I wanted to offer some thoughts on the Gates climate memo that has been circulating this week. While I can't directly speak for others, I can say that my own response is one of dismay & deep frustration (and that this view is shared by many climate/Earth scientists). [1/n]
4/4 - If you're wondering how we evaluated so many 1,000s of different fuel treatment plans and their effect on reducing burn probability across a landscape, then you will be interested in reading the 2nd paper of my PhD, which explored "metamodelling" of burn probability.
doi.org/10.1016/j.je...
3/4 - A key message is that what makes a “good” decision will depend highly on (1) how we define our objectives, and (2) how we navigate trade-offs between objs. Optimisation can help to explore decisions, but the process of defining what “good” looks like is values-based and can't be out-sourced.
The optimisation paper is open-access and available at this link:
doi.org/10.1071/WF25...
2/4 - A great feature of MOEAs is that they are very flexible. We can incorporate a range of simulation models to represent different objectives. We optimised fuel treatment plans to reduce burn probability, exploring many thousands of different plans to find those that best achieved the objective.
1/4 - Check our new paper in @ijwildlandfire.bsky.social
We use MOEA optimisation to support decisions for #wildfire risk reduction (e.g., where should we use prescribed burning to reduce risk?). Optimisation improves fuel treatment plan effectiveness by 80–280% and adapts to changing objectives.
