I’m glad Pete recognizes the potential for a lot more research in this area! This is really just scratching the surface, and of course a lot more research will need to be done in the next years/decades to really understand what the limits are for managing this complex, nonlinear, uncertain, high-dimensional system. We’re happy to take ideas for future research (though of course we have some rather obvious ones of our own.)
Though it does seem a bit strange to adopt a seemingly critical tone simply because we didn’t answer every question that could possibly ever be asked… As an engineer, if someone started down a complex approach without asking whether a problem could be solved using “conventional linear normal science”, I’d fire them on the spot. I presume that tone was not intended. doug Douglas MacMartin Research Professor Computing + Mathematical Sciences California Institute of Technology 1200 E. California Blvd., M/C 305-16 Pasadena, CA 91125 (650) 619-9341 (cell) From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Fred Zimmerman Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2015 11:50 AM To: Andrew Lockley; geoengineering Cc: Peter Jones Subject: Re: [geo] (must read) Geoengineering as a design problem I ran this by my pal Pete Jones who is an expert on system design among other things (redesignresearch.com) and here is what he had to say: Seems to me like a provocation to consider a large-scale engineering design approach to analysis, identification of points to induce effects, and to manage interventions. As a “design problem” the issue is underconceptualized (at first read) in that the “strategy” being recommended is conventional linear normal science. Not that a design approach couldn’t be used, it’s just they probably got this paper published because their reviewers don’t understand the advanced design literature. It seems like a radical design solution, but it is a conventional strategy that would not accommodate discovery, emergent complexity, and accounting for unpredictable and unobservable effects. A non-parametric discovery approach ought to be considered for problems of this scale. My former student John Cassel has investigated approaches such as this (he just presented at RSD4 on agro-ecology). Last year’s paper on NDEAM was an outline for non-parametric design for such complex engineering problems., which he published in our special issue. The Methodological Unboundedness of Limited Discovery Processes https://journals.hioa.no/index.php/formakademisk/article/view/755 PJ On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 7:20 PM, Andrew Lockley <[email protected]> wrote: http://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/6/1635/2015/esdd-6-1635-2015.html Geoengineering as a design problem 08 Sep 2015 Abstract. Understanding the climate impacts of solar geoengineering is essential for evaluating its benefits and risks. Most previous simulations have prescribed a particular strategy and evaluated its modeled effects. Here we turn this approach around by first choosing example climate objectives and then designing a strategy to meet those objectives in climate models. There are four essential criteria for designing a strategy: (i) an explicit specification of the objectives, (ii) defining what climate forcing agents to modify so the objectives are met, (iii) a method for managing uncertainties, and (iv) independent verification of the strategy in an evaluation model. We demonstrate this design perspective through two multi-objective examples. First, changes in Arctic temperature and the position of tropical precipitation due to CO2 increases are offset by adjusting high latitude insolation in each hemisphere independently. Second, three different latitude-dependent patterns of insolation are modified to offset CO2-induced changes in global mean temperature, interhemispheric temperature asymmetry, and the equator-to-pole temperature gradient. In both examples, the "design" and "evaluation" models are state-of-the-art fully coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation models. Citation: Kravitz, B., MacMartin, D. G., Wang, H., and Rasch, P. J.: Geoengineering as a design problem, Earth Syst. Dynam. Discuss., 6, 1635-1710, doi:10.5194/esdd-6-1635-2015, 2015. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
