From the UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN – NIELS BOHR INSTITUTE
When we talk about climate change today, we have to look at what the climate was previously like in order to recognise the natural variations and to be able to distinguish them from the human-induced changes. Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute have analysed the natural climate variations over the last 12,000 years, during which we have had a warm interglacial period and they have looked back 5 million years to see the major features of the Earth’s climate. The research shows that not only is the weather chaotic, but the Earth’s climate is chaotic and can be difficult to predict. The results are published in the scientific journal, Nature Communications.
The Earth’s climate system is characterised by complex interactions between the atmosphere, oceans, ice sheets, landmasses and the biosphere (parts of the world with plant and animal life). Astronomical factors also play a role in relation to the great changes like the shift between ice ages, which typically lasts about 100,000 years and interglacial periods, which typically last about 10-12,000 years.
Climate repeats as fractals
“You can look at the climate as fractals, that is, patterns or structures that repeat in smaller and smaller versions indefinitely. If you are talking about 100-year storms, are there then 100 years between them? – Or do you suddenly find that there are three such storms over a short timespan? If you are talking about very hot summers, do they happen every tenth year or every fifth year? How large are the normal variations? – We have now investigated this,” explains Peter Ditlevsen, Associate Professor of Climate Physics at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen. The research was done in collaboration with Zhi-Gang Shao from South China University, Guangzhou in Kina.
The researchers studied: Temperature measurements over the last 150 years. Ice core data from Greenland from the interglacial period 12,000 years ago, for the ice age 120,000 years ago, ice core data from Antarctica, which goes back 800,000 years, as well as data from ocean sediment cores going back 5 million years.
“We only have about 150 years of direct measurements of temperature, so if, for example, we want to estimate how great of variations that can be expected over 100 years, we look at the temperature record for that period, but it cannot tell us what we can expect for the temperature record over 1000 years. But if we can determine the relationship between the variations in a given period, then we can make an estimate. These kinds of estimates are of great importance for safety assessments for structures and buildings that need to hold up well for a very long time, or for structures where severe weather could pose a security risk, such as drilling platforms or nuclear power plants. We have now studied this by analysing both direct and indirect measurements back in time,” explains Peter Ditlevsen.
The research shows that the natural variations over a given period of time depends on the length of this period in the very particular way that is characteristic for fractals. This knowledge tells us something about how big we should expect the 1000-year storm to be in relation to the 100-year storm and how big the 100-year storm is expected to be in relation to the 10-year storm. They have further discovered that there is a difference in the fractal behaviour in the ice age climate and in the current warm interglacial climate.
Abrupt climate fluctuations during the ice age
“We can see that the climate during an ice age has much greater fluctuations than the climate during an interglacial period. There has been speculation that the reason could be astronomical variations, but we can now rule this out as the large fluctuation during the ice age behave in the same ‘fractal’ way as the other natural fluctuations across the globe,” Peter Ditlevsen.
The astronomical factors that affect the Earth’s climate are that the other planets in the solar system pull on the Earth because of their gravity. This affects the Earth’s orbit around the sun, which varies from being almost circular to being more elliptical and this affects solar radiation on Earth. The gravity of the other planets also affects the Earth’s rotation on its axis. The Earth’s axis fluctuates between having a tilt of 22 degrees and 24 degrees and when the tilt is 24 degrees, there is a larger difference between summer and winter and this has an influence on the violent shifts in climate between ice ages and interglacial periods.
The abrupt climate changes during the ice age could be triggered by several mechanisms that have affected the powerful ocean current, the Gulf Stream, which transports warm water from the equator north to the Atlantic, where it is cooled and sinks down into the cold ocean water under the ice to the bottom and is pushed back to the south. This water pump can be put out of action or weakened by changes in the freshwater pressure, the ice sheet breaking up or shifting sea ice and this results in the increasing climatic variability.
Natural and human-induced climate changes
The climate during the warm interglacial periods is more stable than the climate of ice age climate.
