We have yet to see how the forecast and the storm will play out, but I expect millions without power for days. Not sure whether it all starts as far south as Richmond, or Baltimore, or Rutherford, but I expect a large swath of power outages and flooding. To me, this basic prediction became the proverbial no-brainer about the 25th of October. If I still lived in the East, then if I were on the coast on the north-side of the hurricane, I would be buying the candles and filling up the tub with water. I would be finding safe harbor.
RickyRood, • 4:04 AM GMT on October 28, 2012
In the Presidential Debate on October 16, 2012, a question was asked of Governor Romney how he is different from George W. Bush. Part of his answer was how different the times are today than they were a decade ago. The massive loss of sea ice in the northern hemisphere in this decade is another signal of the warming Earth. This requires the use of heat from the air and from the ocean. The heating of ice and water means that not all of the heating of the Earth shows up as a signal in the air. A flattening in the air temperature might mean melting of the ice.
RickyRood, • 9:14 PM GMT on October 17, 2012
In my series on modeling and my discussion of complexity, I talked about how billions of simple transactions in millions of accounts can come together to represent a very complex system. One of the characteristics of complex systems is the presence of processes that once they occur, they amplify themselves. In this case, could a change in sea ice cause a change in the atmosphere that amplifies the change in sea ice? This type of reinforcing behavior, or positive feedback, contributes to complexity in a fundamentally different way than a damping or negative feedback. In a damped system, a change that decreased sea ice would cause a change that would increase sea ice to maintain a balance. It is important to recognize the difference between a damped system and a system in a state of balance. A balanced state, when perturbed, might find a new balance. Or, it might dance around all over the place until a new balance is found. Most of the evidence is that the Earth’s climate is not a damped system, but a balanced system. As we change it by increasing the temperature at the surface, we should expect it to bounce around looking for a new balance.
RickyRood, • 1:41 AM GMT on October 05, 2012