TY - JOUR
T1 - The rapid disintegration of projections
T2 - The West Antarctic Ice Sheet and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
AU - O'Reilly, Jessica
AU - Oreskes, Naomi
AU - Oppenheimer, Michael
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was conducted with the support of National Science Foundation Grant Number SES-0958378 and the High Meadows Foundation. The authors also thank the following scientists for participating in our interviews: Richard Alley, Hermann Engelhardt, Jonathan Gregory, Philippe Huybrechts, Johannes Oerlemans, Tony Payne, Stefan Rahmstorf, Susan Solomon, and David Vaughan. Finally, we gratefully acknowledge the reviewers whose insightful comments helped improve this article.
PY - 2012/10
Y1 - 2012/10
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - IPCC
KW - climate science
KW - institutions
KW - modeling
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84866685523&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1177/0306312712448130
DO - 10.1177/0306312712448130
M3 - Article
C2 - 23189611
AN - SCOPUS:84866685523
SN - 0306-3127
VL - 42
SP - 709
EP - 731
JO - Social Studies of Science
JF - Social Studies of Science
IS - 5
ER -