matthias heymann - the climate change dilemma - big science, the globalizing of climate and the loss...

The Climate Change Dilemma: Big Science, the Globalizing of Climate and the Loss of the Human Scale

Matthias HeymannAarhus University

Centre for Science Studies

Centre for Science Studies

Shaping cultures of prediction:Knowledge, Authority, and the Construction of Climate Change (ca. 1960-1985)

Funded by the Danish Research Council, 2013-2016

Janet Martin-Nielsen

Gabriel Henderson

Dania Achermann

Matthias Heymann

“This Changes Everything review - Naomi Klein's documentary on climate change doesn't”

Guardian review (17 Sept. 2015)

Naomi Klein: „I’ve always kind of hated films about climate change ... they’re boring, they’re presumptive, they always, always include shots of polar bears.”

Guardian review: “Klein’s absolutely right. Climate change documentaries struggle to make the story personal. (…). The breadth of the problem is too large to filter through relatable characters easily. Unfortunately Avi Lewis’s film - despite its good looks and fine intentions - fails in exactly the same ways.”

(IPCC, AR5, 2013, p. 6)

Loss of the human scale

• Climate research has provided global and large-scale information on climate change and its drivers.

• It was less able to provide locally relevant information, which links to local experiences, political institutions and policy demands.

• Climate knowledge became detached from humans. It detached knowledge-making from meaning-making and global fact from local value (Jasanoff)

Climate change dilemma

Hypothesis:

Climate knowledge changed significantly during the 20th century. It experienced globalization, dehumanization and a loss of human scales.

Question:

How and why did climate knowledge experience globalization, dehumanization and a loss of human scales?

Content:

2. The „conquest of the third dimension“

3. Investigation of climatic changes

1. The ‚classical‘ climatological research tradition

7. Conclusions

4. The physical understanding of the atmosphere and the rise of climate modeling

5. The CO2-problem

6. Uncertainties and trust in global models

Painting of Joseph Stieler, 1843

Alexander von Humboldt

„The term climate denotes in its most general sense all changes of the atmosphere, which directly impact our organs ...“

(Humboldt 1845).

• associated with a concrete geographical location.

• direct relation to human beings

The emergence of „classical climatology“

• on the surface of the earth

• holistic

Julius von Hann, Office of Meteorology and Geomagnetism, Vienna

„Under climate we understand the totality of meteorological phenomena, which describe the average state of the atmosphere over a specific location on earth.“

(Hann 1883)

• „Climatology of averages“

• Stability of climate


Wladimir Peter Köppen, German Marine Observatory in Hamburg

• Systematization of climates

• Definition of climate classes

• Development of a climate map


Climate map after Köppen (Kottek et al. 2006)


• Urban climatology

• Bioclimatology and agrometeorology

• Microclimatology

• Historical climatology

Differentiation of classical climatology

Characteristics of ‚classical climatology‘

Priority of geographical space (2-dim.)

• Atmospheric phenomena on the surface of the earth

Dominant tradition until the mid-20th century

• Geographical science with interest in local detail

• Based on local observations; strong empirical tradition

• Holistic approach (human-climate interaction)

• Focus on human scales and dimensions

Content:



7. Conclusions


5. The CO2-problem




Airplane of the Wright brothersin 1904

Zeppelin L 10 in 1912

Airtraffic required good knowledge of the meteorology of higher layers of the atmosphere.

• 1920s: strong winds above 10 km height (Wasaburo Ooishi, Johannes Georgi)

The rise of aerology

• 1900s: Soundings with kites and balloons

• 1930s: systematic, internationally coordinated vertical sounding with radiosondes

• 1939: term „jet stream“ („Strahlstrom“) introduced by Heinrich Seilkopf

High altitude weather maps since 1935

500 mb level, 31 January 1953Richard Scherhag

(1907-1970)

Theory of coherent planetary circulation

Hermann Flohn (1912-1997)

Globalization of climatological knowledge

• Discovery of large-scale and global physical interactions

• Global knowledge for explaining regional phenomena (weather forecasting, monsoon)

• Expansion beyond human dimensions

• Still focus on empirical tradition and local detail

• Strong personal relation to and identification with local weather and climate

Priority of space including the vertical dimension

Content:




7. Conclusions


5. The CO2-problem


Glaciological field research

Hans Wilhelmsson Ahlmann (1889-1974)

Investigation of ice budgets of glaciers in the 1930s by Swedish glaciologist Hans W. Ahlmann

Callendar‘s theory of global warming by accumulation of CO2

Temperature records from 1820 to 1935

Guy Callendar

Climatologists response

• Scepticism with regard to Callendar‘s global explanatory approach

• Callendar could not explain the majority of regional and local details of climatic shifts

• Alternative explanation by Richard Scherhag: warming due to temporary geographical shifts of the atmospheric circulation

• Stronger focus on the investigation of climatic changes within human times scales

• Collection of historical weather data (since mid-1950s)

• Investigation and understanding of past climate and its variations

Historical climatology

Hubert H. Lamb (1913-1997)

“Without a record of climate’s past behavior extending back (…), the subject would be in the situation of a branch of physics in which the basic laboratory observations of the phenomena to be explained had not been made. There can be no sound theory without such an observation record”. (Lamb 1986, p. 17).

Hans von Rudloff: The variations and oscillations of climate in Europe since the beginning of regular instrumental observation (1967)

Climatic variation

„These small climatic changes, fluctuations and oscillations will only with the help of exact, tested and homogenuous long term observational series be determined. Only this way we receive incorrupt representations about the limits, within which climate fluctuates“ (p. 2).

Hermann Flohn(1912-1997)

Development of a „modern climatology“

• Development of a ”modern” or ”general” climatology

• Integration of geographical and physical approaches

• Expansion of climatology to all dimensions

• Consideration of global interactions and local detail

Consideration of space and time (4-dim.)

