The imaginary numbers of global warming
Science is all about capturing data through measurements. Some instruments used in the measurement of a variable are very precise. Some are not.
One method to make up for a lack of precision is to use mathematics to improve the representation of the variable. The most often used method is averaging.
Some variables have such extreme variation that precision is overwhelmed by the extreme variation. Again, averaging is used to represent reality.
Take sea level for example. Sea level measurements are location dependent and time dependent. How does one know what is happening globally?
“Sea Level at the Battery in New York”, is not properly represented by a single number, above and below some geodetic bench mark. What we call sea level is a derived, calculated number – an average of averages of an array of measurement time series. In this sense, as the calculated midpoint of a range over time, it is in a practical sense, an
imaginary number having no existence in the day-to-day life of the Port of New York.
Here is the prediction of water levels, relative to MLLW, made for October 9th thru October 11th.
The bottom line is that sea level, anywhere and at any time, is not a direct measurement. Never. It is a calculated, derived number that represents a precisely defined, but actually quite complicated, idea.
In order to define
global sea level, one must participate in an exercise of imagination along the lines of: Imagine that the planet has stopped spinning; that moon has never existed; that the planet is a perfect sphere (or perfectly regular ovoid or flattened sphere); that there is no wind; that the atmosphere is evenly distributed and air pressure is the same at all points; that the temperatures of the seas are all exactly even, everywhere, to all depths; that there are no currents;, that there are no ice caps; that the rivers have stopped flowing into the sea and that gravity is magically equal at all points on the Earth’s surface (it is not): under those conditions, we could then say that global sea level would be
precisely “there”, within 3 or 4 mm. The Global Average Sea Level, in this special sense, is an
imaginary number.
Global temperature is imaginary in the same way. Temperatures vary by location and time: sea level, mountains, north and south latitudes, equator, and time of day, time of year. And for the calculated global temperature for the year, we can say "there" within 0.1 degree C. The Global Average Temperature is an
imaginary number.
One can carry out a dizzying number of statistical and mathematical steps and arrive at some number – the more division steps involved the more precise looking the number will be. One can average any set of numbers.
When one averages a series of numbers that are in reality themselves ranges, then the result must also be a range. When averaging a series (a computer-full) of
imaginary numbers then the result must be another
imaginary number, in the same sense as the numbers in the original data set. You can not average away original measurement error, you can not average away the fact that data given are themselves really ranges rather than single numbers, you can not average away the fact that original numbers themselves are, in the sense as describe,
imaginary.
Global Warming Science attempts to reduce very complicated dynamic systems to a
single number which can then be graphed against time with some high degree of precision that is misleading for a reason. It is to cast blame for the increasing or decreasing number on a substance or action or group. These single numbers, meant to somehow illuminate some feature of the real world, are often not real numbers representing real things, but
imaginary numbers representing concepts that exist, which may lack meaningfulness and usefulness, or both.