{ "model": { "rank": 6675, "code": "thing-q19921", "model_id": "vr.tr.nuclear-winter", "name": "nuclear winter", "purpose": "Enable an agent to identify, compare and assess nuclear-winter scenarios while keeping climatic consequences conditional on explicit assumptions and evidence.", "family": "Thing Registry", "category": "Cross-cutting context", "status": "research-draft", "kind": "thing", "plane": "XCT", "domain": "XCT.STA", "industry": "", "version": "", "url": "/models/thing/q19921/", "tier": 2, "score": 59, "payload": { "layer": "wikidata", "aliases": [], "aliasCount": 0, "merged": 0, "knownIn": 59, "facets": null, "markers": [], "lexicalClass": "", "senseRank": null, "alsoRegisteredAs": null, "source": { "dataset": "wikidata", "item": "Q19921", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q19921", "license": "CC0 1.0" } }, "research": { "vercy": "1.0-draft", "publication": { "status": "research-draft", "adjudicationStatus": "unreviewed", "publishableCanonical": false, "generatedAt": "2026-09-09T23:16:07Z", "providers": [ "Codex" ], "breadth": "recalled by Codex without web access - no source was read", "missingProviders": [], "pass": 2, "cost": { "grok": { "seconds": 18.9, "error": "Reading additional input from stdin...\nOpenAI Codex v0.153.4\n--------\nworkdir: R:\\02_PROJECTS\\02_Meta_Models_Platforms\\Ver.cy\\current\\thing-registry-backlog\nmodel: gpt-6-astra\nprovider: openai\napproval: never\nsandbox: read-only\nreasoning effort: none\nreasoning summaries: none\nsession id: 01a08873-e47e-7831-a587-df22a3089cec\n--------\nuser\nDescribe what is already known about one registered thing. Answer as JSON only, no prose around it.\n\nThing: nuclear winter\nSense to describe: (none recorded)\nDomain code: XCT.QLT\nAlso known as: (none)\n\n\nContext for this batch of 1001 things:\n# Batch 007: 1001 ", "usd": 0, "recall": true }, "codex": { "seconds": 76.4, "error": "Reading additional input from stdin...\nOpenAI Codex v0.153.4\n--------\nworkdir: R:\\02_PROJECTS\\02_Meta_Models_Platforms\\Ver.cy\\current\\thing-registry-backlog\nmodel: gpt-6-astra\nprovider: openai\napproval: never\nsandbox: read-only\nreasoning effort: none\nreasoning summaries: none\nsession id: 01a08873-e487-73a2-ac64-51072be62dd0\n--------\nuser\nYou are drafting a Vercy meta-model for one registered thing. Answer as JSON only, no prose around it.\n\nThing: nuclear winter\nRegistry id: vr.tr.nuclear-winter\nPlane / domain: XCT / XCT.QLT\nRegistry definition: (none recorded)\nNames folded into this entry: (no" } } }, "metaModel": { "id": "THING-Q19921", "registryId": "vr.tr.nuclear-winter", "name": "nuclear winter", "version": "0.1.0-research.1", "entryKind": "thing", "family": "Thing Registry", "domain": [ "XCT.QLT" ], "status": "research-draft" }, "canonicalUrl": "https://ver.cy/models/thing/q19921/", "model": { "registry_id": "vr.tr.nuclear-winter", "name": "nuclear winter", "purpose": "Enable an agent to identify, compare and assess nuclear-winter scenarios while keeping climatic consequences conditional on explicit assumptions and evidence.", "definition": "Nuclear winter is a hypothesized prolonged, widespread climatic cooling following nuclear war, caused primarily by sunlight-absorbing soot from large fires reaching the upper atmosphere and reducing solar energy at Earth's surface.", "scope_statement": "This model owns vr.tr.nuclear-winter in XCT / XCT.QLT: the hypothesized severe, prolonged climatic disruption caused by smoke from nuclear-war fires, including its definition, causal dependencies, modeled state and interfaces to downstream impacts.", "in_scope": [ "Definitions and operational thresholds distinguishing nuclear winter from lesser nuclear-war cooling", "Scenario-level smoke production, atmospheric injection and persistence assumptions", "Changes in sunlight, temperature, precipitation and seasonal growing conditions", "Spatial extent, onset, duration and recovery of modeled climatic disruption", "Evidence quality, model disagreement and conditional downstream impact assessments" ], "out_of_scope": [ "Nuclear weapon design, targeting and operational attack planning", "Immediate blast injuries, thermal injuries and infrastructure destruction", "Radioactive fallout transport and radiation-dose assessment", "Nuclear-war initiation probabilities and geopolitical escalation models", "Detailed agricultural, famine, ecosystem and public-health models", "Volcanic winter, impact winter and ordinary seasonal winter as separate phenomena" ], "distinguishing_features": [ "The proposed causal chain originates in nuclear-war fires and their atmospheric smoke, rather than volcanic aerosols, an asteroid impact or seasonal changes in sunlight.", "The assessed phenomenon concerns persistent climatic disruption beyond the immediate fire and blast footprint; local smoke exposure alone is insufficient.", "Classification requires an explicit severity, duration and spatial criterion; the presence of nuclear-war-induced cooling alone does not automatically settle the label.", "Reduced surface sunlight and altered climate must be distinguished from radioactive contamination, even when both arise in the same scenario.", "An instance must be labeled as a hypothesis, scenario or simulation unless independent evidence establishes an actual event; a simulation is not an observed nuclear winter." ], "characteristics": [ { "name": "Definition and classification rule", "kind": "category", "unit_or_values": "Attributed definition with explicit severity, duration and geographic criteria; unspecified where absent", "why_it_matters": "Prevents an agent from treating different uses of nuclear winter as equivalent." }, { "name": "Assessment