Weather will still happen, whether or not it fits inside our conceptual boxes - even if we can never forecast it scientifically (if science is defined in terms of Popper´s falsifiability criterion), as chaos theory has demonstrated. It seems that the scientific method, as currently understood, may be permanently incompetent to deal with weather - and hence climate - definitively in anything but the short term. It´s very reliable nowadays in the short term, though, because the variables have more or less stabilised into patterns for that period. But as with all complex systems (even deterministic systems), a tiny perturbation in initial conditions can lead to dramatic differences later. The famous phrase used to describe this is “the butterfly effect” - the butterfly´s wingflaps generating a snowballing series of effects culminating in a tornado! And yet, every day, we cause massive depredations of the biosphere. So some people have asked - “hey, if tiny perturbations can cause massive changes in the weather, isn´t it possible that massive perturbations could engender changes in the climate?”

I consider that weather forecasting, due to the fuzziness of the existing conditions and the declining probability of accuracy through time, has much more to tell us about ‘knowing´ how to deal with practicalities of life in general than it is generally given credit for. We evolved to survive in complex systems - not just the weather. The weather today: go outside, have a look. It´s not raining! Ask your friend, Faith. She says it´s not raining too. Ask your cat. His response is radically different from what it would be if it were raining - he goes outside with you. Ask your grandpa; he gets all grumpy about being bothered with stupid questions. Ask a meteorologist; she goes out, test the atmospheric humidity etc, comes back, and it´s conclusive: IT IS NOT RAINING!

You have just carried out a process by which science advances, according to Kuhn. To find out if something is true, give an exemplary injunction - if you do this, that will happen - if you go outside, you will see that it´s not raining. Then there´s the apprehension stage - your friend, your cat, your grumpy old grandpa and the meteorologist all go outside. Then there´s the confirmation; they come back, none of them damp, and say it´s not raining. Injunction + apprehension + confirmation = scientific method (? - see chapter 3).

Next, you ask - “will it rain tomorrow?” At this stage, the cat decides that it´s time for dinner. Your grandpa says that his rheumatism is playing up, and it always does like this before it rains, so, yes, it will rain tomorrow. Faith says ‘red sky in the morning, sailor´s warning; red sky at night, sailor´s delight´. It´s a red sky - the folk wisdom and grandpa´s rheumatism have a different forecast! The meteorologist takes this question really to heart. She goes through all the right procedures, she calls her colleagues at the weather bureau, and reports; it will not rain tomorrow, probability 0.9.

Tomorrow comes, and she is right - it doesn´t rain. Grandpa wanders off, muttering something about newfangled notions of cheeky young whippersnappers and how things were better in his day. The cat is out of the process of discovery, too. You´re delighted and astonished, but you then ask your friend and the meteorologist - “will it rain in a week´s time?” Your friend says “well, it may, but it´s not the right time of year for rain, so I´ll guess that it isn´t going to rain”. The meteorologist, on the other hand, takes the matter very seriously. Calls go again to the bureau; calls go from the bureau to other bureaus. Computers hum, satellites transmit; the answer comes! “Well, we don´t know for sure, and we don´t all agree upon our interpretation of the data, but we reckon that there´s a sixty percent probability that it will rain, so we´re going with that. It will rain.”

And it does. Well done, meteorologist! Champagne corks pop, and everyone, including grandpa and the cat, have a merry time. Until, a bit in your cups, your blurt out “what about this time next year?”

Whoa. Butterflies. Faith and the meteorologist are back at the same level. According to the seasons, it shouldn´t rain. But this isn´t good enough for the meteorologist. Deep-seated feelings of inadequacy emerge, and clutching her third bottle of scotch she walks out into the rain singing “Isha Long Shway to Tipperary”.

So her depth of knowledge of a subject prevailed over more limited knowledge in its predictive capacity, but only to that depth´s limits. This takes us back to Kohlberg´s observations:

1. Stage development is invariant. The meteorologist is at a more advanced stage of understanding the weather than anyone else, and beyond trivial levels her opinion is therefore both more accurate and more valuable than anyone else´s.

