Seminar Spring 2022

Philosophical issues in modeling climate change

Stefan Brönnimann, Ralf Hand, Julie Jebeile, Vincent Lam.

Uni Mittelstrasse 43, room 324, 14:15–16:00.

2022–02–25 Introduction & overview of climate modelling

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

2022–03–11 Climate modeling: uncertainty and evaluation

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

Katzav, J. et al. (2021). On the appropriate and inappropriate uses of probability distributions in climate projections and some alternatives. Climatic Change, 169: 15. Full text

2022–03–25 Values in climate science

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

Pulkkinen, K. et al. (2022). The value of values in climate science. Nature Climate Change, 12: 4-6. Full text

2022–04-08 Climate data

Brönnimann, S. and Wintzer, J. (2018). Climate data empathy. WIREs Climate Change, 10: e559. Full text

Zumwald, M. et al. (2020), Understanding and assessing uncertainty of observational climate datasets for model evaluation using ensembles. WIREs Climate Change, 11: e654. Full text

2022-04-29 Extreme event attribution

Otto, F. E. L. and Lusk, G. (2020). Should individual extreme weather events be attributed to human agency? In: M. Hulme (ed.), Contemporary Climate Change Debates, Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, pp. 36-50. Full text

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

2022–05–06 Climate change and ethical issues

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

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

2022–05–13 Social responsibility of scientists and their role in policy making

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

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