status", "kind": "state", "unit_or_values": "Conceptual hypothesis | specified scenario | simulated outcome | independently evaluated simulation | claimed observed event requiring verification", "why_it_matters": "Separates modeled possibilities from observations and evaluation." }, { "name": "Atmospheric soot injection", "kind": "measurement", "unit_or_values": "Tg of soot or black carbon, with composition, injection altitude or pressure, geographic distribution and time profile", "why_it_matters": "Defines a major forcing input without conflating emitted smoke with material reaching persistent atmospheric layers." }, { "name": "Aerosol persistence", "kind": "measurement", "unit_or_values": "Months or years, with a stated residence-time or burden-decay definition", "why_it_matters": "Connects atmospheric removal assumptions to the duration of forcing." }, { "name": "Surface sunlight anomaly", "kind": "measurement", "unit_or_values": "W/m² or percent relative to a stated baseline, region and averaging period", "why_it_matters": "Describes the light reduction relevant to cooling and photosynthesis." }, { "name": "Surface temperature anomaly", "kind": "measurement", "unit_or_values": "°C relative to a stated control climate, with regional and seasonal resolution", "why_it_matters": "A global average alone cannot establish local frost or growing-season conditions." }, { "name": "Precipitation anomaly", "kind": "measurement", "unit_or_values": "mm/day or percent relative to a stated baseline, region and season", "why_it_matters": "Captures hydrological disruption that temperature alone misses." }, { "name": "Growing-season disruption", "kind": "measurement", "unit_or_values": "Frost-free days lost or growing-degree-day anomaly, with local thresholds", "why_it_matters": "Provides a climate interface to crop models without asserting crop failure directly." }, { "name": "Recovery time", "kind": "measurement", "unit_or_values": "Years to a declared recovery threshold for each climate variable and region", "why_it_matters": "Avoids assuming sunlight, land temperature and oceans recover together." }, { "name": "Evidence and model lineage", "kind": "relation", "unit_or_values": "Links to publications, scenario inputs, model versions, control runs and evaluation evidence", "why_it_matters": "Makes claims traceable and reveals when apparently separate estimates share assumptions." } ], "affordances": [ "Classify a scenario under an attributed nuclear-winter definition and flag missing thresholds.", "Compare simulations after aligning soot inputs, climate baselines, regions and time windows.", "Trace a projected effect back through atmospheric processes to its scenario assumptions.", "Identify which uncertain inputs or model choices most affect a conclusion.", "Supply conditional climate trajectories to food-system and ecosystem assessments.", "Evaluate proposed resilience measures against stated climatic conditions and expose unsupported effectiveness claims." ] }, "sources": [], "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "meaning-and-instance-boundaries", "name": "Meaning and instance boundaries", "description": "Establish what a source means by nuclear winter and what would qualify under that meaning.", "rationale": "The registry lacks a definition, and classification must not silently turn every modeled cooling effect into nuclear winter.", "layers": [ { "id": "definitions-and-thresholds", "name": "Definitions and thresholds", "description": "Record attributed terminology and operational criteria.", "findings": [ { "id": "attributed-winter-criterion", "name": "Attributed winter criterion", "description": "Capture the author's definition and distinguish qualitative descriptions from measurable classification thresholds.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which source defines nuclear winter here, and what severity, duration and geographic extent does it require?", "kind": "definition", "id": "attributed-winter-criterion-q01" }, { "text": "How does that source distinguish nuclear winter from less severe nuclear-war cooling or nuclear autumn?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "attributed-winter-criterion-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "scenario-and-event-status", "name": "Scenario and event status", "description": "Separate the concept, a forcing scenario and a claimed climatic outcome.", "findings": [ { "id": "qualifying-instance", "name": "Qualifying instance", "description": "Require an explicit evidential status and causal attribution for each proposed instance.", "questions": [ { "text": "Is this record a hypothesis, an input scenario, a simulation result or a claim about an observed event?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "qualifying-instance-q01" }, { "text": "What evidence connects the cooling to nuclear-war fire smoke rather than another forcing?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "qualifying-instance-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "smoke-source-and-injection", "name": "Smoke source and injection", "description": "Represent the uncertain transition from nuclear-war fires to climate-model aerosol inputs.", "rationale": "The amount of smoke produced and its atmospheric delivery must be assessed separately from the climate response to an assumed injection.", "layers": [ { "id": "fire-emissions-assumptions", "name": "Fire emissions assumptions", "description": "Track aggregate fire and combustion assumptions without constructing attack plans.", "findings": [ { "id": "emitted-smoke-budget", "name": "Emitted smoke budget", "description": "Separate assumed combustible material, burned fraction and soot emissions from subsequent atmospheric transport.", "questions": [ { "text": "What evidence supports the aggregate fuel loading, burned fraction and soot emission factors?