Content:


3. Investigation og climatic changes


7. Conclusions


5. The CO2-problem


4. The physical understanding of the atmosphere and the rise of climate modeling

Vilhelm BjerknesComplete description of the atmosphere (Bjerknes 1904)

• Definition of a grid

Lewis Fry Richardson

• „numerical“ solutions

The promise of weather forecasting

Carl-Gustav Rossby

WWII and Cold War: militarization of meteorology

John von Neumann

• Ample military funding• Strong institutional expansion

John von Neumann‘s vision: the computer as scientific tool

ENIAC

Computer-based numerical weather prediction

Von Neumann‘s team for numerical weather prediction

Conflict at the UK Meteorological Office

Lamb 1969: “The computer models of atmospheric behavior and other climatic areas may be unrealistic, and may therefore proceed too far and too fast on faulty basic assumptions. Such developments should be preceded by acquiring fuller and firmer factual knowledge” (p. 1215).

John B. Mason: focus on numerical weather prediction

Hubert Lamb lost support at the UK

MetOffice

The rise of climate modelling, 1955-1970

• Drastically simplified model

• Simulation over a period of about 30 days

NormanPhillips

Successful experiment by Norman Phillips 1955

Yale Mintz (1958): “… the overall remarkable success achieved by Phillips in using the hydrodynamical equations to predict the mean zonal wind and (…) circulations of the atmosphere must be considered one of the landmarks of meteorology.”

The rise of climate modelling, 1955-1970

Heuristic computer modeling

• Computer models served to understand atmospheric processes

• Simulations were performed on large grids elements

• Simulations included significant simplifications

Priority of time

Content:



7. Conclusions


5. The CO2-problem



5. The CO2-problem

Report of the US Presidential Scientific Advisory Committee, Washington 1965

Global CO2- and radiation budgets of the earth

Keeling curve (1971)

Charles KeelingGilbert Plass

Roger Revelle

John Murray Mitchell 1961, p. 237

Observations of decadal climatic change

Priority of time

William Welch Kellogg (1971, p. 123):“there is the haunting realization that man may be able to change the climate of the planet Earth. This, I believe, is one of the most important questions of our time, and it must certainly rank near the top of the priority list in atmospheric science.”

Climate modeling and the CO2 problem

Kellogg’s demand: “Predicting the Climate”

(Kellogg 1977, p. 24)

Kellogg’s prediction of future climate

(p. 965)

Climate projection by Hansen et al. (1981) with a 1-dimensional climate model

Global climate projection by James Hansen (1981)

• Focus on global mean temperature

• Focus on long-term prediction

Global climate projections by IPCC AR5 (2013)

(p. 1037)

Global climate projections

1981

2013

Knowledge on large scales

• Predominant political interest in long-term prediction

• Focus on global coverage with limited spatial detail

• Limited reliability of regional scale predictions

Priority of time on large scales

• Lead parameter global mean temperature

• Limited reliability of precipitation data

• Neglection of human temporal and spatial scales

Content:



7. Conclusions


5. The CO2-problem



(p. 965)

Climate projection by Hansen et al. (1981) with a 1-dimensional climate model

Could Hansen’s projections be trusted?

Hansen et al. 1981: Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

(Science, p. 957-966)

Discussed uncertainties

• vegetation albedo feedback: no reliable assessment (p. 958f).

• “lack of knowledge of ocean processes partly introduces uncertainties about the time dependence of global warming” (p. 959f).

• “the impact of tropospheric aerosols on climate is uncertain in sense and magnitude due to their range of composition” (p. 960).

• “the nature and causes of variability of cloud cover, optical thickness, and altitude distribution are not well known” (p. 960).

• “Solar luminosity variations, which constitute another likely mechanism, are unknown” (p. 962f).

Fitting experiments


(p. 963)

“The general agreement between modeled and observed temperature trends strongly suggests that CO2 and volcanic aerosols are responsible for much of the global temperature variation in the past century. Key consequences are: (i) empirical evidence that much of the global climate variability on time scales of decades to centuries is deterministic and (ii) improved confidence in the ability of models to predict future CO2 climate effects.” (p. 964; emphasis by Hansen et al.).


Kellogg’s response to Lorenz

„It can be seen, then, that there is an entire hierarchy of models of the climate system … It is reassuring to see that, when we compare the results of experiments with the same perturbations … but using different models, the response is generally found to be either about the same or differs by an amount that can be rationalized in terms of recognized model differences or assumptions“ (p. 9).

WMO Report 1977:

Kellogg’s response to Lorenz

„Of course, it is possible that all our models could be utterly wrong in the same way, giving a false sense of confidence, but it seems highly unlikely that we would still be so completely ignorant about any dominant set of processes … (Kellogg 1977, p. 9; my emphasis).

WMO Report 1977:

• All scientists emphasized the great uncertainties in climate modeling and simulation

• But uncertainties could not be quantified and did not have a visible impact on model output.

• “Good” simulation results (good fits) had a stronger confirmatory power (“statement”) than knowledge about uncertainties (“qualification”)

• Model validation was not a major controversial issue in the scientific discussion

The missed dimension

The missed dimension: in practice uncertainties did not matter

7. Conclusions





5. The CO2-problem

Expansion of climatology

Globalizing reductionism:•Loss of the human•Loss of the local

Priority of global knowledge

• Climatic processes are large-scale and systemic and demand global coverage

• Dehumanization and a loss of the human scale is related to the marginalization of the regional and local

• Priority of physical research vs. marginalization of geographical research (e. g. climatology, glaciology)

How and why did climate knowledge experienced globalization, dehumanization and a loss of human scales?

Thank you for your attention!