Posted On: Saturday - December 10th 2016 1:31PM MST
In Topics: Global Climate Stupidity
Let me try to put down a substantial point here to defend my Global Climate DisruptionTM denialism, or "distruptophobia", as some may put it.
A mathematical model, almost always simulated on a computer nowadays, is a set of many equations that represent mathematical processes, sophisticated solving software, and constraints on the input and output values. It is one thing to model one process, say, an RC electrical circuit, flow through a piping network, bending in a beam, or conduction heat transfer through a wall. These, in fact, wouldn't really even be called "models", as they are just normal engineering calculations.
It gets harder when one (engineer or scientist) solves a problem involving values being determined vary over space and time. These types of problems have been solved by hand in the distant past, and by computer programs since, via methods that break out the process involved into a system of linear equations that can be solved together, constrained by other equations that represent some limits.
That is one thing. Now, try putting a few different processes together in these type of models. Firstly, if there are slight uncertainties in the outputs of the math representing each of the processes, then things will get much more uncertain when it is put together. Secondly, even if the individual parts are very solid and confirmed via experimentation, when put together the answers to the big problem can still be garbage due to the fact that there are unknown processes existing, that would have had to have been modeled for the overall thing to be close to working. It's not easy.
I will break this up. The next post will be an aside about the difference between weather and climate. Then I will continue where I left it here.
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