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "emitted-smoke-budget-q01" }, { "text": "How much soot is emitted, and what uncertainty range accompanies that estimate?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "emitted-smoke-budget-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "delivery-to-persistent-layers", "name": "Delivery to persistent layers", "description": "Describe vertical transport, removal before injection and the imposed aerosol distribution.", "findings": [ { "id": "injection-boundary-condition", "name": "Injection boundary condition", "description": "Record whether atmospheric injection is calculated from fires or prescribed independently. Source calculations and transport assumptions are explicit components of [Reisner et al. (2018)](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017JD027331).", "questions": [ { "text": "What mass, altitude or pressure range, latitude distribution and injection duration enter the climate model?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "injection-boundary-condition-q01" }, { "text": "Which lofting and early-removal processes were resolved, parameterized or omitted?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "injection-boundary-condition-q02" }, { "text": "Does the reported soot quantity mean total emissions or the smaller quantity surviving to the specified atmospheric layer?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "injection-boundary-condition-q03" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "aerosol-evolution-and-forcing", "name": "Aerosol evolution and forcing", "description": "Track how injected smoke evolves and changes the atmospheric energy balance.", "rationale": "An injection mass alone does not specify sunlight reduction or its persistence.", "layers": [ { "id": "particle-properties-and-removal", "name": "Particle properties and removal", "description": "Represent aerosol composition, size evolution, transport and loss.", "findings": [ { "id": "soot-lifetime-controls", "name": "Soot lifetime controls", "description": "Require explicit treatment of aerosol properties and lifetime controls; black-carbon representation and particle-size assumptions are documented in [Coupe et al. (2019)](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019JD030509).", "questions": [ { "text": "How are particle size, aggregation, composition and optical properties represented?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "soot-lifetime-controls-q01" }, { "text": "How do atmospheric transport, solar heating and removal processes change the aerosol burden over time?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "soot-lifetime-controls-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "radiative-response", "name": "Radiative response", "description": "Separate surface dimming from atmospheric heating and other radiative quantities.", "findings": [ { "id": "sunlight-and-energy-anomalies", "name": "Sunlight and energy anomalies", "description": "Record the variable actually estimated, its atmospheric level and its spatial and temporal aggregation.", "questions": [ { "text": "What are the modeled aerosol optical depth and surface shortwave-radiation anomalies by region and season?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "sunlight-and-energy-anomalies-q01" }, { "text": "Does the reported forcing describe the surface, top of atmosphere or atmospheric absorption, and are these being confused?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "sunlight-and-energy-anomalies-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "climate-severity-and-recovery", "name": "Climate severity and recovery", "description": "Describe the magnitude, geography and time course of climatic disruption.", "rationale": "Recognition and impact assessment require regional trajectories rather than a single global cooling number.", "layers": [ { "id": "regional-and-seasonal-response", "name": "Regional and seasonal response", "description": "Resolve temperature, precipitation and growing-season changes against a control climate.", "findings": [ { "id": "regional-climate-envelope", "name": "Regional climate envelope", "description": "Keep global averages separate from local extremes and season-specific exposure.", "questions": [ { "text": "What temperature, precipitation and sunlight anomalies occur in each relevant region and season?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "regional-climate-envelope-q01" }, { "text": "How do frost frequency and growing-season length change under explicitly stated local thresholds?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "regional-climate-envelope-q02" }, { "text": "Which regional results satisfy the chosen nuclear-winter criterion, and which do not?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "regional-climate-envelope-q03" } ] } ] }, { "id": "onset-persistence-and-recovery", "name": "Onset, persistence and recovery", "description": "Track peak disruption and recovery separately across climate components.", "findings": [ { "id": "variable-specific-recovery", "name": "Variable-specific recovery", "description": "Require explicit recovery criteria and distinguish a recovered variable from a simulation that simply ended.", "questions": [ { "text": "When does each climate variable reach its largest anomaly and return within its declared recovery range?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "variable-specific-recovery-q01" }, { "text": "Does the simulation cover recovery of oceans and sea ice as well as atmospheric and land conditions?