Title : Mysteries in Error Propagation

Abstract

We often use “method of error propagation” to determine uncertainty (error) in a dependent variable from the measured uncertainty in the independent variables. Intuitional notion of error propagation in statistics suggests that random relative error in the dependent variable cannot be less than the sum of those in the dependent variable(s). In this talk, I shall explain that some functions, however, do not follow this notion of error propagation. I shall further explain and discuss the behaviour of such functions and their implication to earth science observations.