“In fact, we see that the ice age climate is what we call ‘multifractal’, which is a characteristic that you see in very chaotic systems, while the interglacial climate is ‘monofractal’. This means that the ratio between the extremes in the climate over different time periods behaves like the ratio between the more normal ratios of different timescales,” explains Peter Ditlevsen
This new characteristic of the climate will make it easier for climate researchers to differentiate between natural and human-induced climate changes, because it can be expected that the human-induced climate changes will not behave in the same way as the natural fluctuations.
“The differences we find between the two climate states also suggest that if we shift the system too much, we could enter a different system, which could lead to greater fluctuations. We have to go very far back into the geological history of the Earth to find a climate that is as warm as what we are heading towards. Even though we do not know the climate variations in detail so far back, we know that there were abrupt climate shifts in the warm climate back then,” points out Peter Ditlevsen.
###
UPDATE: The article is Open Access at Nature Communications
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160316/ncomms10951/full/ncomms10951.html
h/t to Doug Huffman
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>”This new characteristic of the climate will make it easier for climate researchers to differentiate between natural and human-induced climate changes”
What a novel concept. I can’t see it catching on, except to explain why temperatures aren’t cooperating with someone’s model.
A chaotic system produces chaotic patterns. Surprise, surprise.
Is this not eintirely circular? Did Edward Norton Lorenz not discover chaos theory through the study of meterology and weather models?
Well, yes, but then again we’re talking about climate here, not weather. See the paper linked to by Belousov. Part of the whole problem here seems to be that the AGW climatologists seem to have forgotten, or never known, about this. As the paper says, the popular assumption is that climactic behavior primarily responds to forcing inputs, neglecting the inherent nature of the system itself.
Well it is well known that things like coast lines show randomly chaotic structure at a wide range of size scales, as in an 8×10 picture looks to have a certain “roughness” regardless of whether the scale is in Mm or mm.
That in itself is not sufficient to call such structures “fractals”.
Climate is ‘fractal’ just like global warming is ‘logarithmic’ and severe weather is growing ‘exponentially’.
Weasel words with very specific normal scientific meanings, but used colloquially as a substitute for bovine scat.
Fractals have a very specific complex mathematical equation, with the real and imaginary parts of complex numbers interpreted as movement on orthogonal axes. So they are totally deterministic. You define the starting point, and you have defined the entirety of the pictorial image. There’s nothing chaotic about fractals.
G
As I read the article I kept waiting to see how he applied his logic to determine the equation for the fractal pattern he discovered but – Nothing. Thus as you wrote above “Weasel words with very specific normal scientific meanings, but used colloquially as a substitute for bovine scat.”
Here is a link explaining the relationship between fractals and unstable dynamic systems (a.k.a. chaos)
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-connection-between-chaos-theory-and-fractals
Isn’t all calculated math, including recursive processes, deterministic in the sense that picking a set of input variables and choosing the mathematical precision, will give the same results but that if the precision is changed then a deterministic result will result, but will not be predictable from the calculation by the same process with another precision. That turns out to be what chaotic behavior is. Also, it should be possible to have a chosen mathematical recursive process with a random change in, say, the precision at each step of the calculation so that the mathematical process no longer gives a deterministic result as long as the random process is not deterministic itself.
Fractals …are totally deterministic … There’s nothing chaotic about fractals.
Chaotic functions are also totally deterministic.
Edward Lorenz said
“Chaos: When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.”
“easier for climate researchers” ….. to see what they want to see ?
To excuse their mistakes ?
We have to go very far back into the geological history of the Earth to find a climate that is as warm as what we are heading towards. Even though we do not know the climate variations in detail so far back, we know that there were abrupt climate shifts in the warm climate back then,” points out Peter Ditlevsen. Is this referring to the Holocene Optimum, which was warmer, or the last inter-glacial which was warmer?
I must confess vacillating regarding a third option I originally typed. I wondered if I was being unfair, but in further consideration of the first line I quoted, with its inherent vision of inexorable doom, I must submit as a possibility; the era of unicorns and faeries.
skeohane: A modest comment: You talk about the Holocene Optimum. You should talk about Holocene Maximum. Optimum refers to e.g. the best or most advantageous of a set of various external conditions for the survival or well-being of a certain population. Like the optimum condition for growing bananas is a warm and suitably moist climate and optimum conditions for a polar bear means cold climate and lots of ice.