2. In stage development, subjects cannot comprehend . . . reasoning at a stage more than one stage beyond their own. Grandpa went off muttering about newfangled and whippersnappers.

3. In stage development individuals are cognitively attracted to reasoning one level above their own present predominant level. “Wow, how did she do that?”

4. In stage development, movement through the stages is effected when cognitive disequilibrium is created, that is, when a person's cognitive outlook is not adequate to cope with a given . . . dilemma. It is not a free lunch. It took a lot of work to get to the meteorologist´s stage.

Re this fourth observation in our parable: there can be a hierarchical collapse, a regression such as that experienced by the meteorologist, if the challenge is too great (Csikszentmihalyi). But let´s imagine that, a few days later she got herself together again, and went on to achieve international renown for an important discovery in meteorology. That, thanks to her, predictive capacity a week ahead can now be significantly ‘firmed up´ to seventy percent.

Then, at the celebration, you asked her what the weather would be like on that date ten years hence. So now, you are about to undergo surgery for removal of broken glass and other foreign bodies from several portions of your anatomy. “Why me?”, you ask. After all, you were only trying to lead her into a discussion on global warming! As you drift off blissfully under the anaesthetic, you get a vision of Socrates repeating “the world is full of opinions, but completely empty of knowledge” to which you respond “about what?”, and Socrates replies - but when you wake up you can´t remember a single thing he said! So you are left to discern by yourself how much we know about global warming, and how much is only opinion.

Three Views on Climate in the Long Term.

Let us briefly, superficially, scan the knowledge and opinions on each point. For those who wish to take the matter deeper, I have referenced a few of the many links available on the subject on the net.

View 1.    Earth is warming, and it´s our fault!

This has become the politically correct, conventional wisdom, view. That doesn´t make it right or wrong by itself.

The most succinct argument I have found on the net is an article from The San Diego Earth Times of May 1999 (Mazza & Roth, 1999).Kindly click on the following link:

There are lots of other indicators that could be cited. For example, parts of the Maldives no longer exist, and other low-lying islands such as Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands report similar problems. Moreover, “the present rise in sea levels merely reflects the relatively minor global warming of decades ago. . . it cannot be slowed down in anything less than a few millennia” (Lean).

Although alleged to be influenced by the hole in the ozone layer (higher energy wavelengths from the sun entering the atmosphere), the most significant cause of global warming is thought to be increased carbon dioxide levels, significantly contributed to by several human activities. The trend over the last 100 years is charted in Trenberth´s paper:

View 2.    Earth is not warming; but even if it is, we didn´t do it!

Note that the above quote from Mazza & Roth does not say that there is a scientific consensus; it refers to the “emerging” scientific consensus. But is it emerging? Some say that it´s a dying consensus! One opponent to the above view began with the observation by H.L. Mencken that “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed - and hence clamorous to be led to safety - by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”(Milloy, S.J., 1998). He then went on to cite an array of good environmental news, mainly from the USA. There are other ‘good news´ reports from other countries, too.

I cannot go deeply into the whys and wherefores of the debate in this paper, but cite the Leipzig Declaration and the Oregon Institute Petition below to drive home the point that science just does not (and, I assert, by itself, can never) “Know” in “hard knowledge” terms about something as complex as this. For example, in Trenberth´s (disputed) graph above, we are still only talking about a carbon dioxide rise of less than 100 parts per million - one atom more in ten thousand atoms - in over 130 years! “So what?”, ask some with this point of view. “So plenty!”, say those of view one. I have little doubt that there are expert, sincerely held views on both sides.

As scientists, we - along with our fellow citizens - are intensely interested in the possibility that human activities may affect the global climate; indeed, land clearing and urban growth have been changing local climates for centuries. Historically, climate has always been a factor in human affairs - with warmer periods, such as the medieval "climate optimum", playing an important role in economic expansion and in the welfare of nations that depend primarily on agriculture. For these reasons we must always remain sensitive to activities that could affect future climate.

