Why ComplexClimate?

I see this blog as an antidote to the RealClimate blog and to all the climate scientists who believe that they have a monopoly on the truth. The climate scientists, and especially the climate modellers, have all been trained as mathematicians or physicists, not ignoble professions, but not suited to the fractal nature of earth science. Ironically, my objections to their involement are well described in the preface to the 1905 book "Science and Hypothesis", by the great French mathematician, physicist and philosopher, Henri Poincaré. He wrote:

To the superficial observer scientific truth is unassailable, the logic of science is infallible; and if scientific men sometimes make mistakes, it is because they have not understood the rules of the game. Mathematical truths are derived from a few self-evident propositions, by a chain of flawless reasonings; they are imposed not only on us, but on Nature itself. By them the Creator is fettered, as it were, and His choice is limited to a relatively small number of solutions. A few experiments, therefore, will be sufficient to enable us to determine what choice He has made. From each experiment a number of consequences will follow by a series of mathematical deductions, and in this way each of them will reveal to us a corner of the universe. This, to the minds of most people, and to students who are getting their first ideas of physics, is the origin of certainty in science. This is what they take to be the rôle of experiment and mathematics. And thus, too, it was understood a hundred years ago by many men of science who dreamed of constructing the world with the aid of the smallest possible amount of material borrowed from experiment.

The problem is that the current climate scientists, having been educated in mathematics and physics, believe that their science is unassailable. Their God does not play dice, and that chaos theory is a new type of algebra, not the basis of an earth system which is fractal. It is as if they lived in a world where they see only real numbers, yet if they only applied a little imagination then they would be able to see the whole realm of complex numbers. Thus my choice of ComplexClimate to contrast with RealClimate. Is that too contrived? Anyway ComplexClimate it is.


By writing that I am opposed to the mainstream scientists it may be imagined that I am a sceptic, or even a denier. That is far from the truth. I, like the sceptics, believe the models are wrong, but unlike the sceptics I believe, with evidence, that the models are underestimating the dangers not overestimating them. The retreat of the Arctic sea ice is the best example of where models are badly out. Other cases, such as the double ITCZ (Intertropical convergence zone), are less well known because no scientist publishes a paper saying my model does not work. Which journal would publish it anyway?

Poincaré continued:

"But upon more mature reflection the position held by hypothesis was seen [to be important]; it was recognised that it is as necessary to the experimenter as it is to the mathematician. And then the doubt arose if all these constructions are built on solid foundations. The conclusion was drawn that a breath would bring them to the ground. This sceptical attitude does not escape the charge of superficiality. To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.

So if I try to follow a route between the sceptics who doubt everything, and the scientists who believe everything, at least I have Poincaré's backing!

Cheers, Alastair.