I am not sure evidence supports the claim that polar bears need it cold with a lot of ice.
The optimum conditions for Polar Bears require a lot cold and a lot of ice and snow.
Otherwise they lose the competitive advantage they have over their close cousins, Brown Bears.
Replace ice and snow with forest and Polar Bears become recessive genes in the Brown Bear population.
If I’m not mistaken, polar bears are a sub species of brown bears that evolved to occupy the Arctic areas due to glacial periods. Maybe they would not not exist without the ice age earth is experiencing.
Do we really need the ice age? Probably not.
Semantics, from what I have read over the last 55 years, i have only seen ‘Holocene Optimum’ which was understood as the time of maximum temperatures in this inter-glacial.
You haven’t seen the polar bears sunning themselves at London Zoo then have you?
http://img.thesun.co.uk/aidemitlum/archive/01335/SNN2820D-682_1335262a.jpg
The MWP, Roman and every other back to the Holocene — “We have to go very far back into the geological history of the Earth to find a climate that is as warm as what we are heading towards.” ?? Heading towards on his computer.
If you could get stronger and stronger microscopes…looking first at molecules, then atoms, then subatomic particles and so on and so on…as you focused more and more deeply, unveiling each new layer, each more infinitesimal than the previous, eventually you would look into the eyepiece and see the back of your own head.
This press release did not provide the article name, so I located it:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/75831381/Ditlevsen%20fractal%20climate.pdf
Also the Supplemental Information:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/75831381/Ditlevsen%20fractal%20climate%20Supplemental%20Information.pdf
Not easy reading, but the authors did a ton of work in looking at climate variations and oscillations across 5 orders of temporal magnitude (months to 5 million years). They use Hurst exponents to compare glacials and interglacials, concluding that the two regimes have different characteristic fractal behaviors.
A useful guide to the power of natural forces in driving climate–and a powerful rejoinder to the CAGW crowd.
Yes so many universities are so BAD at issuing press releases, it’s mind boggling. Only about 10% link to the paper the PR is about, the rest make you go fish for it. if they worked for a company, these uni PR folks would lose their jobs for being so incomplete.
“for being so incompetent?”
(Chrse of the spelt chucker?)
Maybe they don’t really want people to read the actual study. Because, you know, those people will just try to find errors in the paper.
Thanks for that, doing the math vs the messaging?
“The climate during the warm interglacial periods is more stable than the climate of ice age climate.”
So, if the weather / climate is getting more unstable / severe as alarmists claim, it follows we must be entering the next phase of glaciation / end of the interglacial (i.e. it’s getting colder, not warmer).
What a conundrum for the warmists / alarmists !
You point out an amusing logical inconsistency. That won’t do. Warmunists do not like being consistent. There is (Fyfe, Mann) and is not (Karl, Mears) a pause. The science is settled until CSIRO climate research cuts (settled science does not need further research). unsettled the scientists who then unsettled the science to save their jobs and grants. Paleoclimate varves can be used right side up or upside down. Global warming means less snow until more snow is caused by global warming…
Like the Queen told Alice in Through the Looking Glass, warmunists practice believing 6 impossible things before breakfast.
Thanks that they don’t refer to models
But i like this: The climate during the warm interglacial periods is more stable than the climate of ice age climate.
Svend are you living in an igloo on Greenland, or izzat another Svend who digs glaciers ??
G
“the shift between ice ages, which typically lasts about 100,000 years and interglacial periods, which typically last about 10-12,000 years.”
Let’s see. it’s been ~ 11,000 years since the end of the last glaciation & the weather / climate is supposedly getting less stable – Man , these guys are making a good case for us entering the next glaciation. Not doing much to get people worried about burning up
I wonder just what temperature proxies Ditlevsen is using to state that todays climate is warmer than historic times. Using crop growing seasons as a proxy, Greenland was warmer in the Midieval Warm than currently, as it is not possible to farm barley in Greenland, or raise cattle, which the Norse did.
