"James Annan" wrote in message
ups.com...
Jeff York wrote:
"Coby Beck" wrote:
The reason is the difference between long term patterns and short
term
chaotic fluctuations. Another good analogy: you can not predict how
far up
the beach the next 10 waves will come, but you can prdect the level
of the
next 10 tides.

Ahem.. .. subject to the caveats re pressure and wind I mentioned a
few days ago. :-) In a little more detail:

Alright already!! Next time I use this, I will include the necessary
qulifications.

In short: no inference whatsoever can by drawn about the accuracy
climate
models from the accuracy of weather prediction.

But I take your point.

By definition the tide is the response to gravitational effects, and it
is highly predictable. The surge (due to pressure and winds) is
additional (um..it might subtract too).

Anyway, I'm not sure it's really such a great analogy. Summer v winter
is more directly applicable, cos they really are the average of lots of
chaotic weather under slowly changing patterns of radiative forcings.

Two problems for me with using summer and winter to make the general point
about short term chaotic behaviour and long term patterns. First, it is not
really an analogy about climate and weather, it is the very issue at hand.
Analogies work by putting an aspect of the unfamiliar into a familiar
context. Second, the cycle of summer-winter can be thought of as a steady
state, cettainly it is not a pattern that will be affected by global warming
(at least not in a broad sense). I think it does not successfully isolate
the easiest way to debunk the classic "you don't know if it will rain
tomorrow, how can you tell it will be warmer in 100 yrs".

Any other problems with it waves on the shore?

--
Coby Beck
(remove #\Space "coby 101 @ bigpond . com")