This is a really good article. I've only had time to skim so far, but it's impressive.
I happen to be a physicist too, and my stance on climate change is identical to yours. I don't think we'll ever have a climate model with detailed predictive ability: the system is too complex and the initial conditions too uncertain. But we really need to stop changing the composition of the atmosphere; mainly, we need to move quickly away from burning coal, for several reasons. I agree that we should do this through incentives and development of alternatives, not through a "revolutionary" approach.
It was refreshing to read something rational about climate. Everything I've seen lately (although this isn't my field) is either "we can't predict climate so we should stop worrying and just keep burning coal" or "it's already too late because the models are true and we have to shut everything down now or we're all going to die."
On your orbital simulations: you seem to be using physical units. Often people avoid some of the very big or small numbers by using, say, the Earth-Sun distance as the unit of length or the Earth mass as the mass unit. Do you just prefer physical units, or are you doing this and I missed it? Either way, very interesting demonstration of the effect of the Moon on the Earth orbit - would not have guessed this result.
I happen to be a physicist too, and my stance on climate change is identical to yours. I don't think we'll ever have a climate model with detailed predictive ability: the system is too complex and the initial conditions too uncertain. But we really need to stop changing the composition of the atmosphere; mainly, we need to move quickly away from burning coal, for several reasons. I agree that we should do this through incentives and development of alternatives, not through a "revolutionary" approach.
It was refreshing to read something rational about climate. Everything I've seen lately (although this isn't my field) is either "we can't predict climate so we should stop worrying and just keep burning coal" or "it's already too late because the models are true and we have to shut everything down now or we're all going to die."
On your orbital simulations: you seem to be using physical units. Often people avoid some of the very big or small numbers by using, say, the Earth-Sun distance as the unit of length or the Earth mass as the mass unit. Do you just prefer physical units, or are you doing this and I missed it? Either way, very interesting demonstration of the effect of the Moon on the Earth orbit - would not have guessed this result.
P.S.: Go gnuplot!