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The Climate Change Controversy – Some Reasons for the Debate and the Consequences of Disagreements as seen by Aleksander Samarin “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930) If we scrutinize the scope of total scientific knowledge accumulated by humanity five hundred or even three hundred years ago, there were, in my opinion, some remarkable sagacious, learned individuals, whom we usually label geniuses, whose knowledge of the then perceived scientific laws of nature, which were considered to be indubitably true, was universal. I would not hesitate to place Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642), his successor Sir Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727), who was born the year when Galileo died, and also Baron Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646 – 1716) into this category. There may have been some notions in the related fields of science, such as biology or medicine, the knowledge of which for these sages was somewhat marginal, but I am sure, that the fundamentals of all these concepts did not escape their perceptions of the actuality of nature, as it was known at that time. By contrast, during the past hindered years or so the total human scientific knowledge was amassed at such a remarkably fast rate, that it became humanly impossible, no matter how intellectually brilliant a scientist might have been, to attain not even very deep, but just a superficial understanding of some of the scientific conceptions outside the area of his or her particular area of expertise. This is, again to my way of thinking, is one of the main reasons for the radically different opinions between scientists, who are considered experts in their specific fields of knowledge, which recently became apparent in the ongoing debates on the causes and the consequences of the climate change. The next, and possibly the most deep-seated reason, is the inability of human beings to grasp, to comprehend the reality of the space-time-matter, the reality which is infinitely stranger than any science fiction creations of human imagination. It was Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882 – 1944) who once said: “Not only the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger 1 than we can imagine”. This incongruity of our inevitable world is at beast replicated in the fundamental scientific concepts of quantum physics and cosmology. For example, according to the latest cosmological notion our universe was created from a singularity some 13.7 billion years ago in the event known as the Big Bang. Singularity is a mathematical representation of a point of zero dimensions at which the gravitational field has infinite strength or, to put it differently, this zero dimensional point contains an infinite mass. This cosmological theory also implies that prior to the Big Bang neither the space nor the time existed. I challenge any human being to visualize the absence of space and time, in which only the singularity exists. Yet another important factor in the climate change controversy is the failure by almost all of those who make predictions of the “inevitable” outcome of this problem to realize that many of the systems affecting climate change phenomenon are non-deterministic. According to the classical, Newtonian mechanics all the processes in the universe were highly orderly, proceeding like Swiss clockwork, and therefore unquestionably predictable, provided the initial conditions of a particular system were known. The unpredictability which exists not only in the phenomena on the subatomic scale – in Quantum physics, but also on the macro-scale, on the scale of our daily life, in the so-called Chaos theory is now evident. I must stress, however, that it is impossible to synthesize these two theories, as the Quantum theory has a scale which is set by the Planck’s constant, but the fractal character of the chaotic dynamics means that it is scale free. The non-deterministic character of many events which take place in the universe was originally very difficult to accept even by the most eminent scientists, such as Einstein. On December 4th 1926, in his letter to Max Born, Einstein wrote: “God does not play dice with the universe”, to which Max Born apparently replied: “Don’t tell God what He can or cannot do”. The term chaos was first used in the Theogony of Hesiod (8th century BC) in reference to the gap resulting from the separation of heaven and earth during the creation of the world from a state of disarray, but subsequently it was widely used to describe a disorder of extreme complexity. However, mathematical theory of chaos is defined as the dynamic system with stochastic behaviour under deterministic conditions. This sounds like a paradox as stochastic, of course, means random. Hence, in layman’s terms chaos can be described as “the lawless process governed by the law”. The above definition, I think, can also accurately describe judicial systems in 2 some political structures. In relation to the mathematical chaos, expressed somewhat differently, it means that certain conditions must be maintained for this randomness to develop. The behaviour of chaotic dynamic systems is regulated by the following properties: these systems must be extremely sensitive to the initial conditions, they must evolve over time in such a way that any given region or open set of their phase space will eventually overlap with other given regions, and last, but not least – their periodic orbits must be dense. In recent decades a diversity of natural phenomena have been studied, and despite seeming relative simplicity of some and the fact that the forces involved in their dynamics are well known, it was discovered that they are indeed chaotic. I shall list but a few examples of chaotic dynamic systems. They were found in many highly diverse observable events, such as irregularities of heartbeat, turbulent flow of fluids, chemical reactions, dynamics of satellites in the solar system, population dynamics, the dynamics of economics, and something that we should be particularly aware of – in the chaotic dynamics of weather and climate. Examining the majority of recent arguments about the causes of climate change one gets the impression that this is a relatively recent, anthropogenic (i.e. generated by humans) incident which became evident only since the rapid increase in the use of fossil fuels. However, from the geological history of the Earth it is evident that there were constant, cyclic climate changes ranging from the periods of extreme hot weather to the Ice Ages since the Earth was formed some 4.5 billion years ago. There are several theories about the exact nature of these variations, but