A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming (Hardcover)

Paul N. Edwards

  • 出版商: MIT
  • 出版日期: 2010-03-12
  • 售價: $1,200
  • 貴賓價: 9.8$1,176
  • 語言: 英文
  • 頁數: 552
  • 裝訂: Hardcover
  • ISBN: 0262013924
  • ISBN-13: 9780262013925
  • 相關分類: 大數據 Big-data雲端運算
  • 立即出貨 (庫存 < 3)

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商品描述

Global warming skeptics often fall back on the argument that the scientific case for global warming is all model predictions, nothing but simulation; they warn us that we need to wait for real data, "sound science." In A Vast Machine Paul Edwards has news for these skeptics: without models, there are no data. Today, no collection of signals or observations—even from satellites, which can "see" the whole planet with a single instrument—becomes global in time and space without passing through a series of data models. Everything we know about the world's climate we know through models. Edwards offers an engaging and innovative history of how scientists learned to understand the atmosphere—to measure it, trace its past, and model its future.

Edwards argues that all our knowledge about climate change comes from three kinds of computer models: simulation models of weather and climate; reanalysis models, which recreate climate history from historical weather data; and data models, used to combine and adjust measurements from many different sources. Meteorology creates knowledge through an infrastructure (weather stations and other data platforms) that covers the whole world, making global data. This infrastructure generates information so vast in quantity and so diverse in quality and form that it can be understood only by computer analysis—making data global. Edwards describes the science behind the scientific consensus on climate change, arguing that over the years data and models have converged to create a stable, reliable, and trustworthy basis for establishing the reality of global warming.

商品描述(中文翻譯)

全球暖化的懷疑論者常常以科學對全球暖化的論點只是模型預測,只是模擬而已作為回應,他們警告我們需要等待真實數據,需要「可靠的科學」。在《巨大的機器》一書中,保羅·愛德華茲向這些懷疑論者帶來了一個消息:沒有模型,就沒有數據。如今,沒有任何信號或觀測(即使來自能夠以單一儀器「看見」整個地球的衛星)能夠在時間和空間上成為全球性的,而不經過一系列的數據模型。我們對世界氣候的所有了解都來自於模型。愛德華茲提供了一個引人入勝且創新的歷史,介紹了科學家如何學會理解大氣層,測量它,追溯其過去,並模擬其未來。

愛德華茲認為,我們對氣候變化的所有知識都來自於三種類型的電腦模型:天氣和氣候的模擬模型;重新分析模型,從歷史天氣數據中重建氣候歷史;以及數據模型,用於結合和調整來自許多不同來源的測量數據。氣象學通過一個覆蓋全球的基礎設施(氣象站和其他數據平台)創造知識,從而產生全球數據。這個基礎設施產生的信息在數量上非常龐大,在質量和形式上非常多樣,只能通過計算機分析來理解,從而使數據具有全球性。愛德華茲描述了關於氣候變化的科學共識背後的科學,並認為多年來,數據和模型已經趨於一致,為確定全球暖化的現實性提供了穩定、可靠和可信賴的基礎。