Seminar Spring 2021

Philosophical issues in modeling climate change

Julie Jebeile, Ralf Hand, Vincent Lam, Jakob Zscheischler.

Venue

Online, 14:15-16:00.

Reading material

Readings marked with:

• A are to be prepared with homework to be submitted.
• B are recommended background reading and not mandatory.

2021-02-26 Introduction & overview of climate modelling

A Müller, P. (2010). Constructing Climate Knowledge With Computer Models. WIREs Climate Change 1, 565–580. Full text

2021-03-12 Uncertainty in climate change projections

A Stainforth, D. et al. (2007). Confidence, Uncertainty and Decision-Support Relevance in Climate Predictions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 365: 2145-61. Full text

A Parker, W. (2010). Whose Probabilities? Predicting Climate Change with Ensembles of Models. Philosophy of Science 77: 985–999. Full text

2021-03-26 Climate model evaluation

A Baumberger, C., Knutti, R. and Hirsch Hadron, G. (2017). Building confidence in climate model projections: an analysis from fit. WIREs Climate Change, e454. Full text

B Lloyd, E. A: (2009). Varieties of Support and Confirmation of Climate Models. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, 83: 213-232. Full text

B Parker, W. S. (2009). Confirmation and Adequacy-For-Purpose in Climate Modelling. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, 83: 233-249. Full text

2021-04-16 Values in climate science

A Intemann, K. (2015). Distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate values in climate modeling. European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 5: 217–232. Full text

A Jebeile, J. (2020). Values and objectivity in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Social Epistemology, 34: 453-468. Full text

2021-04-30 Attribution of climate change and climate extremes

A Lloyd, E. A. and Oreskes, N. (2018). Climate Change Attribution: When Is It Appropriate to Accept New Methods? Earth’s Future, 6: 311-325. Full text

A Stott, P. A., Stone, D. A., and Allen, M. R. (2004). Human contribution to the European heatwave of 2003. Nature, 432: 610-614. Full text

B Winsberg, E., Oreskes, N. and Lloyd, E. A. (2019). Severe Weather Attribution: Why values won’t go away. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 84: 142-149. Full text

2021-05-21 Climate change and ethical issues

A Caney, S. (2020). Climate Justice. In: E. N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Summer 2020 Edition. Full text

A Byskov, M. F. et al. (2021). An agenda for ethics and justice in adaptation to climate change. Climate and Development, 13. Full text

2021-06-04 Social responsibility of scientists and their role in policy making

A Oreskes, N. (2020). What Is the Social Responsibility of Climate Scientists? Daedalus, 149: 33-45. Full text

A Hulme, M., Lidskog, R., White, J. M. and Standring, A. (2020). Social scientific knowledge in times of crisis: What climate change can learn from coronavirus (and vice versa). WIREs Climate Change, 11: e656. Full text

Background readings

Frigg, R., Thompson, E. & Werndl, C. (2015). Philosophy of Climate Science Part I: Observing Climate Change. Philosophy Compass 10/12, 953–964. Full text

Frigg, R., Thompson, E. & Werndl, C. (2015). Philosophy of Climate Science Part II: Modelling Climate Change. Philosophy Compass 10/12, 965–977. Full text

Bradley R. & Steele K. (2015). Philosophy of Climate Science Part III: Making Climate Decisions. Philosophy Compass, 10/11, 799–810. Full text

Parker, W. (2018). Climate Science. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2018 Edition. Full text

Winsberg, E. (2018), Philosophy and Climate Science. Cambridge University Press. Full text