Lmst

#happybirthday #owenwilson #actor #mobius #loki #AntManandtheWasp #Quantumania #Stick #HauntedMansion #Paint #MarryMe #SecretHeadquarters #theroyaltenenbaums #bottleroad #weddingcrashers #starskyandhutch #Cars #CarsontheRoad #NightattheMuseum #LittleFockers #TheInternship #TheGrandBudapestHotel #NoEscape #zoolander #Wonder #TheFrenchDispatch

“I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong… when we know that we actually do live in uncertainty, then we ought to admit it; it is of great value to realize that we do not know the answers to different questions.”*…

The immense complexity of the climate makes it impossible to model accurately. Instead, David Stainforth argues, we must use uncertainty to our advantage…

Today’s complex climate models aren’t equivalent to reality. In fact, computer models of Earth are very different to reality – particularly on regional, national and local scales. They don’t represent many aspects of the physical processes that we know are important for climate change, which means we can’t rely on them to provide detailed local predictions. This is a concern because human-induced climate change is all about our understanding of the future. This understanding empowers us. It enables us to make informed decisions by telling us about the consequences of our actions. It helps us consider what the future will be like if we act strongly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, if we act only half-heartedly, or if we take no action at all. Such information enables us to assess the level of investment that we believe is worthwhile as individuals, communities and nations. It enables us to balance action on climate change against other demands on our finances such as health, education, security and culture.
For many of us, these issues are approached through the lens of personal experience and personal cares: we want to know what changes to expect where we live, in the places we know, and in the regions where we have our roots. We want local climate predictions – predictions conditioned on the choices that our societies make.
So, where do we get them? Well, nowadays most of these predictions originate from complicated computer models of the climate system – so-called Earth System Models (ESMs). These models are ubiquitous in climate change science. And for good reason. The increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are driving the climate system into a never-before-seen state. That means the past cannot be a good guide to the future, and predictions based simply on historic observations can’t be reliable: the information isn’t in the observational data, so no amount of processing can extract it. Climate prediction is therefore about our understanding of the physical processes of climate, not about data-processing. And since there are so many physical processes involved – everything from the movement of heat and moisture around the atmosphere to the interaction of oceans with ice-sheets – this naturally leads to the use of computer models.
But there’s a problem: models aren’t equivalent to reality.
So, what can we do? One option is to make the models better. Make them more detailed and more complicated. That, though, raises an important question: when is a model sufficiently realistic to predict something as complex as climate change? When will the models be good enough? We don’t have an answer to this question. Indeed, scientists have hardly begun to study this problem, and some argue that these models might never be sufficiently accurate to make multi-decadal, local climate predictions.
Nevertheless, changing the way we use ESMs could provide a different and better way to generate the local climate information we seek. Doing so involves embracing uncertainty as a key part of our knowledge about climate change. It involves stepping back and accepting that what we want is not precise predictions but robust predictions, even if robustness involves accepting large uncertainties in what we can know about the future…
[Stainforth explains the current state of modeling, efforts to make them better, and the problems those efforts encounter…]
… focusing on high-resolution modelling is dangerous not only because we have no answer to the question of when a model is sufficiently realistic. Investing in this approach also means we don’t have the capacity to explore the uncertainties, which inevitably encourages overconfidence in the predictions that models make. This is a particular concern because Earth System Models are increasingly being used to guide decisions and investments across our societies. Overconfidence in model-based predictions therefore risks encouraging bad decisions: decisions that are optimised for the futures in our models rather than what we understand about the range of possible futures for reality.
By contrast, perturbed physics ensembles and storyline approaches focus on exploring and describing our uncertainties. Placing uncertainty front and centre is important. When we make an investment or a gamble, we don’t just base it on what we think is the most likely result. We consider the range of outcomes that we think are possible – ideally these are characterised by probabilities, although this isn’t always achievable. It’s the same with climate change. We should not only make plans based solely on our best estimate of what might happen. We should also consider the range of plausible outcomes we foresee. Our knowledge of uncertainty is also part of what we know about climate change. We should embrace this knowledge, expand it and use it.
If we understand the uncertainties well, we can bring our values to bear on the risks we are willing to take. Uncertainty therefore needs to be at the core of adaptation planning while also being the lens through which we judge the value of climate policy and the energy transition. In my view, climate researchers and modellers wanting to support society should focus on understanding, characterising and quantifying uncertainty, and avoid the trap of seeking climate models that make reliable predictions. They may well never exist…