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "variable-specific-recovery-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "conditional-impact-and-response", "name": "Conditional impact and response", "description": "Connect climate trajectories to downstream assessments while preserving additional assumptions.", "rationale": "Food losses and response effectiveness cannot be read directly from soot mass or global temperature.", "layers": [ { "id": "food-and-ecosystem-interfaces", "name": "Food and ecosystem interfaces", "description": "Pass appropriate climate variables to neighboring impact models.", "findings": [ { "id": "climate-to-food-chain", "name": "Climate-to-food chain", "description": "Separate production changes from access to food and mortality estimates. [Xia et al. (2022)](https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-022-00573-0) model crop, livestock and marine-fishery consequences under nuclear-war soot scenarios.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which climate trajectories, geographic resolutions and time steps drive the linked crop, fishery or ecosystem assessment?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "climate-to-food-chain-q01" }, { "text": "Which additional assumptions about trade, stocks, distribution and infrastructure connect production changes to food insecurity?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "climate-to-food-chain-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "resilience-under-climate-constraints", "name": "Resilience under climate constraints", "description": "Evaluate proposed responses against explicit environmental and resource limits.", "findings": [ { "id": "response-feasibility", "name": "Response feasibility", "description": "Record the conditions under which a proposed adaptation could function and the evidence supporting that claim.", "questions": [ { "text": "Under which sunlight, temperature, water, energy and timing constraints has the proposed response been evaluated?", "kind": "action", "id": "response-feasibility-q01" }, { "text": "What evidence supports its achievable scale and deployment time under disrupted infrastructure and trade?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "response-feasibility-q02" }, { "text": "Which unresolved dependency prevents an agent from recommending or quantitatively crediting the response?", "kind": "action", "id": "response-feasibility-q03" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "evidence-disagreement-and-inference", "name": "Evidence, disagreement and inference", "description": "Make the basis and limits of nuclear-winter claims inspectable.", "rationale": "Agents must distinguish disagreements about smoke generation from disagreements about climate response to the same forcing.", "layers": [ { "id": "model-comparability", "name": "Model comparability", "description": "Align scenarios and methods before interpreting differences between studies.", "findings": [ { "id": "sources-of-disagreement", "name": "Sources of disagreement", "description": "Partition differences among source assumptions, aerosol treatment and climate response rather than reducing the literature to a binary verdict.", "questions": [ { "text": "Do the compared studies use equivalent injected soot amounts, vertical profiles, seasons and control climates?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "sources-of-disagreement-q01" }, { "text": "Which sensitivity experiments distinguish input uncertainty from aerosol-process and climate-model differences?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "sources-of-disagreement-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "validation-and-claim-limits", "name": "Validation and claim limits", "description": "Assess observational analogues, uncertainty statements and permissible inference.", "findings": [ { "id": "conditional-confidence", "name": "Conditional confidence", "description": "Keep confidence in individual mechanisms separate from confidence in a complete scenario, and distinguish conditional consequences from event probabilities.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which processes are supported by observations or experiments, and where do wildfire or volcanic analogues cease to be comparable?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "conditional-confidence-q01" }, { "text": "Does the uncertainty statement represent scenario spread, parameter uncertainty, internal variability or model disagreement?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "conditional-confidence-q02" }, { "text": "What conclusions can the agent report conditionally without assigning an unsupported probability to nuclear war or nuclear winter?", "kind": "action", "id": "conditional-confidence-q03" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "evidence-and-external-alignment", "name": "Evidence and external alignment", "description": "What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.", "rationale": "A model that cannot be lined up against existing standards, identifiers and practice cannot be adopted by anyone who already uses them.", "layers": [ { "id": "reported-evidence", "name": "Reported evidence", "description": "Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.", "findings": [ { "id": "evidence-confidence-notes", "name": "Check these first", "description": "Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.", "evidence": [ "This is recalled knowledge, not a source-checked account; numerical ranges should be checked against specific studies and their scenario assumptions.", "No nuclear winter has been directly observed; evidence combines physical mechanisms, observations of related phenomena and numerical simulations.", "The principal disagreements concern the amount and persistence of lofted soot and the magnitude of resulting climate and food-system impacts; terminology has no universally fixed severity threshold." ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-confidence-notes-q01", "text": "Which of these check these first hold for the sense of nuclear winter this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-real-world-use", "name": "Real-world use", "description": "Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.", "evidence": [ "Climate modelling of the indirect consequences of nuclear war.", "Assessment of nuclear-war impacts on agriculture, fisheries and global food security.", "Informing nuclear-risk assessment, arms-control debate and humanitarian-impact analysis." ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-real-world-use-q01", "text": "Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of nuclear winter this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-measurements", "name": "Typical measurements", "description": "Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.", "evidence": [ { "quantity": "Assumed atmospheric soot injection in published modelling scenarios", "typical_range": "Approximately 5-150; scenario inputs rather than an observed range or a definition of nuclear winter", "unit": "Tg of soot" }, { "quantity": "Global mean surface temperature anomaly", "typical_range": "Model-dependent cooling from roughly one to several degrees, reaching around ten degrees in some large-war simulations", "unit": "°C relative to a baseline without nuclear war" }, { "quantity": "Duration of climatic disruption", "typical_range": "Years to more than a decade in modelling studies, depending on the scenario and measured variable", "unit": "years" } ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-measurements-q01", "text": "Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of nuclear winter this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-failure-modes-and-hazards", "name": "Failure modes and hazards", "description": "Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.", "evidence": [ "Reduced sunlight, cooling and shorter growing seasons could cause widespread crop losses and famine.", "Altered precipitation and monsoon circulation could compound agricultural disruption.", "Atmospheric chemical changes could deplete stratospheric ozone and increase harmful ultraviolet exposure.", "Food-trade disruption and unequal access to reserves could amplify losses in food production.", "Projections depend strongly on uncertain fire development, soot production, injection altitude and atmospheric removal." ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-failure-modes-and-hazards-q01", "text": "Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of nuclear winter this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-regional-variation", "name": "Regional variation", "description": "Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.", "evidence": [ "Cooling varies with latitude, season and land-ocean distribution; a global mean does not describe every region.", "Changes in rainfall and monsoon behaviour can produce different regional impacts even under comparable cooling.", "Food-security consequences depend on crops, trade dependence, reserves and adaptation capacity." ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-regional-variation-q01", "text": "Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of nuclear winter this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-neighbours", "name": "Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart", "description": "Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.", "evidence": [ { "name": "Nuclear autumn", "difference": "An informal term for milder nuclear-war-induced cooling; no universally accepted quantitative boundary separates it from nuclear winter." }, { "name": "Radioactive fallout", "difference": "Fallout concerns deposition of radioactive material and resulting exposure; nuclear winter concerns climatic effects driven chiefly by fire-generated soot." }, { "name": "Impact winter", "difference": "The initiating event is an asteroid or comet impact rather than nuclear war." }, { "name": "Volcanic winter", "difference": "Cooling is caused chiefly by volcanic aerosols, especially sulfate, rather than soot from nuclear-war fires." } ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-neighbours-q01", "text": "Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of nuclear winter this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "openQuestions": [ "Is there a sufficiently shared operational threshold for nuclear winter, or must the catalogue retain multiple attributed definitions?", "What ranges of soot production and persistent atmospheric injection are defensible across independently evaluated fire scenarios?", "How strongly do aerosol composition, particle growth, lofting and removal uncertainties change projected severity and duration?", "Which regional climate and recovery outcomes remain robust when studies use comparable forcing and evaluate model differences explicitly?", "Which food-system adaptations retain demonstrated effectiveness when climatic disruption, infrastructure losses and trade constraints are assessed together?" ], "statistics": { "bundles": 7, "layers": 13, "findings": 18, "questions": 34 } }, "draft": { "generator": "vr.draft.v3", "status": "draft-generated", "researched": false, "archetype": "abstract concept", "method": "Written from the archetype playbook - what this kind of thing needs