History & Philosophy of Science: Philosophy of Climate Science

The issues to focus upon in this Forum is how might one evaluate a scientific area of importance to public policy where major conclusions are drawn not from confirmed measurement, but indirectly, from computer models. These models are usually admitted to be inexact by their formulators due to the multiple and complex phenomena that is being studied., and due to the massive and varied data that must be used. The data itself is subject to multiple controversies concerning accuracy, sufficiency, and interpretation. The models are, in some cases, admitted to include highly simplified parametrized representations due to the difficulty of obtaining correct and complete data sets of key parts of the world climate system. For example, our understanding of the physics of clouds is remarkably incomplete and their treatment within global climate models is necessarily simplified and, perhaps, incorrect.  Moreover, critics of climate model analyses make claims of sampling bias and dubious statistical methods as being rather ubiquitous in most, if not all, approaches used in the field of climate science.  Advocates claim constant improvement. What then is a concerned responsible non-specialist policy maker to conclude? How can policy be formulated? Can philosophical concepts assist in such determination?

The papers included in this form present a variety of methodologies, conclusions and perspectives. A thorough understanding of many areas of physics, chemistry, mathematics and applied statistics would be required to understand these papers completely and to judge their significance. This is not expected of you. The goal is to understand as much as possible and to draw your own conclusions as best as possible. It is recommended that you distinguish what is clearly understandable in each paper and what requires specialized knowledge and experience.  The questions emphasize the uncertainty entailed in the methodology used and the conclusions drawn in all the papers. When answering the questions,  state what you are confident you understand and explain how you draw your conclusions from this understanding. Then state what you do not understand about the papers, outline what you might have to know and learn to actually understand the material, and, finally, suggest how your conclusions may be defective due to your limited knowledge. You are requested to do so because identification of areas where one lacks understanding and awareness of the consequential limited scope of one’s own conclusions are distinguishing characteristic of significant scientific thought. 

Much of this Forum’s focus is on Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity because this quantity has become the focus of current public and political debate concerning the status of climate science, and, perhaps, via political rhetoric, of all public policy positions that entail the use of scientific conclusions. A central goal of this course is to enable you to evaluate how well based the public positions that you have encountered are on the scientific conclusions and to the entailed scientific limitations of those results that necessarily follow from methodological issues of assessing the reliability of measurements, deciding which measurement are relevant, and assessing how appropriate statistical analysis should be conducted.  Uncertainty is pervasive in genuine scientific work.It is worthwhile to consider to what degree public discourse concerning the application of science in public policy admits to the consequences of that uncertainty. This Forum’s questions involve this issue but concentrate more on detailing matters of uncertainty.  It is often more important and productive to delineate what one does not understand than what one knows.

There is a great deal of reading and evaluation to be undertaken to understand the material of this forum. Therefore this assignment is to be completed by the end of the semester.

Specifically:

1- What are the observational methods of climate science? What are the methods of analysis of observations? What are the significant conclusions?

2- What are the sources of uncertainty about the observations and analysis used in Climate Science? List as many as possible and describe the significance of each. Note in particular and discuss each of the papers listed as “Possibly Unpopular”  in Section 4, below.

3- What is Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity? Discuss (all) the various claims concerning the nature and uncertainty of Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity as presented in the papers of Group 1. Evaluate these various claims. Why is Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity important for public policy? What specific conclusions would you draw from your reading of (all) the papers included in this Forum,  concerning public policy based on estimates of Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity? How do you arrive at your specific conclusions?

4- What are the main issues in the philosophy of Climate Science?

5- How may ‘tuning’ be reconciled with scientific methodology accounted for by any or all of the philosophical concepts or attitudes of confirmation reasoning, disconformation reasoning, deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning, Quine-Duhem thesis, falsifiability,  instrumentalism, realism.  Can a scientific theory be ‘tuned’ as described in these papers, and still be reliable?  Can a tuned theory be philosophically and scientifically justified? Please exactly how?

Finally

6- Which of the following papers are well-written,

which are unnecessarily difficult,

which are obscure or difficult due to the specialized nature of the subject matter (some are),

which are tendentious and why?

Websites for General Reference and Additional Reports:
https://www.ipcc.ch/reports/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/climate-science/
https://www.cfanclimate.net/research-publications
https://www.thegwpf.org/

Attached is the documents that the professor provided!
Also attached is the course textbook- Worldviews: Richard DeWitt