Milankovitch Cycle varves have been found in Precambrian rocks. Weather may be chaotic but on at least some scales, climate is cyclic.
A complex system may become chaotic by going through “bifurcations” (the right term; not “tipping point” as used in climatology) under more by having a periodic component splittig into (sub)harmonics, when a parameter changes slightly over time. The climate system is multiperiodic, with cycles ranging from one day, one year, 11 years, 60 years, 180 years, ~1000 years…up to 100 000 years (the Milankovitch cycles you mentionned) and probably longer. If you make a spectral analysis of temperature proxies (Vostok ice cores i.e.) you discover that these periodicities do not appear as spikes (corresponding to an exact period) but as peaks distributed around a given period:a sign that the system is pseudo-periodic; it is chaotic. Inded, when you have an extremely large number of different periodicities the response of the system beomes extremely senitive to initial coditions and values of the parameters; in other words it becom difficult to extrapolate on more or less long term. This is why nobody can exactly predict when the next transition to an ice age will start. In a nutsell, you are wrong when claiming the climate ischanges periodically. Climate is also chaotic in nature.
Milankovitch Cycles are of differing periodicities, one of which is about 100,000 years. The cycles combine to produce glacial episodes that occur now in about 100,000 year periods, with shorter interglacials, the length and other characteristics of which vary. Earlier in the Pleistocene, the 41,000 year cycle was more dominant.
Climate is also cyclic on longer time frames, and responds to various causes in a non-chaotic way. For instance, distinguished Snowball Earth expert geologist Paul Hoffman has suggested a cosmic explanation for the 1.5 billion year gap in global glaciations between the Paleoproterozoic Huronian and Neoproterozoic Sturtian events.
Of course I know there at least three Milankovitch significant cycles and how they are related to earth orbital characterisitcs. I learned also something about how the solar system “wobbles” around the milky way with much longer periods of time. But you need to sum up everything with the right phases and realize that the periodicities are not “sharp” ones: no spikes in the Power Spectrum but some distributions around several peak values: the (pseudo-)periodicities about which we were talking about). If you look at time series oftemperature proxies, you find a clear chaotic signature. => the system is not predictable. One way to detect a chaotic signature is simply by putting the data on a phase plan. I did for the Vostok Data: You can easily identify two” strange attractors”: a “temperate” period and a “glacial” period around wich the system oscillates around trajectories “loosier” than for the “temperate” attractor. You can also see that the system remains for longer time around the “glacial” attractor and that the present temperature has been exceeded by a few degrees in the past. This graph defines the “confinment box” of the system: whatever happens, you will never increase the temperature by more than a couple of degrees, even if the CO2 concentration becomes 10 times larger than 400 ppm, as happened in the past. This is just the end of the IPCC fantasy !!!!! For convenience, I give again the link to the phase plan of the Vostok data (and the embedding dimension and time lack used) here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/56918808/Phase%20plan%20Vostok.docx
Sorry for having to repeat this; I don’t want to appear as a troll
“We have to go very far back into the geological history of the Earth to find a climate that is as warm as what we are heading towards. ”
So we can conclude-
1-that the climate “we are heading towards” has occurred at least once before on Earth (without human influence)
2-that the climate we are in NOW is not as warm as the climate “we are headed towards” AND that we do NOT have to go very far back in the geological history of the Earth to find a climate that is as warm as where we are NOW (and any “warm” prior to 1880 cannot be human CO2 related at all)
“because it can be expected that the human-induced climate changes will not behave in the same way as the natural fluctuations.”
Thoughts-
So, then, if climate changes today and moving forward behave in the exact same way as they have in the past, then they cannot possibly be “human-induced climate changes”!!! (Or these scientists will have to admit that their expectations regarding human induced climate changes were WRONG)
Since both carbon and Co2 are naturally existing/occurring things, why would more of them cause changes that were UNnatural? Define “natural fluctuations”. Are they static or small….ALL the time? Constantly predictable and stable? If so…then what caused the “abrupt climate shifts in the warm climate back then”??? It sure couldn’t have been increasing CO2!!
