Edward Lorenz: Why the Nonlinear Nature of the Equations That Govern Earth's Weather and Climate Make IPCC Global Warming Predictions Nonsense
Global warming climate models are typically doomed to produce predetermined results built into the model by the presumptions and prejudice of the climate scientists who created the model.
Excerpt from my book The Truth About Energy, Global Warming, and Climate Change: Exposing Climate Lies in an Age of Disinformation
The unpredictability factor in Lorenz’s chaos theory of weather was not limited to the Butterfly Effect. Yes, the mathematics of measurement made it impossible to avoid minor differences from nature in the starting values of the computer climate model. But there is also the Strange Attractor Effect that means no two weather events—no two rainstorms or snowstorms, no two hurricanes or tornadoes, no two volcanoes or asteroids hitting Earth—no two predictably operate the same. Yet, we can identify rainstorms, snowstorms, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and a host of other weather events as repeating patterns. That is how weather patterns form what we call “climate.” But Lorenz was brilliant in using nonlinear differential equations in his original 1963 paper.
In a nonlinear equation, a change in one variable can produce various changes in other variables as the model is applied at different times or even as the model goes through multiple iterations in the analysis at hand. A nonlinear climate system is dynamic. To understand this point, we have to begin by explaining how linear equations work. That will set the stage for understanding how nonlinear equations are different.
In a linear mathematical model, we expect initial conditions, symbolized as I1, to produce predictable initial results, represented as R1. We go to the following period, such as I2 R2, with subsequent periods represented as I3 R3, and so forth through all model iterations. An example demonstrating why the IPCC logic regarding their case for global warming should make clear the IPCC predicates its case on linear equations. So, we assume that in I1, we burn hydrocarbon fuels, with the result that in R1, we get increased CO2 emitted into the atmosphere. Then in I2, the CO2 in the atmosphere becomes a greenhouse gas, with the result that in R2, we get an increase in global temperatures, i.e., global warming. The logic of global warming hysterics is that burning hydrocarbon fuels adds CO2 to the atmosphere in at least an arithmetic manner, such that the CO2 emitted in I1 plus I2 results in R1 CO2 plus R2 CO2. In other words, CO2 builds as a percentage of the atmosphere arithmetically as we continue to burn hydrocarbon fuels. Similarly, global warming hysterics believe the global warming produced by the CO2 is also an additive process, such that more CO2 admitted increases global temperatures arithmetically.
Now let’s apply the logic of nonlinear equations to demonstrate the logic flaw in the IPCC global warming model. Suppose Lorenz is correct and global climate, as is the case with global weather, is a nonlinear process. In a nonlinear mathematical model, we expect initial conditions, symbolized as I1, to produce predictable initial results, represented as R1. But when we go to the following period, we do not expect to get the same effect from the exact same cause. Thus, in a nonlinear model, instead of getting I2 R2, we get I2 Rx, with “x” being an unpredictable outcome different from the expected R2. Subsequent periods represented in the nonlinear model will produce I3 Ry, and so forth through all model iterations. A nonlinear model is what screenplay author Winston Groom had in mind when Forrest Gump contemplated a box of chocolates. Forrest Gump explained, “My mama always said, ‘Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.’”
Given the logic of nonlinear mathematical models, we can no longer assume that burning hydrocarbon fuels adds CO2 to the atmosphere in an arithmetic manner. In a nonlinear model, I1 may add R1 CO2 to the atmosphere. But in I2, the amount of CO2 emitted may be the same as in I1, but the amount of CO2 added to the atmosphere will be Rx, a different amount of total CO2 in the atmosphere than what would be expected from an additive process. Why does this happen? The answer is that because the weather and the climate are dynamic systems. As I1 transitioned to I2, Earth may have begun absorbing more of the emitted CO2 into the oceans or into Earth itself. We have noted earlier that weather events on Earth are part of a climate thermometer built into its weather/climate systems. The main purpose of weather events and climate patterns on Earth is to distribute heat as evenly as possible around the planet.
Please do not assume Earth is trying to maintain a temperature suitable or comfortable for human life. Earth, quite frankly, does not necessarily care about human beings. Remember, we have seen five near-total extinctions of life on Earth in geological time. To the planet, human beings are just another life form here for the time being. Earth’s weather/climate system operates to distribute heat around the globe in an equal manner regardless what creatures happen to be living on the planet at any given time in geologic history. There are limits to how successful Earth is in distributing heat because of various events outside Earth’s ability to control by the override and distribution functions built into Earth’s naturally operating weather/climate thermostat. During both glacial and interglacial periods, ror instance, Earth’s weather/climate thermometer functions to distribute heat as evenly as possible around the globe. Even when Earth experiences an ice age, the planet’s weather/climate system still functions to distribute heat around the planet. But when Earth is in the grip of an ice age, Earth temperatures are obviously at a lower average level than when Earth is in an interglacial warming period.