A more practical approach to preparing for climate change: “The model of catastrophe,” from @aeon.co

* Richard Feynman

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As we preference plausibility (over predictability), we might send never-ending birthday greetings to August Möbius; he was born on this date in 1790. An astronomer and mathematician, he studied under mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss while Gauss was the director of the Göttingen Observatory. From there, he went on to study with Carl Gauss’s instructor, Johann Pfaff, at the University of Halle, where he completed his doctoral thesis The occultation of fixed stars in 1815. In 1816, he became Extraordinary Professor in the “chair of astronomy and higher mechanics” at the University of Leipzig, where he remained for the rest of his career. Möbius made many contributions to both astronomy and the math that underlay it: he was among the first to conceive the possibility of geometry in more than three dimensions; he introduced homogeneous coordinates into projective geometry; and he pioneered the barycentric coordinate system… all parts of the intellectual foundation of the complex system modeling described above.

But while he was an influential scholar and professor, he is best remembered for his creation of the “Möbius strip.”

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#astronomy #augustMobius #augustMobius2 #complexSystemModels #complexSystems #culture #history #mathematics #mobiusStrip #mobius #mobiusStrip2 #models #planning #plausibility #predicition #science #technology #uncertainty

A wooden bench partially submerged in turbulent, frothy water along a shoreline, with dark storm clouds in the background.

Engraved portrait of August Ferdinand Möbius, a mathematician and astronomer, wearing a dark jacket and a white shirt with a cravat, looking towards the viewer.

𝐋a 𝐒éance du 𝐒oir

𝐌𝐨̈𝐛𝐢𝐮𝐬
Film écrit et réalisé par Éric Rochant en 2013
Avec Jean Dujardin , Cécile de France , Tim Roth et Émilie Dequenne

*Jean Dujardin et Cécile de France forment un couple glamour dans cette romance hitchcockienne.

#Möbius #ÉricRochant #JeanDujardin #CécileDeFrance #TimRoth #ÉmilieDequenne
#classic #cinegenres #culte #classic #cinema #film #movie #LaSéanceDuSoir

𝐋a 𝐒éance du 𝐒oir:
https://cinegenres.com/film-de-la-soiree/

“It might help to think of the universe as a rubber sheet, or perhaps not”*…

You have most likely encountered one-sided objects hundreds of times in your daily life – like the universal symbol for recycling, found printed on the backs of aluminum cans and plastic bottles.

This mathematical object is called a Mobius strip. It has fascinated environmentalists, artists, engineers, mathematicians and many others ever since its discovery in 1858 by August Möbius, a German mathematician who died 150 years ago, on Sept. 26, 1868.
Möbius discovered the one-sided strip in 1858 while serving as the chair of astronomy and higher mechanics at the University of Leipzig. (Another mathematician named Listing actually described it a few months earlier, but did not publish his work until 1861. Indeed, it had already appeared in Roman mosaics from the third century CE.)…

The discovery of the Möbius strip in the mid-19th century launched a brand new field of mathematics: topology: “The Mathematical Madness of Möbius Strips and Other One-Sided Objects.”

* Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

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As we return from whence we came, we might wish a Joyeux Anniversaire to Denis Diderot, contributor to and the chief editor of the Encyclopédie (“All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone’s feelings.”)– and thus towering figure in the Enlightenment; he was born on this date in 1713. Diderot was also a novelist (e.g., Jacques le fataliste et son maître [Jacques the Fatalist and his Master])… and no mean epigramist:

From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.
We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.
Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
A thing is not proved just because no one has ever questioned it.

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#diderot #encyclopedie #encyclopedia #history #literature #mathematics #mobiusStrip #mobius #topology