Philosophy of Climate Science

Philosophy of Climate Science has become a relevant research field within the philosophy of science in recent years. Potential research questions are:

Epistemic and methodological questions

• What is the epistemic significance of understanding in and for climate science?
• What are the epistemic strengths and limitations of climate modelling?
• How can research yielding different outputs like predictions, understanding, and explanations fruitfully inform each other, what are their epistemic strengths, what their limits?
• What different epistemic goals, (like accuracy, empirical adequacy, predictive success, explanatory power, fruitfulness) can climate research have? How may these goals interact?

Ethics and Climate Justice meet Climate Science

• Which responsibilities does climate science have as an informant to society at large and marginalized communities specifically?
• Which responsibilities does climate science have regarding environmental outcomes for future generations and the natural world?
• Which responsibilities does climate science have to cooperate with and learn from local (especially indigenous) communities’ insights into local effects of climate change?

Values in Climate Science

• What epistemic obligations (in, e.g., choice of evidential standards, research topics, research method, data collection, various choices in modelling) follow from ethical obligations climate science has vis-à-vis humanity and the planet?
• What lessons can be drawn from feminist, non-western, and specifically indigenous philosophies of science to understanding the epistemic-ethical challenges climate science and scientists face?
• To what extend, and in which ways, is epistemic trustworthiness of climate science dependent on its responsiveness to matters of climate justice?

Communicating Climate Science

• How can Climate Science ward itself against “merchants of doubt”?
• What challenges arise for communicating facts about global warming given different forms of uncertainties (specifically in climate modelling) affecting research in climate science?
• What challenges exist for climate science in establishing a relationship of trust vis-à-vis a global public beyond the usual undermining attempts by “merchants of doubt”?

People

• Mara van der Lugt (Philosophy), Project Leader
• Katharina Bernhard (Philosophy)
• Derek Ball (Philosophy)
• Andrea Burke (Earth & Environmental Sciences)
• Michael Byrne (Earth & Environmental Sciences)
• Lydia Cole (School of Geography & Sustainable Development)
• Miguel de la Cal Moreno (Philosophy)
• Alex Douglas (Philosophy)
• Viviane Fairbank (Philosophy)
  
• Simon Lee (Earth & Environmental Sciences)
  
• Graeme MacGilchrist (Earth & Environmental Sciences)
• James Rae (Earth & Environmental Sciences)

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