David, no, Andy Lacis has the correct usage for climate and weather problems. Perhaps atmospheric science uses a mathematical analogy, but strictly boundary problems are defined by their constraints (boundaries) and not by their initial values. I think your confusion is that you may consider initial values to include atmospheric composition and continental configuration, but in the earth system models, the initial condition is just the state of the atmosphere, land and ocean in terms of its state variables (prognostic variables). This is a rigorous definition of the initial state because these are the variables that are stepped forwards by the dynamic and land-surface equations, hence the term initial value problem. In mathematical systems with prognostic equations, initial value problems are those that depend on the initial setting of the prognostic variables. I think you can see that climate statistical states don’t depend on initial patterns of the wind, temperature, moisture, etc.(weather state).
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