Climate Fiction by Mechanism — A Mechanism-Audit Catalog

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Audit failure

Click any mechanism to audit its claim entitlement.

1.What is measured?

Direct atmospheric measurement (Mauna Loa, satellite radiometry, sondes) is the only fully-measured term in most chains. Many headline mechanisms are derived, modelled, or constructed from those measurements rather than measured directly.
2.What is calculated or inferred?

Calculation and inference each carry assumptions. Effective emission height, S/4 averaging, equivalent forcing — these are derived constructs, not direct measurements. Audit names the calculation method and exposes its assumptions.
3.What assumptions drive the mechanism?

Boundary conditions, initial values, parameter choices, and unstated coupling assumptions. The audit asks which of these the mechanism's headline number is most sensitive to — and whether those assumptions are themselves audited.
4.What is omitted?

Single-mechanism framings hide everything they exclude. The 13-Point Thermodynamic Audit names the major omissions for the radiative case — convection, latent heat, gravity-driven lapse rate, non-equilibrium dynamics. The same question applies across this catalog.
5.What claim is justified?

The framework's signature question. A mechanism is not a verdict. The audit asks: what reliance class has the mechanism actually earned, and does the claim being made stay inside that class?