Deep and shallow uncertainty in messaging climate change

Deep and shallow uncertainty are defined and contrasted with regard to messaging the uncertainty about climate change. Deep uncertainty is often traced back to the writings of Frank Knight, where in fact it simply meant subjective probability. Although Knight envisioned a scientifically grounded qua...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Cooke, R.M. (author)
Format: Conference Object
Language:English
Published: CRC Press/Balkema - Taylor & Francis Group 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:92ac6f50-337b-4599-a033-ddc90825327a
Description
Summary:Deep and shallow uncertainty are defined and contrasted with regard to messaging the uncertainty about climate change. Deep uncertainty is often traced back to the writings of Frank Knight, where in fact it simply meant subjective probability. Although Knight envisioned a scientifically grounded quantification of subjective uncertainty, deep uncertainty is frequently invoked to disable quantification, with attendant problems in communicating and propagating uncertainty through chains of reasoning. These issues together with science based uncertainty quantification are illustrated with recent applications to ice sheet dynamics. The issues of performance assessment and validation are addressed. Delft Institute of Applied Mathematics Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science