Antiseptic is talking about 'Tipping Points' and the possibility that humans are going to trigger a climatic catastrophe.

There is resonance in nature; things like rogue waves exist because there can be a synchronicity with otherwise divergent energy transfers, in that case waves.

The Butterfly effect is an expression of chaos and is different from climatic 'Tipping Points'; the BE is not a product of resonance but extreme sensitivity.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the climate system is not particulalrly sensitive at all; even 'official' papers like the recent Otto et al paper are reducing the climate sensitivity to CO2;

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo1836.html

Geologically this is apparent when looking at past disasters like the KT event which basically set the atmosphere on fire, but which effect was over within 5 years.

Resonance works with various energy wavelengths, in themselves occasionally irregular, which can enhance and dampen other bigger and smaller wavelengths; what this means is that the climate sensitivity is frequency dependent not attributable to an isolated factor like CO2 which has predictable and montonic properties; Scafetta has looked at this:

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1005/1005.4639v1.pd

'bout time you updated your 'library'.

pffft x 3

Something like that, Poirot. The problem with a graph like that is that we can't tell if it represents a trend that will continue, leading to a transition, or if it's just recording an oscillation within the metastable range that will trend down over time without having more information.

warmair, an estimate with error bars extending 50% either side is a best guess. It is informed by data that are too fuzzy and by an incomplete understanding of the mechanisms that contribute to the dynamics, not to mention they assume a somewhat linear response, which may be unjustified.

I don't deny the science is clear, but it's not sufficiently detailed to be able to make useful predictions with it, even on short time-scales, and we don't even know if that will ever be possible because of the chaotic nature of the system.

The latency I referred to is basically how long it will be before some combination of variables triggers a transition into a different pseudo-equilibrium range. We already know that the planet does this all by itself without us, so we have to proceed on the assumption that our input could lead to emergent behaviour we can't yet predict and gather the data to make it possible to do so.

I don't have any disagreement with your conclusions. I just wanted to clarify what I said earlier.

cohenite, the issue is not so much that reinforcement and damping occur, it is that we don't yet know enough to predict the effects. We are only studying a few variables that show correlations with observable effects, or have known properties we feel are relevant to climate. Each of those variables has behaviour that emerges from the interactions of other variables and shows some degree of periodicity or metastability or both.

The problem is understanding the concatenations of interactions that make it all happen and working out how we fit into it all.

Antiseptic, thank you for making me feel so much better. There's clearly nothing to worry about at all. I can just relax and get on with life in the safe knowledge you are there to salve my insecurity over the future of my DNA whenever real climate scientists raise concerning info.

Whether AGW carries on to become CAGW is just something we should wait and see, right, like perhaps when monsoons cease in the Ganges basin or the gacier feeding it melts (but how would that affect us anyway, eh?). The effect of climate change on world food security is the biggest issue, IMO, and will determine the future behaviour of nations.

Arctic Amplification.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=81214&src

Antiseptic,

On the "range of uncertainties":

http://theconversation.com/uncertainty-no-excuse-for-procrastinating-on-climate-change-14634