayed lit). Slightly liquid solder has a higher resistance than solid solder. This higher resistance reduced the control voltage to the transistor which reduced the output voltage and the lamp dimmed. Then the lower output from the transistor reduced the thermal load and the transistor cooled which cooled the solder which quickly returned to a solid state (solder becomes solid more quickly than it liquifies, ask me how I know that). Then the lamp quickly jumped back up to full brightness and the process started all over again.
I could not have designed a circuit to behave like that if I tried, and I doubt a model would even reflect that behavior. Needless to say there were several positive and negative feedbacks present with different (and asymmetric, i.e. different cooling and warming response) time constants involved.
So when I hear about folks that believe they can model the climate I do have to chuckle to myself and remind myself about my “solder joint oscillator”. Seems like the climate is like a trillion little “water molecule” oscillators all acting at random, cooling, freezing, melting, vaporizing…..
I doubt anyone will ever be able to model the climate.
Cheers, Kevin
PS: once I found the problem I simply upgraded to a larger heatsink and kept my job, and some of you may have purchased a fax machine or document scanner with a little fluorescent lamp inside, one of those units included this design (after it worked).