Seminar Spring 2024

Philosophical issues in modeling climate change

Stefan Brönnimann, Ralf Hand, Vincent Lam, Mason Majszak.

Friday, 14:15-16:00, Room 324, Mittelstrasse 43

2024–02–23 Introduction & overview of climate modelling

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

2024–03–08 Climate modelling: 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

2024-03-22 Climate model tuning & machine learning

Hourdin et al. (2017). The Art and Science of Climate Model Tuning. BAMS, 98: 598-602. Full text

Jebeile, J., Lam, V., Majszak, M. and Räz, T. (2023). Machine Learning and the Quest for Objectivity in Climate Model Parameterization. Climatic Change, 176. Full text

Irrang, C. et al. (2021). Towards neural Earth system modelling by integrating artificial intelligence in Earth system science. Nature Machine Intelligence, 3: 667-674. Full text

2024–04–12 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

2024–04-26 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

2024-05-17 Modelling the Earth

Schellnhuber, H, J. (1999). ‘Earth system’ analysis and the second Copernican revolution. Nature, 402: C19-C23. Full text

Heymann, M. & Dahan Dalmedico, A. (2019). Epistemology and Politics in Earth System Modeling: Historical Perspectives. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 11: 1139–1152. Full text

Steffen, W. et al. (2018). Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene. PNAS, 115: 8252-8259. Full text

2024–05–31 Social responsibility of scientists and their role in policy making

Hendrix, C. S. (2017). The streetlight effect in climate change research on Africa. Global Environmental Change, 43, 137-147. Full text

Supran, G., Rahmstorf, N. and Oreskes, N. (2023). Assessing ExxonMobil’s global warming projections. Science, 379: eabk0063. 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