Cloud-Scale Uncertainties

Clouds are a main source of uncertainty in climate change. Clouds cast shadows as they pass, shadows which are, perhaps, a metaphor for what is (or can be) known and what is not (or cannot be). Scientists study clouds, the forest, and weather—and make images of them in the process—to understand how climate change may affect them in the future. And they must: they need better models for weather prediction to address our cloud- (or climate-) scale uncertainty. However, landscapes, and weather, defy representation. So, when do images help find certainty within uncertainty, and when do they prolong or maintain it? For me, as an artist, images keep questions open as much as they answer them. Even an image made as an answer can hold innumerable other answers and questions—not as a tool to dispute facts but to magnify potential, and to open up space for thought.