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Technical Uncertainty in Quantitative Policy Analysis — A Sulfur Air Pollution Example
Author(s) -
Morgan M. Granger,
Morris Samuel C.,
Henrion Max,
Amaral Deborah A. L.,
Rish William R.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
risk analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.972
H-Index - 130
eISSN - 1539-6924
pISSN - 0272-4332
DOI - 10.1111/j.1539-6924.1984.tb00139.x
Subject(s) - air pollution , range (aeronautics) , environmental science , pollution , meteorology , engineering , geography , chemistry , ecology , organic chemistry , biology , aerospace engineering
Expert judgments expressed as subjective probability distributions provide an appropriate means of incorporating technical uncertainty in some quantitative policy studies. Judgments and distributions obtained from several experts allow one to explore the extent to which the conclusions reached in such a study depend on which expert one talks to. For the case of sulfur air pollution from coal‐fired power plants, estimates of sulfur mass balance as a function of plume flight time are shown to vary little across the range of opinions of leading atmospheric scientists while estimates of possible health impacts are shown to vary widely across the range of opinions of leading scientists in air pollution health effects.