Recently I came across this article at www.wired.com about jet contrails and their contribution to global warming. Basically it discusses the impact of high cirrus clouds on global temperature and how the creation of these clouds from jet contrails is impacting climate.
Readers of my blogs would not have found this surprising.
About five years ago I wrote "Global Dimming" on my personal blog. The premise is based on this statement: "DR DAVID TRAVIS (University of Wisconsin, Whitewater) We found that the change in temperature range during those three days was just over one degrees C." (Originally taken from BBC program here.)
During 9/11 all commercial planes in the US were grounded for several days. Dr. Travis is discussing that during this time the average temperature changed one degree (1) C.
Now this is what I like about modern science.
Rather than investigate an actual occurrence of climate change based on contrails such as the incidents around 9/11 the scientists in the wired article talk about their climate model (ECHAM4) and how to simulate this effect there?!?
Clearly the model does not predict this effect from whatever input it takes in so what use will the model be after the fact?
And this is what's wrong with science and scientific endeavors today.
Models don't tell you anything that not derived from the assumptions you put into the model in the first place and basically, from my perspective, they just confirm (reaffirm) what you already thought you knew when you created the model. Certainly models might be useful in pinpointing specific problems or providing different perspectives, but they do not "create new knowledge".
Models for things like airplane wings and flight do a very good job of predicting behavior. But these are closed systems in the sense that air flowing over a wing has a very small set of fixed properties - humidity, density, temperature, and so on. No airplane will suddenly find itself flying through water or jello and the models would utterly fail were that the case.
But climate is a open system. That is, heretofore unknown things like clouds forming from high-altitude jet contrails, which have a direct observable effect on the resulting temperature, are (and were) not known to the makers of the ECHAM4 climate model. They came into play "after the fact" and hence the model did not consider or predict them.
So if the model did not "know" about this effect how could it accurately predict the future?
How could it accurately predict anything at all?
And this is what I point out in my original article.
I've had discussions about this with self appointed climate "experts" in the intervening five or so years. All expressed either amazement at the effect or were certain it was already "in the model".
On March 18th I posted this image of fallout from Fukushima reaching the US:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/16/science/plume-graphic.html?ref=science#
So what does this mean? Are we in any more danger today than we were a couple of weeks ago?
No... The objective level of danger has been consistent all along.
What's changing is the "model" of the danger. And the model is not based on science or engineering or anything else. Its based on "chatter" and "noise" in the public news space.
Like the climate model the "nuclear fallout models" are simply that - models. They cannot predict what they cannot know - namely how much and what type of radioactive particles will be put into the air at Fukushima. And, like climate models, only after something happens can the models be updated to include whatever was not previously known.
The bottom line is that no one knows nor can know what's going to happen.
Clearly plutonium is already escaping from these plants.
As to were it goes, no one knows....
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