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SUMMARY:How do Climate Models Gain and Exercise Authority? - Professor Mik
 e Hulme (UEA)
DTSTART:20100928T163000Z
DTEND:20100928T180000Z
UID:TALK26103@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Sam Mather
DESCRIPTION:Climate models have become central to the climate change story
  unfolding around us.  Climate models are essential for the detection and 
 attribution of anthropogenic climate change\; and they grant us access to 
 the future by foretelling the climatic consequences of the development pat
 hways we have chosen and are choosing.  Climate models underpin the knowle
 dge claims and risk assessments of the IPCC.  They therefore exercise grea
 t power and influence – over policy debates\; over human imaginations\; 
 over the academy.  Climate models have acquired significant authority in t
 he contemporary world\; they are respected and they are deferred to.\n\nTh
 e question I wish to answer in this lecture is ‘How do climate models ga
 in and exercise this authority?’  And there are two inter-related dimens
 ions to this question which need examination: their epistemic authority an
 d their social authority.\n\nTheir epistemic power comes from being rooted
  in physical theory.  And yet approximations\, exclusions and parameterisa
 tions have to occur.  Climate models are significant abstractions and simp
 lifications of reality.  The more physical processes are simulated in a cl
 imate model\, the greater are the degrees of freedom and the greater are t
 he uncertainties in model projections.\n\nWhat do climate models promise? 
  They promise increasing certainty\, but the enduring uncertainty of clima
 te models acts as a form of (political\, financial\, epistemic) power .  E
 pistemic power: the ability to impose/guarantee certain forms of knowledge
 .  We become vulnerable by insisting that all valid knowledge must be codi
 fied in models.\n\nThis leads us to ask the question: ‘Are climate model
 s reliable?’ Do models provide answers to questions or do they generate 
 data from which questions emerge? 
LOCATION:Mill Lane Lecture Rooms\, Room 3\, Mill Lane\, Cambridge
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