The phrase
"to know the uncertainty" means being aware that there is a possibility of not knowing or being unsure about something. It emphasizes the understanding that there can be doubts or lack of exact knowledge in a particular situation or about a certain topic.
Full definition
While it's fashionable these days to fight over who's in denial about what facts on climate change, a focus
on known uncertainty goes way back.
Not only is its central estimate relatively distant from (warmer than) the prior record, but even accounting
for known uncertainties, and their known shapes, it still emerges as easily the most likely warmest year on record.
Known uncertainties include (1) the content of the primary carbon in the magmas and country rocks; (2) the duration and intensity of magmatism; and (3) the fraction of carbon that is released to the surface (from either the ascending magma or the heated country rocks).
On this basis they make the point that using outputs from climate models to generate the «observations» (apart from the obvious objections of Stainforth et al about
not knowing the uncertainty) you are very unlikely to know what the overlap is with the prior.
This «
known uncertainty» is about the height of your kitchen counter-top.
I know this uncertainty is difficult and I appreciate your patience.
Or, it could mean that they are saying that
known uncertainties should not be included — an interpretation that certainly wouldn't be from left field, and one that I think is «suboptimal.»
«In contrast, the difference between, say, the second and sixth warmest years is trivial since
the known uncertainty — or noise — in the temperature measurement is larger than some of the differences between the warmest years.»
Using a Monte Carlo approach (Arguez et al, 2013), NCDC considered
the known uncertainty of the global land and ocean annual temperature in the 2014 annual ranking.
It is
knowing the uncertainties that makes science possible!
A few weeks ago I was at a meeting in Cambridge that discussed how (or whether) paleo - climate information can reduce
the known uncertainties in future climate simulations.
If the record is wrong, a new reconstruction of old proxy data will carry
the known uncertainties of the temperature record.