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Initial Conditions and Boundary Conditions
Another feature of the climate prediction problem is that if the
range of initial conditions (starting points A,...,E) remains limited
(limited horizontal distance in the pinball sketch) but the size of the
matrix in extended downward (length of the forecast period is increased),
then eventually the distribution of final outcomes at the bottom will be
essentially independent of how many times the ball started at A, B, C, D,
E, or F. We say that the ball forgets its initial conditions or that the
outcome is independent of initial conditions and depends only on the
positions of the pegs (e.g., the boundary conditions).
A change in greenhouse gas concentration is analogous to changing the positions of one or more pegs. The change this creates in individual trajectories (e.g., weather for a particular year) might not be noticeable, but over a larger number of events (many years) a slight change might become detectable.
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