Accuweather - Brett Anderson
http://global-warming.accuweather.co...fting_the.html

"On a sad note............

Edward Lorenz, an MIT professor and meteorologist
who developed the chaos theory, died Wednesday
at the age of 90. The Boston Globe wrote a nice
piece yesterday on Dr. Lorenz and here is an
excerpt from the obituary that some may want to
consider when they proclaim that the tiny increase
in atmospheric CO2 cannot possibly cause a major
change the future behavior of the global climate
system.........


From the Globe,

His work on the theory began a decade earlier.
In the winter of 1961, Dr. Lorenz was trying to
determine how accurate a computer could
predict long-term weather patterns. He ran one
simulation with a computer model, then wanted
to extend the forecast, so he added a second
simulation, with the same parameters and
conditions of the first model. The weather
pattern should have seamlessly flowed into
the second simulation.

Instead, the trajectories quickly diverged.

The problem: a rounded decimal number. Dr.
Lorenz realized that the computer stored
numbers to an accuracy of six decimal places
but, to save space, printed out results
shortened to three decimal places. So, for
example, 0.310625 became 0.311. For the
second simulation, he had used the shortened
figure.

Even this minute discrepancy drastically altered
the forecast.

Tiny changes, in effect, could have catastrophic,
and often unpredictable, consequences. And
they made perfect predictions of weather, even
through the emerging power of computers,
impossible: Exact measurements of all the
conditions could be upset by one small event,
such as the flap of a gossamer wing.

Very interesting stuff! The professor and his work
will be deeply missed."

-----

David Christainsen