Socialized Health Care in the USA

[--Pete]

Hi,

If the system really was chaotic, then sensitive dependence on initial conditions would make what you just said impossible, no?

No. A chaotic system is one in which small changes in initial conditions *can* cause huge changes in the results. However, a chaotic system is not a *random* system. In a random system, the same initial conditions can yield different results, in a chaotic system, that does not happen. (EDIT): In a chaotic system it is often (usually, I'd say) the case that over some range of an input parameter, the output would change by a reasonable amount. However, there exists 'breakpoints' and as the parameter passes through a neighborhood around these breakpoints, the output changes dramatically. Then, often, there is another region of relative stability. (/EDIT)

I think you're overstating the case for a chaotic system here. We might not be able to predict the precise effects of any forcing, but are you really saying that we don't even know that doubling atmospheric CO2 concentrations would cause warming, to within a few degrees Celsius, at least?

That's exactly what I'm saying. Consider; an increase in CO2 concentration causes warming. Warming causes ice pack melting. Ice pack, being mostly fresh water, causes the density of the North Atlantic to decrease. The density of the North Atlantic could become less than the density of the warm waters carried north by the Gulf Stream. That possibly slows or even stops the Atlantic currents. That means a net reduction in temperature for high latitudes (even if the overall temperature of the Earth increases -- a greater gradient between the poles and the equatorial region), which could lead to massive glaciation. Massive glaciation would increase the albedo of the Earth, leading to overall cooling, and instead of a warm period, an ice age occurs. I can't speak for the models being used today (although I've seen no big announcements of breakthroughs in the models), but the models of twenty years ago would give *any* result from a snow ball to a hell planet depending on *small* adjustments to a few coefficients.

That's the facts -- draw what conclusions make you happy from them. For me, I think we should clean up our collective act and make the air, the ground, and the water better. I'm not sure that we should break the bank doing it.

--Pete