beyond identity and provenance - and from the structure that recurred across 6,333 models already researched by two engines. Applied to this entry by rule. No source was read for this thing and no claim here is researched. This entry carries no facets of its own, so they were inferred from its domain - a guess about a whole domain applied to one thing.", "facetsInferred": true, "nextPass": "A researcher replaces this draft with a sourced specification. Treat every sentence below as a proposal to argue with.", "purpose": "Give an agent a durable, checkable way to recognise a nuclear winter, record what state it is in, and decide what may be done with it.", "whatItIs": "Enable an agent to identify, compare and assess nuclear-winter scenarios while keeping climatic consequences conditional on explicit assumptions and evidence.", "characteristics": { "substance": "abstract", "origin": "conceptual", "agency": "inert" }, "whatYouCanDoWithIt": [ "observed and measured" ], "distinguishingFeatures": [ "Described in 59 Wikipedia languages, which is a measure of how widely the thing is known, not of how important it is." ], "openQuestionsForResearch": [ "Which of the bundles below does a real task actually need, and which are ceremony?", "What does this thing have that the facets do not capture at all?", "Which neighbouring kind is most often confused with a nuclear winter, and on what evidence are they told apart?" ], "whatItIsMadeOf": "an abstraction with no physical instance", "physicalCharacter": [ "Does nothing on its own; everything it does, something else did to it.", "These come from the domain this entry sits in rather than from the entry itself, so treat them as a first guess about the whole domain applied to one thing." ], "whatCanBeDoneWithIt": [ "observe it, measure it, record its state" ], "howItIsRecognised": [ "Nothing to see. What is recognised is an instance of it, and which instances count is exactly what is argued about." ], "relatedModels": [], "standing": "Described in 59 Wikipedia languages, which measures how widely it is written about rather than how important or how common it is.", "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "identity-and-classification", "name": "Identity, naming and classification", "description": "How an agent tells one nuclear winter from another, and a nuclear winter from things that resemble it.", "rationale": "Recognition comes before every other claim. Without stable identity nothing else in the model can be trusted to be about the same thing twice.", "layers": [ { "id": "naming-and-identifiers", "name": "Names and identifiers", "description": "The names this thing goes by and the identifiers that survive translation and time.", "findings": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases", "name": "Preferred name, aliases and local names", "description": "Which name to use, which names mean the same thing, and which merely sound similar.", "questions": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the name of a nuclear winter, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the name of a nuclear winter, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the name of a nuclear winter is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers", "name": "Stable identifiers and external keys", "description": "Identifiers that keep pointing at this kind of thing across systems and languages.", "questions": [ { "id": "stable-identifiers-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an identifier for a nuclear winter, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an identifier for a nuclear winter, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an identifier for a nuclear winter is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "classification-and-granularity", "name": "Classification and granularity", "description": "Where a nuclear winter sits among kinds, and how finely a task needs to cut it.", "findings": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents", "name": "Kind, parents and neighbouring kinds", "description": "The classes this thing belongs to and the ones it is next to.", "questions": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the kind of a nuclear winter, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the kind of a nuclear winter, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the kind of a nuclear winter is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features", "name": "Distinguishing features", "description": "What separates a nuclear winter from the things most often confused with it.", "questions": [ { "id": "distinguishing-features-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes what distinguishes a nuclear winter, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about what distinguishes a nuclear winter, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once what distinguishes a nuclear winter is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "state-and-lifecycle", "name": "State and lifecycle", "description": "The states a nuclear winter passes through and the events that move it between them.", "rationale": "Most decisions about a thing depend on what state it is in now, which is a claim with a time on it, not a property.", "layers": [ { "id": "lifecycle-stages", "name": "Lifecycle stages", "description": "From coming into existence to ceasing to be one of these.", "findings": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions", "name": "Stages and transitions", "description": "The stages worth naming and what moves a nuclear winter between them.", "questions": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the lifecycle of a nuclear