Abstract
We are experiencing a period of intense anthropocentrism: humans flatter themselves they can govern the thermal machine of the ocean-atmosphere system and build models of atmospheric circulation (that solve hundreds of non-linear equations for each box of a three-dimensional grid covering the globe) to demonstrate that Earth's recent warming is attributable to anthropogenic CO2 emissions. However, the results of such a reductionist approach are questionable, since the atmosphere and oceans form a complex interactive system that cannot be recreated in a laboratory experiment, and where the many physical and chemical processes are regulated by dynamic and thermodynamic parameters, interconnected in a non-linear way, and there are various positive and negative feedback processes. Only a holistic approach that analyses the system in its entirety, and drastically reduces the number of degree of freedom, can provide information on the way in which the global environmental system operates. When the Sun, atmospheric circulation, Earth's rotation, and sea temperature have been investigated as a single unit, the linkage between the Sun and climate is confirmed (Mazzarella, 2007, 2008); application of this integrated model provides a forecast estimate for a gradual cooling of the Earth's atmosphere in this decade.
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