The rapid disintegration of projections
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11924176 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jessica O’reilly (0000-0002-0281-5903, Department of Sociology, College of Saint Benedict, Saint John’s University, Collegeville, MN, USA, corresponding author), Naomi Oreskes (0000-0001-6122-9843, University of California San Diego), Michael Oppenheimer (0000-0002-9708-5914, Princeton University) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 42 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 709-731 |
| Publication date | 2012-06-26 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Studies of Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0306-3127 • E-ISSN: 1460-3659 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0306312712448130 |
| PMID | 23189611 |
| OpenAlex | W2164026549 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 36 |
| References cited | 49 |
How and why did the scientific consensus about sea level rise due to the disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), expressed in the third Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment, disintegrate on the road to the fourth? Using ethnographic interviews and analysis of IPCC documents, we trace the abrupt disintegration of the WAIS consensus. First, we provide a brief historical overview of scientific assessments of the WAIS. Second, we provide a detailed case study of the decision not to provide a WAIS prediction in the Fourth Assessment Report. Third, we discuss the implications of this outcome for the general issue of scientists and policymakers working in assessment organizations to make projections. IPCC authors were less certain about potential WAIS futures than in previous assessment reports in part because of new information, but also because of the outcome of cultural processes within the IPCC, including how people were selected for and worked together within their writing groups. It became too difficult for IPCC assessors to project the range of possible futures for WAIS due to shifts in scientific knowledge as well as in the institutions that facilitated the interpretations of this knowledge
Antarctic ice sheet · Archaeology · Climate change · Cryosphere · Economics · Ethnography · Futures contract · Geography · Meteorology · Political science · Sea ice · Sociology · Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics · Climate variability and models · Cryospheric studies and observations · Geology · Oceanography
Variation in the Epistemic Authority of Science in Climate Change
Bridging in network organisations. The case of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Introduction to Special Theme Section “Accounting for Climate Change
Sociotechnical agendas
Transformative Conservation of Ecosystems
The IPCC and the new map of science and politics
The ethics of scientific communication under uncertainty
Wildfires at the Edges of Science
Epistemic geographies of climate change
The predictive state
Boundary spaces
Social futures of global climate change
Characterizing uncertainty in expert assessments
The IPCC and treatment of uncertainties
Intergovernmental Expert Consensus in the Making
Why the IPCC should evolve in response to the UNFCCC bottom-up strategy adopted in Paris? An opinion from the French Association for Disaster Risk Reduction
Taking science by surprise
Making policy-relevant knowledge in the IPCC Special Report on 1.5 degrees
Science advice for global challenges
Engaging and Narrating the Antarctic Ice Sheet
The curve
Climate change prediction
Unleashing expert judgment in assessment
Knowing like a global expert organization
Scientific deceit
Climate change and the geographies of objectivity
Varying Evidential Standards as a Matter of Justice
Embracing uncertainty
Carbon sink geopolitics
Science-policy dimensions of research on climate change and conflict
Sea ice out of time
Mocking while working with problematic representations
Climate Change
What Is Carbon Dioxide? When Is Carbon Dioxide
What Does Climate Change Demand of Anthropology
Sensing the ice
A Model for Holocene Retreat of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
Response of a Marine Ice Sheet to Changes at the Grounding Line
A History of the Science and Politics of Climate Change
Climate change 2001
Acceptable Evidence
Designs on Nature
Climate Change 2007
The Rejection of Continental Drift
Global sea level linked to global temperature
Verification, Validation, and Confirmation of Numerical Models in the Earth Sciences
A Semi-Empirical Approach to Projecting Future Sea-Level Rise
Discipline and Punish
Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks
Inventing accuracy
Climate change
Assessing model-based and conflict-based uncertainty
The intergovernmental panal on climate change
Global climate science, uncertainty and politics
Seductive Simulations? Uncertainty Distribution Around Climate Models
A vast machine
Notes on the Difficulty of Studying the State (1977)
Discipline and Punish
Documents
Boundary Organizations in Environmental Policy and Science
Hybrid Management
Representing Uncertainty in Global Climate Change Science and Policy
Is Good Policy Unimplementable? Reflections on the Ethnography of Aid Policy and Practice
Seeing Like a State
Expectations of Modernity
| Unique citing works | 36 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,4 |
| Citation span | 2011 - 2026 (16) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 35 |