Sea Ice

Thus far, we simply have a set of key factors with one or more future projections
each. These future projections need to be grouped into so called projection bundles,
i.e. grouping one of the future projections of each key factor. The central task
is to identify future projections that can occur simultaneously and therefore can
form a consistent picture of the future. To do this manually would be, depending
on the size of the project, very tedious if not impossible.
Example 2
Assume we have the key factor ‘Foreign Policy’ as in Example C.1 and another
key factor ‘Defense Budget’ with the future projections ‘Increasing Budget’, ‘Stable
Budget’ and ‘Decreasing Budget’. Clearly a picture of the future where ‘Preemptive
Strikes’ of ‘Foreign Policy’ and ‘Decreasing Budget’ of ‘Defense Budget’ take
place is inconsistent, i.e. it is very unlikely that these two developments occur
together.
It is more likely that ‘Preemptive Strikes’ and ‘Increasing Budget’ will occur
together, i.e. a future development containing these two projections would be very
consistent.
A usual Scenario project consists of 20 or more key factors with one to four
future projections each. All these future projections need to be paired and their
respective consistency needs to be evaluated.
A projection bundle consisting of n future projections requires (n/2) · (n − 1)
evaluations of paired consistency values. For a project of ten key factors this means
45 evaluations per projection bundle. For a project of 30 key factors this number
grows to 435 evaluations per projection bundle.
Example C.3
For a projection bundle containing 4 future projections one has to do 4/2 · (4−1) = 2 · 3 = 6 evaluations, namely
future projection No.1 needs to be paired and evaluated
with No.2
with No.3
with No.4
future projection No.2
with No.3
with No.4
and future projection No.3
with No.4.