Professor David Stainforth (Grantham Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science)
Andrea Simpson - andrea.simpson@physics.ox.ac.uk
Abstract - Anthropogenic climate change is both a subject of broad social importance and a subject of academic study across multiple diverse disciplines. Historic scientific understanding and contemporary observations provide solid foundations for societal action. However, for the latest academic research to be of value in guiding that action and helping us build a better future than would otherwise be the case, such academic outputs need to be reliable. That’s to say they need to reflect the best information we have, or could have, given today’s level of knowledge. The relevant knowledge and understanding, however, resides in a wide range of academic disciplines, and academia is not good at the integration process. Climate economics often does not reflect the best understanding we have of the physical system while climate physics/modelling arguably fails to focus effectively on those aspects of most significance for climate economics. Neither is particularly good at reflecting on the essence of the problems we are trying to address when supporting society.
In this seminar, I will discuss a number of these issues: issues which I raise in my recent book, “Predicting Our Climate Future”. I will introduce the foundational characteristics that underlie the study of anthropogenic climate change. I will argue that there is an urgent need for better knowledge integration between disciplines. I will also argue that current calls for ultra-high resolution earth system modelling systems would not lead to better information for climate adaptation and impact assessment. Indeed, they risk misleading climate adaptation efforts through overconfidence and lack of exploration of modelling and response uncertainties.