If they were not constant, and CO2 fluctuates within a greater range naturally-which is what caused the “abrupt climate shifts in the warm climate back then”-surely today’s fluctuation could be natural.
So…it appears that he is saying that “naturally occurring rises/fluctuations in CO2” would cause climate changes that are DIFFERENT -would not behave in the same way- as human caused CO2 rises/fluctuations right? (cover his butt either way right?) BUT if that is true, then -how do they get away with “predicting” anything at all? Since human CO2 is a modern and “unnatural” state that has never occurred before, AND it will cause changes that are different from all other “natural” changes….we cannot possibly know WHAT it will do! It might cause the reverse to happen…or nothing at all to happen…but it cannot possibly behave in the same way as…so all predictions to this point have been mere conjecture and are false because how “natural “CO2 behaves in a lab will be different than how HUMAN CO2 in the atmosphere behaves.
I love it when scientists actually undermine other aspects of “science” with their studies and conclusions! I also love it when they cross talk themselves into several corners by contradicting themselves.
They seem very certain about “the climate that we are heading towards”.
Evidence? (Not opinion, model results or guesswork.)
From the article: “We have to go very far back into the geological history of the Earth to find a climate that is as warm as what we are heading towards. ”
Yeah, we have to go clear back to the 1930’s to find a climate warmer than it is today.
Or maybe it looks more like this:
the picture needs a “you are here” arrow.
The statistical implications are enormous. 100 years of climate science statistics down the drain.
“Dynamical systems in nature exhibit self-similar fractal space-time fluctuations
on all scales indicating long-range correlations and therefore the statistical
normal distribution with implicit assumption of independence, fixed mean and
standard deviation cannot be used for description and quantification of fractal
data sets.”
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1002/1002.3230.pdf
Fred
You are right. In nonlinear chaotic systems with signature fractal pattern, the mean is meaningless! That is what Ed Lorenz showed with DNF63. It does have huge implications which have an above average chance of being ignored.
Lets shout that out a again bit louder
therefore the statistical normal distribution with implicit assumption of independence, fixed mean and
standard deviation cannot be used for description and quantification of fractal data sets.
Yeap!!! This is a mathematical PROOF, indeed. And this MUST BE the message to be spread for stopping that IPCC scrap and waste of time + money. Also linear analysis (by regression, moving average or other smoothing techniques, etc.) on time series with a chaotic/fractal signature does not make any sense: the result depends on your initial moment and the length of the time window considered. Exactly what puzzles mainstream climatologists, no? Even the concept of “forcing” and the one of “anomalies” make no sense. Those are really basic methodological mistakes that undermine all the “mainstream” analysis of climate science (?). but this is another story.
So if climate behaves like a fractal, then there are sudden drastic changes with only tiny changes to inputs (contributors). This seems reasonable. It isn’t random at all – if its fractal-like then it has strong patterns. This also seems reasonable.
The questions remain what drives the sudden changes. It seems reasonable that out of hundreds of influences only a few contributors, each possibly make up of several influences (so a group would be several influences that together change one important input so acting as a single contributor on whole) actually drive the patterns.
If what I speculated is true, then almost CERTAINLY CO2 cannot be a contributor – it can be no more than an influence – otherwise we would have seen a drastic change in climate, and we haven’t – only gradual changes.
I keep finding myself going back to the Little Ice Age and asking why so strong and why then and why not now?
Either sunlight changed (intensity or maybe intensity of certain frequencies) or Atmosphere changed (aerosols, particles, clouds), or perhaps something less obvious such as wind or water currents.
If wind and/or water currents change in fractal-like patterns over time, it would mean man would have almost no impact to future climate shifts – it will happen despite any changes we make. All we could do is raise average temperatures a few degrees during the next ice age – a good thing I think.
If its chaotic it doesn’t even need minor changes to head off in a new direction, it can do that all by itself.
I think that is what a lot of people find hard to grasp, that a totally deterministic system can end up behaving as if it were totally random, within certain limits, just on account of non linearity and time delayed feednback.
