Chapter 2 I

Once again, total failure. The concept itself of a chaotic system made that many thousands of parameters were not know and evaluating how much influence each had was extremely difficult. Therefore since the parameters were set for each run, discrepancies were soon obvious. In order to improve this, effort was invested on learning how far the iterative solution was going, whether it wander constantly away or eventually got an stable offset. Using data collected for many years it would be possible to compare the results of the model to the "real" data. They could also feed the model with new parameters, such as the volcanic eruptions in 1945. Results, however, were still not very positive. Until April 2004 when one of the mathematicians pointed out something interesting: The average deviation was not constant, but kept wandering away the longer the calculating time.

 You mean you were wrong-- said the younger man,  looking at the eldest in the eyes, with visible skepticism.

No,no, see, you have to imagine weather as an damped chaotic system. Weather is the result of a lot of interactions, some recent, some old . It is very complex and thus chaotic. Many of the parameters are news or so unpredictable, like volcanoes and asteroids, fires and many more small scale events... like butterflies flapping -- he chuckled--Biomass, us humans if you want.-- The man who called himself Roberts laid himself back a little on his seat -- Maybe we are not in the position to describe the atractor itself, but this is not what we found.

what they really found was that the speed of change was actually increasing. Apparently the weather was getting warmer and faster but the interesting fact they could not get out the better their simulation got was that the "warm earth" was not a stable solution, that is, it was not the atractor. The faster the weather warmed up, the dramatic the change would be... a backslash in the other direction, and at the same speed.

-- Are you telling me that the climate is going to stop warming up and will become actually colder?-- The tone was more of deception than surprise

-- I mean that the climate will stop warming up soon to start cooling down a lot -- he sighed -- Look, we worked on the so called deviation problem for a whole year. Why this backslash and there is no way out. It does behave like a pendulum. -- Looked up to his partner -- so at the end of 2005 we prepared a report. -- he took air and in a conversational tone said -- you gotta remember that back then the Bush administration was in office. Some stuff was a little... well particular if you wish. Politics always are, but the report went to the politicians because the chief of the agency wanted some brownie points and wanted to get some power within the NOAA... well the point is that the report was not all so interesting at a political level, because of its technical character. Therefore the chief came back and asked for some predictions, so he could do a flashy presentatio... which politicians would understand.--

Boone made a pause to ask the stewardess some water. Deliberate and cool, he handed her a 5 euro note. He waited silently for the change and only then opened the bottle slowly. He sipped and then closed it firmly again, holding it in his hand as if was too cold to drink and wanted to warm it up. He checked that the stewardess was down the isle, now busy with another passenger. The conversation was loud enough to be heard. She was carefully explaining that a chicken sandwich is, surprising as it may be, a chicken sandwich and this not possible to make it into a tuna omelette sandwich.

--But I do want an omelette  and tuna sandwich, I do not understand why do I have to take the chicken one -- his tone was starting to leave the friendly neighborhood.

--Sir, you do not have to eat the chicken one, but that is all we have, Still on the menu you can bse that there is no tuna omelette sandwich --

--Tuna and omelette not tuna omelette, that I do not like. It has nothing to do one another. I like chorizo omelette  sandwich, but I am guessing you have none either, do you?-- the last words came with contempt.--

-- All we have are Chicken sandwiches-- The stewardess was now using a detached and neutral tone. Perhaps she was imagining opening the hatch and dumping the passenger through it.

--O well, hand me an m&ms bag -- the passenger said with a tired tone.

One row before our two passenger exchanged a look and a grin. Boone opened his bottle agin and took a couple of swigs before continuing.

They did some predictions, as requested. Not on the climate but the change rate. One of the most clear parameters was the degree per year. After a sudden positive peak, temperatures would collapse. Slowly they could see a surprising and devastating image.  After the peak the plummet would be even faster and would peak much lower compared to the positive maximum

-- An Ice Age then? -- Again, the tone and expression was not much different from the previous interruption

--The beginning of an Ice Age-- Boone leaned forward, leaving the water bottle on the seat to his left -- In the span of only a few years, temperatures would plummet. Globally. Basically, what we found it is that the poles would grow towards the equator. Average temperatures would top at 10°C lower than today at the tropics-- Boone focused on his audience, gauging him for a reaction. Since the penny did not drop, he sighed and continued --large portions of both the North and South
Hemispheres would became inhabitable. Specifically the areas what we today call "the First World"--

The reaction came as a question -- How fasts is all that supposed to happen? --

Boone leaned backwards again, looking uncomfortable --Well, that's the catch, ain't it? We are not totally sure about that one. We are still working on it, updating models and such. However, it looks like we have between four to seven years with the current trend, until the inversion occurs. We would need five to eight years additionally to get to the minus 10°C delta. The first two years of inversion would be milder, though a bit chaotic, with violent storms and such .--

--Are you telling me that in 2014 temperatures are going to start going down so much, so for 2020 we are not going to be able to live in Europe? -- The voice now was louder, but skeptcisim was so thick you could shovel it.

-- Keep it down!-- said Boone -- That was back in 2005. We are fairly sure that the inversion has not commenced yet, However the current chaotic winters of this year and lasts make us think that the inversion is imminent.  

--This theory of yours, does it work as well as the psychohistory? --