Climate system consisting of the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, land and biota is considered as a complex adaptive dynamical system along with its essential physical properties. Since climate system is a nonlinear dissipative dynamical system that possesses a global attractor and its dynamics on the attractor are chaotic, the prediction of weather and climate change has a finite time horizon. There are two kinds of predictability of climate system: one is generated by uncertainties in the initial conditions (predictability of the first kind) and another is produced by uncertainties in parameters that describe the external forcing (predictability of the second kind). Using the concept of the ‘perfect’ climate model, two kinds of predictability are considered from the standpoint of the mathematical theory of climate.
Part of the book: Dynamical Systems