Robert, your comment:
“… then almost CERTAINLY CO2 cannot be a contributor – it can be no more than an influence – otherwise we would have seen a drastic change in climate, and we haven’t – only gradual changes.”
reminded me of a post on WUWT some time ago (2012 – wow how time flys!) by Dr. Brown aka rgb@duke that touched on this. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/09/strange-new-attractors-strong-evidence-against-both-positive-feedback-and-catastrophe/
In that post Dr. Brown made the following observation:
“In an open system in a locally stable phase, the oscillations (fluctuations) couple to the dissipation so that more fluctuation makes more dissipation — negative feedback. If this is not true, the locally stable phase is not stable.
This is a strong argument against catastrophe! The point is that given that CO_2 is making only small, slow, local shifts of the attractors compared to the large shifts of the system between the attractors, if there was a point where the system was likely to fall over to a much warmer stable point — the “catastrophe” threatened by the warmists — it almost certainly would have already done it, as the phase oscillations over the last ten thousand years have on numerous occasions made it as warm as it is right now.
The fact that this has not happened is actually enormously strong evidence against both positive feedback and catastrophe. Yes, anthropogenic CO_2 may have shifted all the attractor temperatures a bit higher, it may have made small rearrangements of the attractors, but there is no evidence that suggests that it is probably going to suddenly create at new attractor far outside of the normal range of variation already visible in the climate record. Is it impossible? Of course not. But it is not probable.”
I think you (and others) would find the post interesting. It certainly relates to this thread.
“It is not plausible” FIFY?
In a fractal, extreme events are much more common that we would predict from a coin toss or roll of the dice. As a result, when we try and apply every day observations to climate we are misled into thinking things are abnormal or extreme.
In a coin toss it makes no difference if the last toss was heads or tails. The chance of heads or tails remains the same. However, in climate if yesterday was warm, today is more likely to be warm as well. If last year was warm, this year is more likely to be warm as well.
This makes it much more likely that temperature will swing to extremes due to natural variability than what we normally expect from chance. Thus we are misled by experience to assume that something other than chance must be the cause.
Try ozone in the stratosphere, which drives stratospheric temperature and wind strength. The ozone concentration is highly susceptable to small changes in incoming solar radiation.
Go to Earl happs blog called reality. He has lots to say on ozone.
Maybe we were mislead by inexperience…
A mind map showing the complexity of the climate system, with its many (non linear and delayed) feedback loops https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/56918808/meta-model%20climate.pptx. “Don’t shoot the pianist”; any positie comemnt, critic suggestion is welcome
Well, it’s less complicated than the Affordable Care Act (Obama Care).
Your new health system: flow chart
http://therealrevo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/descriptionobamacarechart.jpg
very funny.;;;;; but did you even try to see what is on the mind map I sent over…..and comment. Or is this intelelctually too difficult for you?
That’s the simplified map.
A good start on a very complex issue, if that weren’t enough you need at least a third dimension for time so the gears will mesh.
My intention was to inject a little humor, not to offend. My apology.
😉 I understood this very well. My answer was trying to boost the discussion on the structure of this mind map. Trying to get a “consensus” on it.
Btw: this is also humor of course….
I am a businessman, not a scientist. I do have extensive experience in flowcharting for business systems development and mind mapping for route cause analysis. I do have a general understanding of what you are doing with your chart. My not being technically proficient that is probably a good thing. I can offer you the following:
I would describe your effort as more of a flow chart.
Shapes & sizes have meaning in a flow chart, yours seem more dependent on the amount of text or text size.
Perhaps a legend for the different connectors?
Sometimes several page connectors to subprocesses can be less confusing than trying to fit everything one one page. Also allows more detail to be shown. Keep only the most basic and influential information on the main page.
Avoid connectors crossing over other connectors and processes (boxes). Organize processes on your chart to avoid this. It will also make it easier to understand.
I will leave the science to those more capable.