Attention has recently been focused on the increasing emission of "greenhouse" gases into the atmosphere. International discussions by political leaders are currently underway that could constrain energy use and mandate reductions in carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. Although we understand the motivation to eliminate what are perceived to be the driving forces behind a potential climate change, we believe this approach may be dangerously simplistic. Based on the evidence available to us, we cannot subscribe to the so-called "scientific consensus" that envisages climate catastrophes and advocates hasty actions.

As the debate unfolds, it has become increasingly clear that - contrary to conventional wisdom - there does not exist today a general scientific consensus about the importance of greenhouse warming from rising levels of carbon dioxide. On the contrary, most scientists now accept the fact that actual observations from earth satellites show no climate warming whatsoever. And to match this fact, the mathematical climate models are becoming more realistic and are forecasting temperature increases that are only 30 percent of what was considered the "best" value just four years ago.

We consider the Global Climate Treaty concluded in Rio de Janeiro at the 1992 "Earth Summit" to be unrealistic; its goal is stabilization of atmospheric greenhouse gases, which requires that fuel use be cut by 60-80 percent worldwide! Energy is essential for all economic growth, and fossil fuels provide today's principal global energy source. In a world in which poverty is the greatest social pollutant, any restriction on energy use that inhibits economic growth should be viewed with caution. For this reason, we consider "carbon taxes" and other drastic control policies - lacking credible support from the underlying science - to be ill-advised, premature, wrought with economic danger, and likely to be counterproductive.

We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto. ... The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing (or will in the foreseeable future cause) catastrophic heating of the earth's atmosphere and disruption of the earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the earth.

Another critic of the first view begins the article “Desperate Measures to Support a Dying Paradigm” by noting Kuhn´s comments from The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to the effect that “most scientists try to provide evidence shoring up the existing paradigm. . . When the inconsistencies become too challenging keepers of the paradigm resort to increasingly ornate and bizarre explanations” The article states “we think that´s happening in global warming”. It ends the article by stating an important point for this paper:

“We are rapidly approaching a point where we merely form hypotheses (i.e. run computer models) without bothering to check them for factuality. We are not far from blaming the data for not showing the signal that the models say they should. This is the end of global warming “science” if models (hypotheses) cannot be checked by data and reality. Call it cyberphilosophy, call it applied mathematics, but don´t call it science. . . The highest of the (temperature trend[s] in the low- to mid-atmosphere from various available records) is not even one-half of the value the climate models predict. Most are actually very close to zero. . . We await the upcoming bizarre explanation”

(World Climate Report, at
http://www.nhes.com/current_issue/feature.html .)

The splenetic tone of these refutations of the ‘politically correct´ view may lead some to wonder if their timing could have something to do with the hip-pocket nerve of powerful interests being struck by the Kyoto Accord. In the words of Mazza & Roth (2) - “ is scientific evidence [of global warming] really lacking or, like the debate over smoking and lung cancer, are opponents cloaking ideology and economic self-interest in outdated science?” A counter-accusation - that scare-mongering is a great way to get funds to continue research - can also be entertained by the fair-minded. But - how are all these accusations and counter-accusations to be weighed in the decision-making process?

My own recommendation is given in chapter three. To ‘clear the ground´ for that, however, if there is any ‘bad´ or ‘junk´ science on either side of this debate, there are established means for its identification. To assert that the scientific method alone cannot always provide answers (as I have in chapter one), is not to give any excuse for impugning the credibility of whatever answers science can provide. Within the (very wide) ambit of science, there is much truth in the adage that the only cure for bad science is more (and better) science. And three things to be wary of, to ‘fish out´ as compromising the credibility of a stance, were pointed out by Charles Babbage (1792-1871) - the ‘grandfather of the computer´ - as long ago as 1830. Look out for:

1. Trimming: the smoothing out of irregularities to make the data look extremely accurate and precise;

2. Cooking: retaining only those results which fit the theory, and discarding others

3. Forging: inventing some or all of the research data that are reported, and even reporting experiments to obtain those data which were never performed.

