Value management and model pluralism in climate science

Abstract

Non-epistemic values pervade climate modelling, as is now well documented and widely discussed in the philosophy of climate science. Recently, Parker and Winsberg have drawn attention to what can be termed "epistemic inequality": this is the risk that climate models might more accurately represent the future climates of the geographical regions prioritised by the values of the modellers. In this paper, we promote value management as a way of overcoming epistemic inequality. We argue that value management can be seriously considered as soon as the value-free ideal and inductive risk arguments commonly used to frame the discussions of value influence in climate science are replaced by alternative social accounts of objectivity. We consider objectivity in Longino's sense as well as strong objectivity in Harding's sense to be relevant options here, because they offer concrete proposals that can guide scientific practice in evaluating and designing so-called multi-model ensembles and, in fine, improve their capacity to quantify and express uncertainty in climate projections. Keywords. climate models; multi-model ensemble; uncertainty quantification; model pluralism; scientific objectivity; values in science; value-free ideal; strong objectivity. * The authors thank the working group on philosophy of science in Bern for fruitful discussions and helpful comments on a previous version of this paper, especially Claus Beisbart, Matthias Egg, Vincent Lam, and Tim Räz. They also thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. JJ is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation project PP00P1 170460 "The Epistemology of Climate Change". MC is a Research Director funded by the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research.

Global Environmental Change Perspectives on Integrated, Coordinated, Open, and Networked (ICON) Science

“…During model development, priority decisions are made about what to adequately represent for a particular set of purposes, with these purposes being determined by what is valued for the immediate research community. As a consequence, current climate models might provide better answers to questions, and represent future climate states, for those regions and communities that have development authority and can make priority decisions (Jebeile & Crucifix, 2021). If there are certain worldviews and value systems that are not represented in the model development practice, models might not be able to provide possible and adequate answers to questions for many communities and geographic regions.…”

Climate tipping points and expert judgment

“…12 Lenton et al (2008) define a time horizon" T P within which decisions can influence whether a tipping point is reached or not, as well as an "ethical time horizon" T E beyond which future tipping behavior may not be policy relevant because too far away; the suggested values are 100 and 1000 years for T P and T E respectively. 13 The role of nonepistemic (e.g., social, ethical, economic, political, …) values in climate science and climate modeling has recently been acknowledged by some in the climate science community (IPCC, 2021, §1.2.3; see also Pulkkinen et al, 2022); this topic has been quite largely discussed in the philosophy of (climate) science in the last decade or so (Betz, 2013;Biddle & Winsberg, 2009;Frisch, 2020;Intemann, 2015;Jebeile & Crucifix, 2021;Parker, 2014a;Parker & Winsberg, 2018;Winsberg, 2012). How the debate about values and value management should be implemented raise many issues--political issues, among others--that still need to be addressed (see Lusk, 2020Lusk, , 2021 for first steps).…”

“…13 13 The role of nonepistemic (e.g., social, ethical, economic, political, …) values in climate science and climate modeling has recently been acknowledged by some in the climate science community (IPCC, 2021, §1.2.3; see also Pulkkinen et al, 2022); this topic has been quite largely discussed in the philosophy of (climate) science in the last decade or so (Betz, 2013; Biddle & Winsberg, 2009; Frisch, 2020; Intemann, 2015; Jebeile & Crucifix, 2021; Parker, 2014a; Parker & Winsberg, 2018; Winsberg, 2012). How the debate about values and value management should be implemented raise many issues––political issues, among others––that still need to be addressed (see Lusk, 2020, 2021 for first steps). …”

Climate Model Code Genealogy and Its Relation to Climate Feedbacks and Sensitivity

“…Traditionally, a pursuit of purely knowledge‐oriented science has been desired in order to avoid conclusions distorted by scientists' views, values and interests. However, some authors emphasize that purely knowledge‐oriented construction of climate models is impossible because of decisions involved in the model development (Jebeile & Crucifix, 2021; Morrison, 2021; Parker, 2020; Parker & Winsberg, 2018). These decisions can be driven by not only the desire for creating an unbiased objective representation of the climate system, but also by purposes, views, values, interests and limitations.…”