Creating usable science: Opportunities and constraints for climate knowledge use and their implications for science policy

In the past several decades, decision makers in the United States have increasingly called upon publicly funded science to provide “usable” information for policy making, whether in the case of acid rain, famine prevention or climate change policy. As demands for usability become more prevalent for publicly accountable scientific programs, there is a need to better understand opportunities and constraints to science use in order to inform policy design and implementation. Motivated by recent critique of the decision support function of the US Global Change Research Program, this paper seeks to address this issue by specifically examining the production and use of climate science. It reviews empirical evidence from the rich scholarship focused on climate science use, particularly seasonal climate forecasts, to identify factors that constrain or foster usability. It finds, first, that climate science usability is a function both of the context of potential use and of the process of scientific knowledge production itself. Second, nearly every case of successful use of climate knowledge involved some kind of iteration between knowledge producers and users. The paper argues that, rather than an automatic outcome of the call for the production of usable science, iterativity is the result of the action of specific actors and organizations who ‘own’ the task of building the conditions and mechanisms fostering its creation. Several different types of institutional arrangements can accomplish this task, depending on the needs and resources available. While not all of the factors that enhance usability of science for decision making are within the realm of the scientific enterprise itself, many do offer opportunities for improvement. Science policy mechanisms such as the level of flexibility afforded to research projects and the metrics used to evaluate the outcomes of research investment can be critical to providing the necessary foundation for iterativity and production of usable science to occur.     

海洋科学和技术协同发展的回顾

简单回顾百余年来现代海洋科学的发展历程,并用一系列的实例,如深海取样和深海钻探,遥测遥感和水下观测,锚碇长期连续测量和智能水下活动平台,深潜技术和海底观测网等,说明科学的想像能促进技术的创新,而工具的重大改进能导致科学理解的跃进.文章的目的是向我国学术界和管理部门说明:科学和技术必须协同、而不是分头发展,只有两者的结合...     

Recollections of max born

This article is essentially the text of lectures presented September 7, 1982 at the Max Born Centenary Conference held in Edinburgh, Scotland and October 21, 1982 at the Max Born Symposium held during the Annual Meeting of the Optical Society of America.Emil Wolf is Wilson Professor of Optical Physics at the University of Rochester. Reprinted fromOptics News, November/December 1983 with permisssion from the author and the Optical Society of America     

2003年度天文学科科学基金面上项目申请、资助情况简介及分析

介绍了2003年度天文学科科学基金申请、资助的基本情况，并对一些结果进行了分析。     

2002年度天文学科科学基金面上项目评审工作回顾

介绍了2002年度天文学科科学基金申请、资助的基本情况，并对某些结果进行了分析。     

地球表层与天地生综合研究

本文联系地理学史从宇宙、地球、地球表层等概念的演化,讨论人类对地球表层的认识,介绍人类对地球表层作用后所形成的技术和社会圈,从人地关系协同论去说明智慧圈的意义,并讨论以地理相关法为基础的地域结构对应变换分析。以及天地生综合研究与宇宙全息论。本文以现代科学哲学、宇宙论、地球科学的新发展为基础,对地理学的研究对象—地球表层提供一个全新的认识,促进地理学中有关地球基本知识的更新。     

Geometry of Spiral Galaxy Arms

The previous work (He, 2001) on image analysis of over one hundred nearby galaxies indicates that for any spiral galaxy image of small inclination there is evidence of two sets of iso-ratio curves in different scales which, like curvilineal coordinate lines, expand over different galaxy components. This result sets constraint on galaxy patterns and a general equation which carries this constraint is presented in the current paper. The equation has clear geometrical meaning. Its much simplified version which applies to galaxy arms, when solved, may be a guidance to understanding galaxy patterns. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

提高《测量学》教学效果的几点体会

《测量学》是测绘科学、地理信息科学和土木建筑类专业的一门专业基础课,在课程体系中具有重要地位。结合几年来的教学实践,总结了影响教学效果的几个问题,介绍提高《测量学》教学效果的几点体会。     

Modelling risk and risking models: The diffusive boundary between science and policy in volcanic risk management

This article examines the science–policy interface in volcanic risk assessment. It analyses empirical data from research on Montserrat, where new volcanic risk assessment methodologies were pioneered. We discuss the ways in which these methods contributed towards the ordering of scientific advice in its geographical context, and we provide examples of the complex and overlapping topologies that are assembled in a volcanic eruption. In this case, the science–policy interface can be conceptualised as diffusive: both science and policy contain multiple overlapping networks of actors, objects and ideas that interact with one another through flows of responsibilities, attribution, identity and interpretation. Volcanic risk management involves negotiation of conceptual, relational and physical boundaries, and as a result requires the use of qualitative and quantitative methods across human and physical geography.     

Rethinking rewilding

The term ‘rewilding’ sounds as if it should have a straightforward meaning ‘to make wild again’. But in truth the term has a complex history and a host of meanings have been ascribed to it. Rewilding as a specific scientific term has its beginnings as a reference to the Wildlands Project, which was founded in 1991 and aimed to create North American core wilderness areas without human activity that would be connected by corridors. Words, however, do not stand still—they change over time and take on new meanings, while sometimes simultaneously retaining the older sense. Employing Foucault’s idea of historical genealogy, this article examines how the term rewilding was historically adopted and modified in ecological scientific discourse over the last two decades. This investigation probes what and, by extension, when and where, rewilding refers to as it has moved into various geographies across the globe. It then examines how the term has moved outside of science and been adopted by environmental activists as a plastic word. Taken as a whole, rewilding discourse seeks to erase human history and involvement with the land and flora and fauna. Such an attempted split between nature and culture may prove unproductive and even harmful. A more inclusive rewilding is a preferable strategy.