In recent decades, science has experienced a revolutionary shift. The development and extensive application of computer modelling and simulation has transformed the knowledge‐making practices of scientific fields as diverse as astro‐physics, genetics, robotics and demography. This epistemic transformation has brought with it a simultaneous heightening of political relevance and a renewal of international policy agendas, raising crucial questions about the nature and application of simulation knowledges throughout public policy.
Through a diverse range of case studies, spanning over a century of theoretical and practical developments in the atmospheric and environmental sciences, this book argues that computer modelling and simulation have substantially changed scientific and cultural practices and shaped the emergence of novel ‘cultures of prediction’.
Making an innovative, interdisciplinary contribution to understanding the impact of computer modelling on research practice, institutional configurations and broader cultures, this volume will be essential reading for anyone interested in the past, present and future of climate change and the environmental sciences.
Author(s): Matthias Heymann, Gabriele Gramelsberger, Martin Mahony
Series: Routledge Environmental Humanities
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2017
Language: English
Commentary: No attempt at file size reduction
Pages: 256
City: New York
Tags: History of Weather Prediction; History of Climate Science
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Preface
About the authors
Ralf Döscher
Johann Feichter
Gabriele Gramelsberger
Hélène Guillemot
Matthias Heymann
Nils Randlev Hundebøl
Matthijs Kouw
Catharina Landström
Martin Mahony
Janet Martin-Nielsen
Annika E. Nilsson
Markus Quante
Christoph Rosol
Birgit Schneider
Sverker Sörlin
Nina Wormbs
Chapter 1 Introduction
Changing prediction practices
Cultures of prediction
The authority of cultures of prediction
Goal of the book
References
Chapter 2 Key characteristics of cultures of prediction
The social role of prediction
The character and significance of computational practices
The domestication of uncertainty
The degree of institutionalization and professionalization of predictive expertise
The cultural impact of predictive practices and claims
References
Part 1 Junctions: Science and politics of prediction
Chapter 3 Calculating the weather: Emerging cultures of prediction in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Europe
Introduction
The prehistory of modern weather prediction (1800–1880)
Primers of modern weather forecasting (1880–1930)
Conclusion: An emerging culture of numerical weather prediction
Notes
Acknowledgements
References
Chapter 4 Which design for a weather predictor? Speculating on the future of electronic forecasting in post-war America
Introduction
Zworykin’s proposal of 1946
Two reactions: Bush and von Neumann
A third reaction: Meteorologists
Conclusion
Notes
References
Chapter 5 A new climate: Hubert H. Lamb and boundary work at the UK Meteorological Office
Introduction
A changing climate
Hubert H. Lamb and the Royal Meteorological Society’s essay prize
Lamb’s philosophical approach to climate
Boundary work at the Meteorological Office
Notes
Acknowledgments
References
Chapter 6 From heuristic to predictive: Making climate models intopolitical instruments
Introduction
Heuristic and predictive modeling
Conclusion: Seeking political relevance
References
Chapter 7 How to develop climate models? The “gamble” of improving climate model parameterizations
Introduction
Debates on the evolution of climate modeling
The overhaul of a parameterization at the heart of the model
Conceptions of climate models and laboratory cultures
Conclusion: Multi-scale practices and cultures of modeling
Notes
Acknowledgement
References
Part 2 Challenges and debates: Negotiating and using simulation knowledge
Chapter 8 The (re)emergence of regional climate: Mobile models, regional visions and the government of climate change
Introduction
The emergence of regional modeling
Models on the move: RCMs as traveling code
Translation, opacity, and political vision: PRECIS and RegCM in India
Conclusion: Regional modeling and the government of climate change
Notes
References
Chapter 9 Bellwether, exceptionalism, and other tropes: Political coproduction of Arctic climate modeling
Introduction
Arctic climate change before models
The Arctic in early global climate models
The birth of “climate politics”
The sea ice component
Conclusion
Note
References
Chapter 10 From predictive to instructive: Using models for geoengineering
Introduction
The history of geoengineering
Proposed methods
The crux of experiments
Geoengineering in a virtual world
Demands on climate models
Instructions: Policy advice and economic utilizability
Conclusion
References
Chapter 11 Validating models in the face of uncertainty: Geotechnical engineering and dike vulnerability in the Netherlands
Introduction
Piping
Small, medium, and full-scale physical experiments
Relevant knowledge and uncertainties in geotechnical research on piping
From experimentation to data gathering
Flood Control 2015
Relevant knowledge and uncertainties in data-intensive methods and the Flood Control 2015 project
Conclusion: uncertainty as a source of innovation?
Notes
References
Chapter 12 Tracing uncertainty management through four IPCC Assessment Reports and beyond
Introduction
FAR and SAR revisited
TAR and AR4 extending uncertainty management
Bringing rigor to uncertainty management with frequentist and Bayesian production of PDFs
Model-based uncertainty analysis beyond the IPCC
Conclusions and suggestions for future research
Notes
References
Chapter 13 The future face of the Earth: The visual semantics of the future in the climate change imagery of the IPCC
Visions of the future
Futuristic image types
With our backs to the future
In the triptych of scenario curves
Burning worlds, or the aesthetics of heat and alarm
Blue is hope–space for opportunity and life paths
Data images as associative spaces
Notes
References
Index