(Ekkehard)

All three of these approaches have been considerably developed and refined since Babbage´s day, and are often subtle and difficult to detect. That process would presumably form a fundamental part of the approach I recommend in chapter three.

View 3.    We are about to have a catastrophic climate change, which could destroy us, and it´s our fault!

This view - or, more correctly, collection of views - is currently far less widely known than either of the above two positions, and as yet accepted by very few. However, I shall take some time to explain it, because it exemplifies many of the points of this paper, and its approach is more consistent with the general approach I have been submitting than either of the above more ‘flatland´ scenarios.

As mentioned in chapter one, one expert in the field of complex systems in general and the human brain in particular is the theoretical neurophysiologist William H. Calvin. He is no millennialist, fundamentalist lunatic: he is a highly respected, hard-nosed professor. Yet in an article for The Atlantic Monthly in January 1998, he began:

“One of the most shocking scientific realizations of all time has slowly been dawning on us: the earth's climate does great flip-flops every few thousand years, and with breathtaking speed. We could go back to ice-age temperatures within a decade. ..Because such a cooling would occur too quickly for us to make readjustments in agricultural productivity and supply, it would be a potentially civilization-shattering affair, likely to cause an unprecedented population crash. . . I hope never to see a failure of the northernmost loop of the North Atlantic Current, because the result would be a population crash that would take much of civilization with it, all within a decade” (italics mine).

(Calvin, 1998 [3])

Calvin´s is not a lone voice; a similar view is presented by other scientists (Adams & Foote, for example). From the historical evidence now accumulated, “there seems to be no way of escaping the conclusion that global climate flips occur frequently and abruptly. An abrupt cooling could happen now, and the world might not warm up again for a long time” (Calvin [3]).

Furthermore, this ‘flip-flop´ process may have already begun. This is implied in an article entitled “Sudden Climate Shifts: Expressions of a Semi-stable System?”, which begins as follows:

“In 1997 and 1998, unusually strong El Niño-driven rains soaked California, ice storms crippled the northeastern US and Canada and severe drought revisited Pacific Island states. Many deaths were reported. Economic losses are counted in billions. Worldwide, anecdotes of dangerous weather abound. Is this run of volatile weather indicative of the climate in a warmer world? To complicate matters, new thinking suggests that global warming could also trigger catastrophic cooling events similar to episodes occurring periodically during the last 250,000 years.”

(Global Change, 1998)

That is, the funny weather we are having may be the beginnings of a phase transition to a different world climate to that we have experienced over recent millennia. And Calvin´s scenario is not the worst case I have uncovered of what could result from such a phase transition.

The end of civilisation “not the worst case”? About now, you should be saying, “Oh, come on!” But, from what level are you saying that? In terms of conventional beliefs and historic precedents? What is so sacred about those? Those refusing to look through Galileo´s telescope doubtless felt exactly the same! Are there any Galileos out there now? If there are, a Theory of Knowledge should help one to discern them from mere “crackpots”.

Another one of Kuhn´s points on scientific revolutions is that paradigm shifts usually come from mavericks (often confused with crackpots by the undiscerning), and not from the establishment -which tries to “provide evidence shoring up the existing paradigm.” So, allow me to present an even more radical scenario. It is certainly a maverick view: is it also a crackpot one? How can your own “Theory of Knowledge” help you to decide?

View 3a    Is Our Biosphere at the Brink of an Even More Catastrophic Phase Shift?

Peter Weis is convinced that it is (Weis, 1998). Much of his hypothesis - and remember that it´s only a hypothesis - emerges from the following fundamental premises:

Phase shifts between the solid/liquid/gas states - of the elements and compounds (water) are an empirical fact.

Water is the cardinal component of our biosphere.