In a nonlinear model, global warming theorists are incorrect to assume CO2 is also an additive process, such that more CO2 admitted increases global temperatures arithmetically. By thinking that continued burning of hydrocarbon fuels will increase Earth’s temperatures by more than 1.5°C above preindustrial levels by 2030 or 2050 at the latest, the IPCC makes the mistake of assuming Earth’s climate is a linear system and that CO2 emissions into the atmosphere are additive. The truth is that we do not know why CO2 levels on Earth are where they are today, other than to conclude that CO2 levels are where Earth’s thermometer regulates CO2 to be. As we have noted, the planet is currently in an interglacial period. Earth has no emotional reaction regarding whether it is good or bad to be in a glacial or an interglacial period. Similarly, Earth has no value position on whether having more or less CO2 in the atmosphere is right or wrong morally. But the dynamic climate Earth has, the nonlinear mathematics of Earth’s weather/climate system, can operate equally well with different results even when outside forces (like, for instance, variations in solar activity or intergalactic supernova activity) force dramatic warming or cooling changes in the overall average temperature of the planet.
The bottom-line driving force result of higher CO2 content in the atmosphere is today that plant growth is stimulated and Earth is greener. Why? Because we are in an interglacial warming period and there is more solar irradiance hitting Earth’s surface to mix with more CO2 in the atmosphere. These are the exact conditions needed to stimulate plant photosynthesis processes. If we were in a glacial period, higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations would not equally stimulate plant growth because there is less TSI in an ice age.
Thus, the interaction of essential weather variables like temperature or CO2 in the atmosphere can produce unpredictable reactions in other variables. Here is how Lorenz described the phenomenon:
There remains the reasonably well established observation that weather variations are not periodic. Of course they have periodic components, the most obvious ones being the warming and cooling that occur with the passage of the seasons of the year or the hours of the day. Careful measurements have also detected weak signals with a lunar period, probably gravitational effects, and there is virtually no limit to the number of periods that investigators have claimed to have discovered. Some of these have been stated to several decimal places. Nevertheless, if we take an extended record of temperature or some other weather variable and subtract out all verified or suspected periodic components, we are left with a strong irregular signal. Migratory storms that cross the oceans and continents are still present in full force. These are presumably manifestations of chaos.1
Lorenz finally concluded the atmosphere itself is chaotic. He summed up by saying the following: “For one special complicated chaotic system—the global weather—the attractor is simply the climate, that is, the set of weather patterns that have at least some chances of occasionally occurring.”2 Earth’s atmosphere permits it to have both weather and climate, with the climate being nothing more than weather patterns. First, the complexity of the planet’s weather/climate systems is as such that there are so many different acting variables, including oceans, clouds, water vapor, etc. But also, the complexity of the systems are nonlinear, such that even the same weather/climate configurations of independent variables do not produce predictable outcomes of dependent variables. For example, the same factors that create a hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean at one time may not create a hurricane in the Atlantic in a different period. Why? The answer is because some other independent variable interacted. Perhaps the Atlantic currents were warmer or colder in one or other periods, and the ocean temperature affected the cloud and wind factors required to create a hurricane.
The consequences of Lorenz’s work were to produce a paradigm shift in our understanding of weather and climate. The consequences of that paradigm shift are enormous. Yes, the governments of the world could force decarbonization according to the dictates of the IPCC. The governments of the world could even go so far as to criminalize the burning of hydrocarbon fuels. Such policy decisions would have an impact on Earth’s weather and climate. But to assume we can accurately predict the outcome of decarbonization is ridiculous. IPCC adherents assume decarbonization will reduce CO2 atmospheric concentrations and keep global temperatures from getting warmer. But it may not turn out that way, regardless of how many Hockey Stick graphs Michael Mann fabricates.
Before we move on, we need to stress one additional point. Lorenz’s analysis also allows us to understand that extreme weather events like floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes are not only not entirely predictable but also not wholly avoidable. Extreme weather events are part of Earth’s safety-valve mechanism for taking the drastic measures needed to regulate the planet’s temperature, as dictated by the operation of its nonlinear climate system. Global warming climate models are typically doomed to produce predetermined results built into the model by the presumptions and prejudice of the climate scientists who created the model. Given the complexity of variables in Earth’s climate system and the nonlinear manner in which the independent and dependent variables interact, it is hard to imagine that a computer model could ever predict Earth’s weather or climate accurately. To most people, that result will appear counterintuitive. But when we realize that unpredictability is an inherent feature of nonlinear mathematical models, we can appreciate why the attempt to model the weather or the climate on a computer is futile, no matter how powerful the computer might be.
1 Ibid., p. 86.
2 Ibid., p. 50.