As a follow up to our 4/19 story about ash cloud modeling:
Ash cloud models – overrated? A word on Post Normal Science by Dr. Jerome Ravetz
I offer below a compendium of articles from Benny’ Pieser’s CCNET and GWPF of the UK
Above:
The Met Office has been blamed for triggering the “unnecessary” six-day closure of British airspace which has cost airlines, passengers and the economy more than £1.5 billion.–The Telegraph 19 April, 2010
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Global airlines have lost about $1.7bn of revenue as a result of the disruptions caused by the Icelandic volcanic eruption, a body has said. Giovanni Bisignani, chief executive of IATA, criticised governments for the haste with which they closed airspace, and called on them to provide compensation to the airlines. “Airspace was being closed based on theoretical models, not on facts. Test flights by our members showed that the models were wrong.” —BBC, 21 April 2010
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We are becoming a risk-averse society and that is dangerous. You cannot run a national economy on the precautionary principle; indeed, the sound position is to embrace as much risk as possible. Societies that embrace risk, such as the United States and recently the UK, tend to thrive, while those that seek to minimise risk, such as Britain during the 1970s, tend to wither. Financial capital is now fleeing Britain, heading to the Far East. A long queue of companies is chasing the money, including our own Prudential, which is floating a business on the Chinese stock market. The true venturers are over there, not in Britain. —The Times, 21 April 2010
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Rational decisions have to be taken on the basis of some empirical understanding of the risks involved, and on the balance between risk and reward (or the cost of avoiding risk). Exposing the nonsense and muddle of the so-called precautionary principle is an essential part of the GWPF’s declared mission ‘to bring reason, integrity and balance to a climate debate that has become seriously unbalanced, irrationally alarmist, and all too often depressingly intolerant’. If the argument now raging over the policy response to the volcanic ash clouds assists in achieving this, it will demonstrate that ash clouds, too, have a silver lining. —The Global Warming Policy Foundation, 20 April 2010
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=aspZxMDffsgs
Gee. who would have thought this was possible? too much modelling and not enough reality.
guesses anyone ??
regards
stevengoddard (22:31:11) :
The “real world” runs off all kinds of computer models. Whatever electronic device you are reading this on was designed using computer models.
Yes, of course it does. The question is how have they been compared to the real world, and how deterministic the system you are modelling is. The cost of quality assurance on the kind of models you are talking about is huge and the systems are deterministic and people that make mistakes very quickly find out about it.
Try missing a not gate of custom chip and see how much you shave of the bottom line of the company you are working for. Are you seriously trying to compare those kind of models with the ones produced by the met office?
Bemused, I have considerable difficulty believing that engine manufacturers did not know how much ash an engine can tolerate, given the experience with Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Redoubt, and other volcanoes where some airplanes were damaged from flying in or ground operations in heavy ash and others were not from flying in light visible ash. (The CAA is quoted as saying the engine manufacturers said not to fly in ash.) Note too that the eventual UK CAA second decision was to require precautions at a medium level of concentration.
Also note that there is an economic question – do you incur extra maintenance cost to get your passengers home?