“Successfully employed by the mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss in the nineteenth century to describe deviations in astronomical measurements, the Bell curve or Gauss model has permeated our scientific culture, the economy and the self-image of modern society in general. It is more than a technical description. It shapes our thoughts. We think in terms of Gaussian distributions. The problem, however, is that measurements of uncertainty using the bell curve fail to take into account or attach any importance to the possibility of abrupt peaks or discontinuities. Employing such a measurement procedure in world risk society would be like concentrating completely on the grass and ignoring the (gigantic) trees. But in fact the occasional and unpredictable large deviations, even though they are seldom, cannot be dismissed as ‘outliers’ because their cumulative effects are dramatic.
“Traditional instruments of risk management concentrate on normal procedures and regard extremes as inconsequential. This approach is misleading in world risk society, which necessitates a turn towards a non-linear approach: the exceptions that only apparently confirm the rule must be the primary focus of attention.”

- Ulrich Beck in Risk Society

(a big up for discrete mathematicians everywhere)

A really good post by Andrew Revkin on his NY Times Blog on the reaction of the scientific community to the UEA email story.

There’s two good sources here, the first an open letter from Judith Curry and the second some thoughts from Mike Hulme of UEA.

Both have been getting lots of reactions on blogs over the past 24 hours. Hulme’s comments in particular are worth noting:

“the very practices of scientific enquiry must also be publicly owned, in the sense of being open and trusted.”

Clearly there has developed a gulf between the public space and even legitimate scientific study. And it’s becoming clear that it is this gap that is being exploited very successfully by skeptics of all sorts of hues. Of course, the PR disaster of a response by UEA to the whole ordeal has not helped.

Over a burrito last night on Brick Lane, a couple of non-climate scientists agreed. As long as the researchers at the big climate labs continue to even appear to be locking themselves and their data away, there is going to continue be distrust. That’s sure to lead to more trouble. I’m not sure what the answer is but there’s got to be a space between responding to every dumb request for models and data and ignoring skeptics altogether. Climate scientists must get back on the front foot in dealing with this issue.

Another interesting point by Hulme concerns the politicization of science and structures under which we are tackling climate change:

It is also possible that the institutional innovation that has been the I.P.C.C. has run its course. Yes, there will be an AR5 but for what purpose? The I.P.C.C. itself, through its structural tendency to politicize climate change science, has perhaps helped to foster a more authoritarian and exclusive form of knowledge production – just at a time when a globalizing and wired cosmopolitan culture is demanding of science something much more open and inclusive.

This isn’t the first call for a more well-rounded successor to the I.P.C.C. It will be interesting to see where this argument goes post Copenhagen.