winter, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the lifecycle of a nuclear winter, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the lifecycle of a nuclear winter is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "observations-and-status", "name": "Observations and current status", "description": "What is observed about a nuclear winter, how often and by whom.", "findings": [ { "id": "observation-record", "name": "Observation record", "description": "How an observation of a nuclear winter is recorded so that it can be superseded rather than overwritten.", "questions": [ { "id": "observation-record-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an observation of a nuclear winter, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an observation of a nuclear winter, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an observation of a nuclear winter is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "definitions-in-contest", "name": "Definitions and who holds them", "description": "What nuclear winter is taken to mean, and by whom.", "rationale": "When a field disagrees about a concept, the disagreement is the content. A model that picks one definition silently destroys the information.", "layers": [ { "id": "competing-definitions", "name": "Competing definitions", "description": "The main readings and the traditions behind them.", "findings": [ { "id": "definition-map", "name": "Definitions and their holders", "description": "Each definition with the school or body that holds it.", "questions": [ { "id": "definition-map-q01", "text": "Which definitions of nuclear winter are in use, and which tradition or body holds each?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "definition-map-q02", "text": "What turns on the difference between them in practice?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "operationalisation", "name": "Operationalisation", "description": "How it is measured or applied when it has to be.", "findings": [ { "id": "operational-record", "name": "Measures and proxies", "description": "Instruments and indicators used to stand in for it.", "questions": [ { "id": "operational-record-q01", "text": "How is nuclear winter operationalised or measured in practice, and by what instrument?", "kind": "measurement" }, { "id": "operational-record-q02", "text": "What does that operationalisation leave out, and when does that matter?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "instances-and-use", "name": "Instances, use and consequence", "description": "What counts as an instance of nuclear winter and what follows from calling something that.", "rationale": "Applying a concept is an act with consequences, so a model must say what the label licenses and what it does not.", "layers": [ { "id": "instances", "name": "What counts as an instance", "description": "Clear cases, borderline cases and non-cases.", "findings": [ { "id": "instance-tests", "name": "Tests for an instance", "description": "What would settle whether something falls under it.", "questions": [ { "id": "instance-tests-q01", "text": "What would settle whether something is an instance of nuclear winter?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "id": "instance-tests-q02", "text": "Which borderline cases are argued about, and on what grounds?", "kind": "definition" } ] } ] }, { "id": "consequence", "name": "Consequence of application", "description": "Rights, duties or decisions that follow from the label.", "findings": [ { "id": "consequence-record", "name": "What the label licenses", "description": "What an agent may do once something is classified this way.", "questions": [ { "id": "consequence-record-q01", "text": "What follows practically once something is treated as nuclear winter?", "kind": "action" }, { "id": "consequence-record-q02", "text": "What must an agent not infer from the label alone?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "provenance-and-evidence", "name": "Provenance, evidence and time", "description": "Where every claim about a nuclear winter came from and when it held.", "rationale": "A claim without a source and a time cannot be superseded, only overwritten, and an agent that overwrites loses the ability to explain itself.", "layers": [ { "id": "source-and-authority", "name": "Source and authority", "description": "Who said it, on what evidence, and how strongly.", "findings": [ { "id": "claim-provenance", "name": "Claim provenance and confidence", "description": "The authority behind each claim about a nuclear winter and how confident it is.", "questions": [ { "id": "claim-provenance-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a claim about a nuclear winter, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about a claim about a nuclear winter, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once a claim about a nuclear winter is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "time-and-versions", "name": "Time, versions and supersession", "description": "When a claim was true, when it was learnt, and what replaced it.", "findings": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession", "name": "Validity period and supersession", "description": "How an old claim about a nuclear winter is retired without being erased.", "questions": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the validity of a claim about a nuclear winter, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the validity of a claim about a nuclear winter, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the validity of a claim about a nuclear winter is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "statistics": { "bundles": 5, "layers": 10, "findings": 12, "questions": 32 } } } }