no one will argue that they have suddenly seized to exist. The factors which are apparently responsible for the millions of years of cyclic climate changes include the chaotic dynamics of the quasi-periodic movements of the Earth around the Sun, the so-called Milanković hypothesis, which was later modified and improved by a number of scientists, the changes in the intensity of radiation, of the energy which the Earth receives from the Sun, and also resulting from the variations in the internal radiation from the core of the Earth itself. The difficulty of establishing the exact effect of this complex, multifaceted system is exaggerated by the chaotic dynamics of each of its components. I also get the impression that the current argument about the causes and effects of climate change, at least amongst politicians and economists, is revolving around extend of the emissions of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide 3 is one of the four main greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases, as the name suggests, have similar effect to that of hothouse used for growing plants in cold climate. The most abundant greenhouse gas, and the one which is practically impossible to control, is water vapor or clouds. Each one of us experienced the effect of clouds on weather. Cloud cover during the day prevents part of the Sun radiation to reach the surface of the Earth, resulting in the reduction of temperature. However, the greenhouse effect of water vapor becomes evident during the nighttime cloud cover, which acts like a blanket preventing some of the heat loss from the surface of the Earth and consequentially producing somewhat warmer night temperature. The current meteorological models indicate that water vapor is responsible for between 36% and 70% of the total greenhouse gas effect. By contrast, carbon dioxide possibly causes as little as 9% and apparently not more that 26% of the radiated heat capture from the Earth surface. The remaining two greenhouse gases are methane (estimated 4% to 9% of the total) and ozone (estimated 3% to 7% of the total). Control of the emissions of the later two is at best doubtful. I must also stress that carbon dioxide is the most important cause of the growth of all vegetation on our planet. It is absorbed by green plants and then synthesized into their organic components. There are biological models, which imply that marginal increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere should result in better yields of crops, provided other essential factors of growth (such as availability of water) remain abundant. There is also some disagreement between atmospheric scientists as to the magnitude which reduction in carbon dioxide will influence the total greenhouse effect. One of the reasons for very different climate forecasts, although majority at present predict climate warming, results first of all from the randomness of chaotic dynamics. There were quite recently very eminent scientists who anticipated that the next climate change will be the initiation of new Ice Age. One such prediction was made by Sir Fred Hoyle, FRS, who was appointed Plumian Professor of astronomy at Cambridge University in 1958 and became the first director of the Cambridge Institute of Theoretical Astronomy in 1967. In 1981 he published a book: “Ice – a Chilling Scientific Forecast of a New Ice Age”. There is also large number of recent and incredibly contradictory reports by very reputable atmospheric scientists as to whether or not the average temperature of the Earth is increasing or decreasing. The most likely explanation for this controversy, in my opinion, is uncertainly in the behavior of chaotic dynamic structures of climate change. 4 Should this change be towards the reduction of temperature, which can ultimately result in the onset of the new Ice Age as was envisaged by Sir Fred Hoyle, then increase in the greenhouse gases may delay, although not avert, this calamity. If, on the other hand, the average temperature of our planet is increasing, in spite of human input of greenhouse gases into atmosphere, then the reduction in the use of fossil fuels world wide may be beneficial. It should be remembered that regardless of whichever scenario of the climate change is factual, that coal, oil and gas are not renewable resources, and new forms of energy must be developed for the future generations, if humanity will be able to survive that long. Whilst taking into consideration dynamic systems, one more theory, again according to my judgment, is important and should be of concern in the process of evaluating human responses to the climate change. This is the so-called Catastrophe Theory, developed in the early 1970-s by Dr. René Thom. In his 1972 book: “Structural Stability and Morphogenesis” Thom describes several different ways in which dynamic systems can undergo an abrupt change of large magnitude, a change to which he coined the term catastrophe and which takes place under steady, uniform influence of the control factors in these systems. Classical example of this phenomenon is buckling of a slender, steel column under the uniformly applied load. Other examples include myocardial infarct (or heart attack) and a sudden crush on a stock exchange. One possible development under the steady increase of the average Earth temperature, as and if it occurs, is very swift release of huge undersea deposits of methane gas – one of the four major greenhouse gases, which are stable at the present submarine temperatures. This may lead to the prompt, “catastrophic” increase of global warming. Such rapid changes in the Earth climate occurred in the past. For example, some 12,800 years ago in just one month all of Europe was engulfed in a “Mini Ice Age”, or “The Big Freeze”. In conclusion I would like to emphasize, that the only constructive human response to the climate change is possible if it is based on the rational economical considerations. But economical models can only be practical, if they in turn are founded on the reliable scientific data. However, bearing in mind that scientific theories deal with chaotic dynamic systems of climate change, the solution to these problems remains extremely challenging. These problems are further complicated as a result of intentional distortions of scientific data by some politicians and even scientists in order to achieve political or financial gains. 5 Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering since 1988, Dr. Aleksander Samarin is Professor at the Centre for Built Infrastructure Research at the University of Technology, Sydney. His other interests include solutions to the problems related to the sustainability of human civilization and Philosophy of Science. 30th of November 2009 6