Our whole biosphere undergoes phase shifts - between ice ages and interglacials, and these have now been found to be almost as abrupt as phase shifts at the atomic and molecular level (see “What Drives Glacial Cycles?”, Scientific American, Jan. 1990). In geological terms, the Earth's biosphere ‘flip-flops´ between these two ‘Strata of Stability´.

Weis bases his arguments on what he terms his unified ‘Law of Change & Stability´ - which re-casts the familiar solid/fluid/gaseous phases of matter as intrinsic energy-determined ‘Strata of Stability´.

In his terms, ice ages and interglacials are two different, and entirely energy-determined ‘Strata of Stability´ of our biosphere. Both of these biospheric strata of stability are characterized, like all physical and chemical systems, by an epoch of overall stability containing (essentially chaotic) energy-determined fluctuations. As long as one or the other stratum of stability remains stable, its internal (chaotic - weather) fluctuations remain within the bounds of an overall ‘norm´ (that is, it behaves as a classic chaotic system).

When any (physical, chemical) system approaches a phase shift, its internal (energy-driven) fluctuation first begin to increase in amplitude and frequency, and then exceed the norm, until they begin to exceed the ‘boundaries´ of the existing Stratum of Stability (Prigogine´s ‘Threshold Dynamics´). At this point, the system undergoes an energy-driven phase shift to another ‘state´ -or in Weis´ terms - to another, and often markedly different, ‘Stratum of Stability´.

Weis considers that the current, and progressively escalating, climatic extremes of our biosphere are its ‘Threshold Dynamics´ towards its imminent phase shift to another, new and entirely different ‘Stratum of Stability´ of our biosphere.

His conclusion from this approach? That the imminent phase shift of our biosphere will be to that of an all but life-less ‘desert planet´, bathed in unshielded UVB radiation!

It is a typically human reaction to recoil from horrendous possibilities, or to go into denial - rather as many decent people did with when news of the Nazi-engineered holocaust was emerging. John Locke´s observation that ‘new opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common´ applies to bad news much more than to good. The reaction also occurs in science, as with the initial reactions to meteorites, as with Wegener and plate tectonics. . . Human reactions all, but unscientific, and as history so tragically proves, so often wrong. This unscientific reaction is costing countless lives here and now. Some people here simply refuse to believe that Aids is real, and they are dying of Aids as a consequence.

Weis expands upon his fundamental premise that water is the cardinal component of our biosphere, by arguing that the immense amounts of water normally contained in and under wide-spread terrestrial forests are a major stability factor of the interglacial epochs, as generated by the thermal inertia (stability) of fluid water.

In his view, the recent and current large scale eradication of terrestrial forests robs the continents of much of their capacity to store water, and will result in the large scale desertification of the continents - already well underway.

He points to recent research indicating that terrestrial vegetation (chiefly forests) - not, as in conventional wisdom, the oceans - generate fully 75% of the earth´s CO₂/O₂ cycle, and consequently, it is by far the major generating factor of the earth´s O₂ and hence, O₃ - no oxygen - no ozone.

Weis had first raised his, then novel, contention that terrestrial vegetation and not the oceans is by far the major generating factor of the earth´s CO₂/O₂ cycle in 1988, which, he claims, has been generally and widely confirmed by much recent research since then.

If it can be taken as given that these are now well documented facts, his scenario becomes quite clear. The massive eradication of terrestrial forests is already resulting in the rapid desertification of the continents, and has reached the point where powerful natural reinforcing forces will kick in. The deforested continents are being driven towards the temperature extremes typical of the desert, which will further accelerate the disappearance of terrestrial vegetation. The lack of water once stored in terrestrial forests will further reinforce the eradication of terrestrial vegetation. The scarcity of continental water will also result in vast forest fires and conflagrations as in Borneo recently, further accelerating the eradication of remaining forests and vegetation. The higher diurnal and seasonal temperature differentials of increasingly desertified continents will result in greater atmospheric fluctuation, generating progressively more violent air movement (storms, hurricanes), which will further accelerate the loss of terrestrial vegetation, and consequently, water.