Many thanks for your presentation tips. This figure is just a “rough” tentative to summarize the information flowing around the AGW debate on a single PowerPoint sheet.. Indeed each “concept” on this mind map is itself a very complicated chart. More sophisticated software (i;e. Pajek, Gephi or even Decison Explorer) allow more accurate 3D representations and analysis of the structure of a complex system (connectivity, clusters, (in)direct feedback loops, drivers and outcomes, influencing power, etc.). But I just wanted to share here a kind of “helicopter view” of the Climate system, and get some validation / infirmation of its structure by people supposed to follow this debate from very close.. But not so many want to play the game, so far, apparently..
” We have to go very far back into the geological history of the Earth to find a climate that is as warm as what we are heading towards ” …..Ummmmmmm…700 years ago it was hotter than today ! ( MWP )..I hardly call that a long time since the Earth’s climate has been changing for 4.5 BILLION years !
Whoooa dude! Now I see it, the change in climate.
That’s one pixellated pussy!
There’s a touch of the Naomi Klein about it I think.
watch specially the marginal and relatively unconnected “anthropogenic” box…. And some warmists think they can drive this system by promoting carbon taxes and other market mechanism. Also: how significant is (anthropic) CO2 in this global picture? and how far can it influence the key drivers: cosmic rays and planetary gravity & electromagnetic forces. Watch also the central position of heat and mass transfer between ocean and atmosphere….essntially unknown. “The (climatic) science is NOT settled”
I make here reference to the tentative mind map for the climate system (with his many delayed (in)direct feedback loops.: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/56918808/meta-model%20climate.pptx A puzzle assembled from different hypotheses, each as credible as the AGW one; and NOT contradicted by experimental evidence
Fractals are a mathematical property of recursive systems. They do not have to be generated by classical mathematical chaos, a subset of recursive systems where Xsubt=f(Xsubt-1). (Strictly, any nonlinear dynamic system is chaotic. Nonlinear = feedback means recursive. Dynamic = lagged feedback.) The Mandelbrot set is a famous example of a fractal recursive but nonchaotic system. Every Mandelbrot set generator always produces the same set no matter the space starting point or degree of resolution.
AR3 correctly said climate is chaotic. (Proof: water vapor feedback is not instantaneous.) So the fractal property of climate was theoretically inherent. Gets to the boundary conditions versus initial conditions argument about climate model envelopes. Perhaps this new work statistically teased climate fractal dimension out of the temperature records and paleoclimate proxies. Lets study the paper and have some mathematicians and statisticians weigh in.
Everything in nature happens as soon as it physically can happen: then something else happens.
Nothing in Nature waits for something else to happen first. Nothing, even is aware that it is waiting for something else to happen; how could it know.
(c) defines how fast the next thing to happen can happen.
G
A fire happens as soon as the forest can burn. No need to wait for an arsonist.
There are three N. Hemisphere’s events, all of similar form, all affecting the hemisphere’s climate, but all ‘travel’ in time at different velocities.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NAM.pdf
+1
How about an engineer, please see comment at 1224 pm, below.
As I read the paper, they use data from a specified period to estimate parameters for a longer period as quoted below. Standard practice in estimating future occurrences with probability distributions, i.e. flood peaks in rivers.
Now wait a dog gone minute. Are these people saying, in a published paper, that there are other factors that drive the climate besides CO2? Shazzam Andy! One wonders how this one slipped through the net.
Now, just because they see fractal behavior does not tell us that there has never been impacts or other major events in the 4.5 billion year history of earth climate. I would also point out that there may be many factors impacting climate that we have not even thought of — not even suspected.
So they confirm what the IPCC wrote in the Third Assessment report (TAR) that,
“In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”
This means every single penny spent on the IPCC and all other attempts at prediction are a completely futile and delusional waste of money. The TAR comment does not say the science is settled, however it does say the science at least as far as prediction is concerned, cannot be settled.
exactly…
It keeps a lot of would-be “climate scientists” off the street and out of the bars, too.
A phase plan analysis of the Vostok data shwing the existence of two strange attractors; another signature of the chaotic nature of the climate data: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/56918808/Phase%20plan%20Vostok.docx
The article is Open Access at Nature
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160316/ncomms10951/full/ncomms10951.html
It’s the eighties, all over again! Cold fusion will be next.