In science, the only certainty is uncertainty

We are used to thinking in probabilities: will it be stormy enough to need an umbrella? Luis Martins

In the lead up to the release next month of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) Fifth Assessment Report we are exploring concepts of confidence and certainty in climate science. You can find the first articlehere, and the second here

Scientists have built a theory of climate change from multiple lines of consistent, high-quality evidence. Just as we are confident that penguins can’t fly and that our skydiving scientist plummets under gravity, we are also confident in our understanding of human-induced climate change.

But simple statements implicating the human causes of climate change contain many complexities. The specifics are important too – what’s in store for the future? And how sure are we of these future climate impacts?

Even with our increasingly sophisticated knowledge of the climate system, there are aspects where questions remain anduncertainties we need to consider. Scientists need to be able to express these nuances in scientific findings, which means quantifying how much we understand.

We can again think of the evidence of climate change as ajigsaw puzzle. All information has at least a small degree of uncertainty, so we can imagine each puzzle piece is imperfect: they might be a little bit out of focus, or perhaps slightly discoloured. But despite their imperfections, they are still recognisable.

These are tangible uncertainties, our “known unknowns”. The same measurements of the same phenomena will always be slightly different. There are limits on our computing capacity and representing the earth’s complex physical systems with numbers is complicated.

These uncertainties can be quantified and accounted for as part of the scientific process. We have a good idea of just how blurry or discoloured these pieces are and what they are showing us.

Then there are the bits of the puzzle we don’t even realise are missing yet. These are “unknown unknowns”. They are bits of our puzzle at the limits of our reasoning or modelling, so their uncertainties can’t be quantified.

In science, there are complexities in all questions. For example, we can ask what kind of changes we will see in temperature extremes in coming decades. Scientists are confident that temperature extremes will become more frequent, but in order to express some of the complexity encompassed in that outcome, scales of likelihood are used describe the level of certainty.

We are “virtually certain” (99-100% probability) we will see an increase in the frequency and severity of extreme high temperatures. Here, the uncertainty of a particular finding has been quantified in probabilistic terms.

Using probabilistic thinking comes naturally to us in everyday life and we use it to weigh up risks. For example, we decide whether to take an umbrella to work based on the likelihood of rain.

But despite our familiarity with probabilities, the language of uncertainty can be confusing. When taken out of a scientific context, “uncertainties” seem to indicate that scientists are just plain wrong.

In scientific discourse, “uncertainty” does not imply that the science is unreliable. Instead, uncertainty is about probabilities and likelihoods that describe our understanding of a particular outcome.

Like those unexpected rainy days that keep us guessing, scientific information is never completely, unequivocally certain.All our attempts to understand complex systems and future changes come with uncertainty. So, we do not, and should not, draw conclusions from a single piece of evidence. We discern the picture of climate change by looking at all our puzzle pieces together.

Ultimately, the only scientific certainty is uncertainty. At times, these inevitable scientific uncertainties have been framed as synonymous with doubt and used to try to discredit findings.

But uncertainty is not a weakness of science. Rather than eroding our scientific confidence in human-caused climate change, using probabilities to talk about scientific uncertainties allows scientists to communicate findings more precisely and transparently.

22 August 2013, 11.05am AEST

http://theconversation.com/in-science-the-only-certainty-is-uncertainty-17180

Floating Housing Project Concept For Uncertain Climate Future

It’s no secret that our future as a society is likely to be a very rocky one. We simply aren’t switching to clean energy and reducing our meat and dairy consumption fast enough. As such, while trying to get global warming and climate change under control in the decades to come, we’re also going to need to develop ways of adapting to a rocky climate future. Ideas like the one below might seem a bit out of this world and impractical today (especially with the beautiful but unrealistic architectural renderings that always come with them), but we may really adopt some of these futuristic housing and development models. We’ll see. Take a look at this one and tell us what you think.

Zachary Shahan

Architect Designs ‘Ark’ — Floating Housing Project — For An Uncertain Climate Future (Photos)


The Ark – floating housing project (image credit: Alexander Remizov)

Like many contemporary architects, Alexander Remizov designs structures based upon principles of energy efficiency and environmental sustainability. But where he parts from many of his fellows is in his futuristic vision of a world impacted by highly uncertain climate change — particularly habitable land loss due to mass flooding events and conditions.

Many climatologists predict increased flooding and, in particular, the loss of large areas of coastal land where many of the world’s projected 9 billion people (by 2050) will live and seek their livelihoods.

A fish-eye view of the Ark (image credit: Alexander Remizov)


Enter “The Ark,” an aptly name “floating housing” project that, according to Remizov, could be constructed in just a few months “anywhere in the world.”

The futuristic ‘Noah’s Ark’ — which exists only in a design concept at present — seeks to address two primary architectural concerns:

“For architecture two aspects are of higher concern: the first one is maintenance of security and precautions against extreme environmental conditions and climate changes. The second one – protection of natural environment from human activities. The Ark project makes an attempt to answer these challenges of our Time,” explains Remizov.

As conceived, the dome-topped building possess its own independent life-support systems; the design incorporates autonomous heating, cooling and energy-generationfeatures. This autonomous life-support design includes provisions for oxygen (and presumably food, though this is not mentioned in the project description), providing a large area for greenery of many kinds. Vegetation is selected according to principles of compatibility, illumination, and efficiency of oxygen production — as well as aesthetic considerations like comfort and attractiveness.

The Ark, interior view (image credit: Alexander Remizov)

The structure as currently conceived would encompass an area of some 14,000 square meters (151,000 square feet) of living and growing space. It is not clear how many people are intended to occupy The Ark but it would seem sufficient to support perhaps a couple of hundred, at least (assuming adequate food and freshwater production).

While this may not compete with the biblical ark’s capacity (i.e., large numbers of animals), its relatively low cost means that multiple arks could be constructed (and join up to share energy production, too). According to Remizov, the cost of building such a structure would be comparable to building a single, energy-efficient house.

Remizov explains some of the key architectural design features:

The form of a dome promotes the formation of turbulences of air, strengthening the work of wind generators. Inside the building, the dome form promotes accumulation of warm air in the top part of a building. This heat will be transformed to other kinds of energy and also collects in thermal accumulators.

These arks could also be constructed on land and are adaptable to different climate zones and even to “seismically dangerous regions,” owing to their inclusion of “stressed structures of arches and ropes” which distribute stress along the entire bulk of the structure.

Design/construction Details of The Ark (image credit:Alexander Remizov)

The Ark, of course, is primarily built to adapt to rising sea levels in the event of a disaster or severe climate change conditions; the structure could be moored, in fair climate conditions, but could be quickly untethered to float freely in a severe, wide-scale flood zone or even open-ocean water.

The Ark Project was designed through the UIA Work Program “Architecture for Disaster Relief” in accordance with the concept of a “bio-climatic house” which possesses independent life-support systems to ensure “closed-cycle” functioning.

To learn more about The Ark Project and its construction details (and to see more cool architectural drawings!), visit Remistudio.

Some source material for this post came from the Pursuitist.com blog article “The Ark Floating Housing Project by Alexander Remizov” by Roger Scoble.

By Michael Ricciardi

July 19, 2013 

Read more at http://cleantechnica.com/2013/07/19/floating-housing-project-concept-for-uncertain-climate-future/#rj8jMz4y7rKykPr2.99