However catastrophic such phenomena are already proving, Weis claims that there is a far more serious potential consequence now emerging.

Since terrestrial vegetation is the major producer of O2, the large scale loss of terrestrial vegetation will first result in a progressive loss of ozone, and consequently, in the increase of hard UVB radiation. This will further accelerate the denuding of the continents, as the UVB radiation first burns away the tender new growth of all vegetation, and with increasing strength, virtually every remaining living thing. This will result in the rapid loss of all terrestrial vegetation. As vegetation is fundamental to all other life more complex than itself, this will result in the extinction of all life forms dependent upon it, including us.

If Weis´s hypothesis is correct, the end result will be a lifeless desert planet bathed in full UVB radiation, scoured by endless violent sand storms, under an atmosphere containing about 5% free oxygen. Earth would then be a better match with its neighbours, Mars and Venus. And, Weis states, the Threshold Dynamics of this phase shift are happening now.

On this scenario, only primitive fermenting organism in deep, UVB sheltered places will survive on the continents; and only marine organisms capable of existing 10 metres below the UVB radiation drenched surface will survive in the oceans. Will the oceans save us? Water certainly appears to be a necessary precondition for the emergence and survival of complex life forms, but not a sufficient one. An ozone umbrella (of an undetermined screening capacity) may be another such precondition, but for trivial exceptions.

Weis maintains that we have a rapidly shrinking ‘window of opportunity´ to reverse these dynamics, by rapidly re-greening the continents on a massive planetary scale. This window will remain open only as long as vegetation is still able to grow and thrive on the continents. After that, he says, we will have reached the point of no return, and these dynamics, already well underway, will then be irreversible.

At my ‘layman´ level, Weis´s arguments sound plausible (the least plausible part being the previous paragraph). His scenario not only fits all the facts as we know them today, but, and unlike all other currently accepted explanations, it also accounts for the substantial thinning of the ozone layer over the northern hemisphere´s mid-latitudes, as well as its seasonal variations (due to the deciduous components of terrestrial vegetation).

As ‘outrageous’ as Weis’ hypothesis may seem, unlike the other hypotheses he claims to have correctly predicted the current escalating climatic extremes as early as 1985, long before they were apparent. And while he can offer no independent proof of having made these predictions in 1985, he has posted proof on his web sites of having made these predictions as long ago as 1990 - also just before the escalating climatic extremes became apparent.

To me - I repeat, as a layman in these areas - the first thing that I thought could be wrong with his scenario is the atmosphere’s O₂ level. If his hypothesis is correct, wouldn’t there be a measurable reduction of atmospheric O₂ by now? And won’t the oceans “dampen” the process? Calvin focusses on oceans, Weis on forests: both would probably agree that both should be considered for a comprehensive view.

When I questioned Weis on this ‘oxygen’ point (via e-mail - we have never met), he cited the existence of a (once) dense ozone layer as empirical proof that the planetary CO₂/O₂ cycle of our biosphere is not ‘balanced´ as currently believed, but that it had produced a net surplus ‘reservoir´ of O₂ in the upper atmosphere over the last 400 million years. Weis believes that this ‘reservoir´ of ‘excess´ O₂ currently masks the net loss of O₂ caused by the radical eradication of terrestrial forests and vegetation, but he repeats that the destruction of the ozone layer in more temperate regions, aided and abetted by the destruction by chlorofluorocarbons in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, is attributable to this cause and supportive of his calamitous final scenario. That is, that the thinning of the ozone layer could itself be the first symptom of reduction in the level of atmospheric O₂. I am not entirely content with this answer: can you think why? I also leave his potential answer about the oceans dampening the process for you to explore. His Home Page is at:

Conclusion

So there we have it; a range of views on climate change, all citing evidence that seems plausible enough to a layman, and all with at least some grounding in empirical observation and scientific theory. Yet the range extends from ‘don´t worry, be happy´ all the way to the end of history - a planetary catastrophe.