With the overwhelming load of data that keeps arriving concerning planetary environment, the contrast between knowledge and wisdom becomes clearer.
Mark Bowden: Model climate science problem
By Mark Bowden -
Published 12:00 am PST Thursday, November 15, 2007
Two weeks ago, a paper in Science magazine reported the curious fact that, despite mountains of new data and several generations of improvements in computer modeling, we are no better at predicting the outcome of climate change today than we were 20 years ago.
What's more, we are not likely to get better at it, even as we gather more and more data and feed them into faster and faster computers. That's because the system itself is, for all intents and purposes, organic and infinitely complex.
Written by Gerard Roe and Marcia Baker, researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle, the study showed that, as global temperature rises, we encounter greater and greater levels of uncertainty predicting its consequences. Since greater uncertainty widens the range of possible outcomes, I predict that their findings will fuel arguments on both sides of the global-warming issue, from the dwindling No-Worries camp to the Run-for-Cover crowd.
I like this study for a reason that has nothing to do with climate change. It suggests a broader truth, one that has to do with the difference between knowledge and wisdom. It says that knowing more does not necessarily lead to greater understanding. It may just cause more confusion.
As I understand it, the problem with climate modeling is feedback. If one factor changes in the planet's atmosphere, say, the temperature, it causes many other things to change, and each of those changes triggers still more change. The most widely accepted outcomes for global warming are the melting of the ice caps (which is happening), which leads to higher and higher sea levels, possibly bigger tropical storms, etc. But melting ice caps could also increase water vapor in the atmosphere, forming more cloud cover, blocking more sunlight, and cooling the planet, perhaps enough just to offset the warming, perhaps enough to turn Manhattan into the North Pole -- as in the scary eco-disaster movie "The Day After Tomorrow." If there is big climate change coming (and there might not be), then apparently it will vary widely from place to place. The Earth, it seems, doesn't have a global climate, but a mosaic of micro ones. One model, out this summer, has projected that, while North America is in for a thorough roasting in coming decades, there will remain a comfy cooler pocket in the Midwest. Invest in Missouri, Kansas and Iowa real estate? (It should be noted that universities in Missouri and Iowa employ the scientists who discovered this projected "hole" in the warming trend. I'm not saying they're wrong, but, hey, it's worth knowing.) So which is it? Warmer or cooler? Drier or rainier? Should I invest in sunblock or home insulation? Apparently, we should expect no clear answer, and without a clear answer, we should expect lots more political debate. But maybe we already know enough.
One of the unique features of modern times -- perhaps the one thing that makes our daily experience different from that of every human being who came before -- is that we live in a constant storm of information.
