re: #774 Thanos

There are many things we can do on the micro climatic scale including new forms of cloud seeding, carbon dioxide sequestration, and so forth.

The problem we have with the models is that they can’t accurately deal with the effects of clouds. They estimate the effects based upon past performance and then throw in fudge factors based upon past climatic behavior. The problem with this approach is the same as with any least squares polynomial regression approach. Within the data set it works pretty well. Outside the data set it falls apart.

So as long as we’re within known climate conditions, we can know what effect a terraforming effort will have. Once the climate changes significantly, we’ll never be quite sure what will happen next.