Deep and Shallow Uncertainty in Messaging Climate Change

Cooke, Roger M.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2432227

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…However, there is always more room for improvement considering that the climate change models are under high scrutiny by stakeholders and politicians. For some other interesting perspectives related to this discussion, see Cooke, who reviews the use of uncertainty analysis and provides arguments against the adoption of fuzzy logic.…”

Section: Suggestions For Improvementmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Evaluation of the Treatment of Risk and Uncertainties in the IPCC Reports on Climate Change

Aven

Renn

2014

Risk Analysis

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Few global threats rival global climate change in scale and potential consequence. The principal international authority assessing climate risk is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Through repeated assessments the IPCC has devoted considerable effort and interdisciplinary competence to articulating a common characterization of climate risk and uncertainties. We have reviewed the assessment and its foundation for the Fifth Assessment Reports published in 2013 and 2014, in particular the guidance note for lead authors of the fifth IPCC assessment report on consistent treatment of uncertainties. Our analysis shows that the work carried out by the ICPP is short of providing a theoretically and conceptually convincing foundation on the treatment of risk and uncertainties. The main reasons for our assessment are: (i) the concept of risk is given a too narrow definition (a function of consequences and probability/likelihood); and (ii) the reports lack precision in delineating their concepts and methods. The goal of this article is to contribute to improving the handling of uncertainty and risk in future IPCC studies, thereby obtaining a more theoretically substantiated characterization as well as enhanced scientific quality for risk analysis in this area. Several suggestions for how to improve the risk and uncertainty treatment are provided.

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Section: Suggestions For Improvementmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Evaluation of the Treatment of Risk and Uncertainties in the IPCC Reports on Climate Change

Aven

Renn

2014

Risk Analysis

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“…, p. 280. According to Cooke, alternative representations have been on the decline for at least the last 20 or so years in the artificial intelligence community, having been introduced in relation to expert systems in the 1970's leading to “an explosion of ‘alternative representations of uncertainty’ through the 1980's.” (52, p. 14) So, although reemerging in new fields, as Cooke also points out, the field where it was introduced apparently to an increasing and lately dominant extent prefers the Bayesian framework over alternative representation. One main objection raised, as we will come back to in Section , is lack of operational meanings, or interpretations, for these representations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Concerns, Challenges, and Directions of Development for the Issue of Representing Uncertainty in Risk Assessment

et al. 2014

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In the analysis of the risk associated to rare events that may lead to catastrophic consequences with large uncertainty, it is questionable that the knowledge and information available for the analysis can be reflected properly by probabilities. Approaches other than purely probabilistic have been suggested, for example using interval probabilities, possibilistic measures, or qualitative methods. In the present paper, we look into the problem and identify a number of issues which are foundational for its treatment. The foundational issues addressed reflect on the position that "probability is perfect" and take into open consideration the need for an extended framework for risk assessment that reflects the separation that practically exists between analyst and decision maker.

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“…This distinction has become standard in the philosophical literature on decision theory (see, for instance, Sturgeon ). It is often attributed to Knight (), but it is hard to pin it down in the original text, and Knight scholars have doubted that the attribution is correct (Cooke ). Note, however, that this terminology is not standardised across scientific disciplines, and in many circumstances, exactly the opposite definitions are used.…”

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confidence: 99%